| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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Once the MSAD approached the CA, regarding the development of the Sharek platform, and received its approval, a team was assembled at the Ministry to develop the action plan. That action plan addressed technical development, human resources development and training, as well as actual adoption steps.
The key development points identified in the plan were the development of the Sharek platform, its launch and promotion, training Constituent Assembly members and staff, and finally launch of draft articles until the final text was issued.
Development of the first phase (proposal collection) was concluded in 2 weeks. Once that was completed, the collection platform was launched, and it started receiving input immediately through the above-mentioned collection channels. In parallel, Constituent Assembly staff were trained on how to input physical proposals into the system. Another team was trained on refinement and distribution among sub-committees. This team was composed of staff with legal backgrounds, as they were the ones in charge of categorizing the collected proposals. Adjacent to that, the Constituent Assembly Ambassadors were trained and sent out to collect proposals as well. Constituent Assembly members were also briefed on how to use the system to access the categorized content.
Once collection was completed, development of the second phase of the platform (feedback collection) was finished, and it was launched immediately as the first draft articles were ready for publishing. Government agencies and non-governmental organizations were engaged at that stage to promote the URL of the platform, and again Constituent Assembly ambassadors were sent out to their designated areas to collect input on the draft articles.
The release of draft articles and whole versions of the constitution was an iterative process, that was repeated until the final version of the text was reached and also released through the Sharek platform. The media campaign was strengthened then, to make sure that every citizen and eligible voter had the chance to read what they were about to vote on.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The initiative/project was proposed by the MSAD, given its experience in ICT tools, due to its leading role of e-Government in the Government of Egypt. The Constituent Assembly welcomed it fully, as it addressed some of the major challenges it was facing in the limited time set out for carrying out its mission.
The Constituent Assembly is obviously the project owner, as the whole project was a tool in aiding it in delivering its mandate. The Sharek initiative action plan and project design was co-designed by relevant teams at both the Constituent Assembly and the MSAD.
Other government agencies, such as the State Information Service and National TV/Radio played a major role in raising awareness of proposal/input inquiry channels. They were also involved in the production of creative material to this end. Multiple privately-owned media outlets played a similar role, by airing creative materials (advertisements) developed by the CA.
Non-governmental organizations and independent individuals volunteered for the role of Constituent Assembly ambassadors and were pivotal in the collection of citizen input.
And last, but definitely not least, the citizens who were the core audience of the initiative were the most important stakeholder. It was their proposals and input that was pursued, and was the catalyst for all the debates raised at the CA.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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The initiative’s direct main financial cost was the development cost of the internet-based platform for both stages, which was outsourced to a local small-scale IT (information technology) services company. That cost around fifty thousand US dollars, which the MSAD covered. In addition, a team of over 10 MSAD employees were appointed to the project. A similar team of Constituent Assembly staff was appointed, in charge of inputting physical input into the system. There were around 20 legal aides in charge of categorizing proposals and submissions for sub-committees.
The Constituent Assembly ambassadors were about 700 people, which all worked on voluntary basis. Those were non-governmental organizations’ workers, as well as individuals. However, they were reimbursed by the Constituent Assembly for transportation costs, as they had to travel all over the country.
The MSAD’s team were paid their salaries through the Ministry itself. This was also the case for the Constituent Assembly staff, which were originally Shoura Council (upper chamber of parliament in Egypt) employees. The legal aides, were paid volunteers and they were paid by the CA, which had an autonomous fund of twenty million Egyptian Pounds from government, to cover all of its activities over the duration of six months.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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The first main output was the project’s first stage, which was the data collection platform. Through its unique multiple-channel approach, it saved a lot of time, effort, as well as money that would have been wasted in dealing with loads of paper, should a paper system had been used. It also proved a great asset in the categorization effort, as sorting was much easier than it would have been with a paper system. Also, the system forwarded copies of proposals and submissions along with the summaries made by the team of legal aides to all relevant members of sub-committees. Those reports also listed the number of times a certain proposal or submission was made for or against a certain issue. The legal aides team were able to develop briefs on all debatable issues, such that members of the Constituent Assembly were fully informed on all different views on a certain issue ahead of sub-committee meetings and discussions.
The second main output was the platform for e-participation that was built. Again, the platform emphasized a multiple channel approach. This approach was able to cater for the needs of the target audience in Egypt. The system allowed for collecting attitude towards the draft articles, as well as how citizens think the drafts can be improved, or what is bad about them. This input was also shared with the public, and the process of evaluating the feedback was outsourced to the public, by allowing them to assess the responses we received from other citizens. The feedback, and especially the ones appealing to most citizens proved to be a most important input for the members of the CA. They were able to use it in the refinement process, until the final text was reached.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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The project’s lifecycle was limited to six months, which was the maximum duration set out by the temporary constitution for the Constituent Assembly to complete the draft constitution, on which a referendum was to be held. Given such a clear and tight deadline, there was no room for delays. A very aggressive timeline was established and was monitored by project management personnel from both the MSAD and the CA. This proved successful, as project met its milestones on time. On the software development front, both the data collection and the feedback collection platforms were completed in time, with no major problems. On the ambassadors front, the teams collected input and feedback surpassing targets, in less time than expected.
Clear targets were set out as key performance indicators (KPI’s) for aspects of each phase. For example, the Constituent Assembly set out a minimum number of inputs it wanted to collect from each governorate and municipality, based on population, given that Egypt constitutes of 27 governorates & over 300 municipalities made the task not easy. Even input collected online was location-stamped, so it may be categorized accordingly. Similar KPI’s were set for the second stage, feedback collection. The input part met its targets, but the feedback stage surpassed all expectations.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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When the MSAD first proposed the initiative, the Constituent Assembly Chairman and other members present in that meeting were excite about the project and wanted to give their full support for it right away. However, this was not the case for other many members. It was only natural, as the Constituent Assembly had 100 primary members and 50 secondary members. Many of them were hesitant about being open in collecting input from citizens in that manner, claiming many citizens were illiterate and were probably going to provide useless input. Others were concerned that collecting input in that manner removes the authority the Constituent Assembly has, as it will have to bend to the will of the masses then. A third group were worried that this high level of transparency and openness will leave them vulnerable, and it was better to work behind closed doors. All of these concerns were addressed by the project team from both the MSAD and the Constituent Assembly and those concerns were put to ease.
Another main challenge that faced the project was the high number of illiterate citizens in Egypt. The Constituent Assembly did not want to ignore large segment of society, which estimates put at around 30% of the population; not in the input collection phase, or in the feedback collection phase. Secondary research firms doing random sampling was not a solution the Constituent Assembly wanted to accept. It wanted its own people to reach out to the illiterate and talk to them; hearing what they had to say. The MSAD did not have the ambassador program in its initial proposal, but when it found the Constituent Assembly insisting on reaching out to the illiterate, the MSAD proposed such a program, and helped in the recruitment process.
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