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Local governments in the developing world face a serious communications problem. As Roomthinker tweets, there is currently no easy mechanism for constituents to communicate with their elected officials - in urban or rural and underserved areas:

Mass media can quickly inform or educate but radio, TV, and newspapers are usually state controlled by national organizations distant from local needs or decisions. And none of these media are two-way communications. Just one-to-many broadcast mediums.

In addition, local governments can be ignorant about constituents' changing needs and interests - especially marginalized communities that have been historically ignored or under-represented. Local governments may produce services that they find interesting or please national politicians without any feedback from the people they are expected to serve.

Yet there now exits a technology application that could give feedback on the needs of a community, even providing for targeted two-way communication between local governments and their citizenry. This technology is easy to implement and can be easily modified with changing needs: SMS text messaging.

SMS:Gov as 311

Local governments could set up automated SMS systems in their offices and then promote the phone number so citizens in need could text for local government assistance.

Using tools like FrontlineSMS, the local government would set us a simple menu tree for incoming text messages - each keyword would generate a particular response, leading to a new keyword. The system would track mobile phone numbers, allowing for a basic census of constituent needs and interests.

For example: someone texting "Weather" would receive a basic forecast & could respond with CropForecast, FishingForecast, or NationalForecast for specialized weather forecasts in each area. This would both educate the respondents and track how many citizens were interested in each area.

Multiply this over the many local government services and a single FrontlineSMS instance could become an automated information service similar to the 311 service in New York, San Francisco, and Washington DC, at a fraction of the cost.

David connecting with government

SMS:Gov as Citizen Pulse

Smart politicians try to stay engaged with their electorate - keeping in constant communication with them to gauge their mood and needs. Yet how can a local politician know what his geographically disperse constituents need and inform them of his efforts?

Again, using a FrontlineSMS system, officials can easily gather citizen input via SMS, grouping constituent interests by keywords. Then, based on those keywords, informing them of his actions in their interests. Think My Barak Obama via text message.

Try out live SMS:Gov

Intrigued? Then text "LOCALGOV" to this phone number +1.202.506.0148 and you can test out our live FrontlineSMS:Gov demo. Yes, really! Try it yourself from anywhere in the world.

If you're in Washington DC, be sure to join the Technology Salon to be invited to the May Salon on SMS applications for the developing world. We'll have live, in-person demos of SMS:Gov, SMS:Medic, SMS:Credit, and think through an SMS:Learn.

Last Friday, the third monthly #ICT4D Twitter Chat brought together 30 of the field's thought leaders (follow them all) to focus on and discuss ways that ICT4D can and does work with local governments, especially in situations like the recent disaster in Haiti.

Four questions guided the conversation (full transcript) which once again was a fast, free-flowing exchange of ideas:

• Do you work with local governments or bypass them? Why?
• What are the keys to project success with local governments?
• How can you work with compromised governments, like Haiti?
• What lessons for ICT have been learned so far in the Haiti relief effort?

Keys to success with local governments

One of the critical success factors identified collectively by the group was the importance of having a strategic personal relationship with a "project champion" in either a local government or other community leadership role. Because ICT4D projects by their very nature are long-term investments in the future, this local connection brings a strategic perspective and focus, as well as providing an opportunity to ensure the work is based on real, expressed needs of people in the area being served -- not just those of donors and interest groups "back home".

An interesting discussion during the event turned on the question of assigning credit for successful ICT4D implementations. While the group believed in the importance to position the local government or community champion as the driving force behind such projects, it's also important not to lose your own individual or organizational identity. Making sure people remember who helped make a solution possible will prevent costly searches for expertise in the future.

ICT networks, flattened

Learning from ICT deployments in Haiti

Working in a time-critical disaster relief context, like has been happening in Haiti in the past few weeks, brings some unique issues. Participants generally believed that when peoples' lives are on the line, it's important to "do" first, and inform others later. Waiting to get approvals from a local government in shambles is often not the best course of action.

However, major functions of ICT4D-focused relief groups should be focused on quickly identifying local "hubs" of knowledge and communication in the community, and helping rebuild communication infrastructure for these governments as well as major NGO's. Without these critical links in place, a coordinated relief effort just is not possible, resulting in wasted resources and delays in response.

In a situation like Haiti, with at least 150,000 known dead at the time of writing this article, lack of interoperability and cooperation between groups has undoubtedly cost an untold number of lives. The ICT4D community can learn from this, however, and take steps to proactively coordinate resources (e.g., local disaster contingency plans by organizations based in the community, and open standards for ICT response systems). This coordination in advance will help make the response more timely and effective in the critical hours after a disaster strikes. It's our responsibility as ICT4D professionals to work toward that end today to save lives tomorrow.

Recommended NGO's in Haiti

Finally, we asked participants to suggest some of their favorite relief organizations using ICT in Haiti. Here's a list of those shared:

• Partners In Health
• SOIL
• Sahana Foundation
• Ushahidi
• Plan International
• Hands and Feet Project
• Doctors Without Borders

Michael Downey is a graduate student in human-computer interaction and ICT4D at Indiana University School of Informatics, and is a contributor to the University's Indiana Development Informatics Group (IDIG) and OpenMRS programs.

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Don't forget - today we're having the January ICT4D Twitter Chat - Working with Local Governments

Local governments - from regional to village level - can be both a help and a hindrance to information and communication technology deployments in the developing world. Yet projects usually cannot succeed without their buy-in.

In the January Twitter Chat, we'll explore four vital questions any ICT practitioner faces when designing and deploying technology-based projects at the local level:

1. Do you work with local governments or bypass them?
2. What are the keys to project success with local government?
3. How can you work with compromised governments, like Haiti?
4. Where are examples of positive local government buy-in?

We'll start at 12-noon Eastern Time ( noon worldwide ) with introductions, then move into the discussion, using the #ICT4D hashtag in Twitter.

Be sure to follow ICT_works, Michael Downey, and Chloe Feinberg to keep up with all the Twitter Chat action, and for those not on Twitter, you can watch the action via the handy embed below or this separate webpage:

Our hope is to learn from each other to change the failure factors that we can individually control, and recognize the ones we need collective action to remedy.