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Geospatial World Forum

Keynote speech Saskia J. Stuiveling, president Netherlands Court of Audit WTC - Rotterdam

14 May 2013

Geospatial World Forum is a premier event for the global geospatial community showcasing state- of-the-art technology and its utility in the world economy. The conference aims at enriching the geospatial ecosystem, which comprises of the geospatial technology providers, users, policy makers and the academia with market intelligence, latest technology knowledge, success stories and capacity building. It is a confluence of a variety of activities in the form of plenary, symposia, seminars, workshops, panel discussions, dialogue and exchange forums – covering the vast gamut of technology, application, policy, use cases from across the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great privilege for me to be for one day part of your world, the world of the Geospatial Forum, your global forum.

My world is the world of supreme audit institutions. Each country has one supreme audit institution.

Like you we have a world forum, a world organization called INTOSAI, the International

Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. You might know there are about 200 countries in this world, so I have about 200 colleagues. My global world is organized like a parallel organization to the United Nations.

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2 We have 7 regions with regional conferences once every three years, and a world conference also every three years. Between conferences we have intensive contacts in working groups. And I think the first time I understood the powerful possibilities of integrated information was as chair of the Global Working Group on Environmental Auditing. It must have been about twenty years ago in Peru. The Peruvian government and the neighbouring Brazilian government both suffered under illegal logging in the shared Humboldt forest area.

Both governments accused each other from illegal logging.

The real story came out when both supreme audit offices joined their research. They painstakingly mapped the permissions for legal forestry and reconstructed a map how the forest should look from the air. Then they rented a plane and pictured the real forest. The outcome of the comparison of the theoretical map and the real picture was more than enlightening:

On the Peruvian side all the legal lots, the lots with permission paved one after the other a nice road to the Brazilian border: and over the border there was a huge area illegally cleared of all trees.

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3 An ecological disaster. But on the Brazilian side same story: legal plots paved one after the other a narrow road directly to the Peruvian border: with on the Peruvian side of the border…..I don’t think I have to spell out the demolition there……

Both governments decided to take a closer look to the permission granting process.

My second example comes from Baltimore in the USA.

There were about 15 different subsidies related to housing in the poorer areas. Long-time practice from the municipal auditors was to check each type of subsidy separately by sampling. Always with the same results: regularity okay. In came a new auditor: he took a map of the area and plotted the recipients on the map by zip code, subsidy by subsidy until he had plotted in the same map all 15 different subsidies. The outcome was an eye opener to the policy makers: the accumulation of different subsidies for different purposes on but a few zip codes was contrary to what the policies where designed for.

The municipality took measures.

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4 Christmas 2004 a tsunami in the Indian Ocean devastated houses, ports and much, much more in the coastal areas of 16 countries. More than 200.000 people died.

A group of supreme audit institutions both from countries hit by the natural disaster as from countries involved in the emergency relief formed a taskforce to follow the money, to try to build an audit trail in order to make sure the money was wisely spent and information about the results became available.

One of the techniques we systematically used for the first time was geo information combined with pictures made by satellites. One of the rules was -for future safety- that new houses should not be built directly on the coastline; a safe distance from the shore should be observed.

See the red line. A few hundred different NGOs were involved in housing projects. Quite simply we detected which NGOs could stand the pressure to build on the shore, and which couldn’t. See the houses there on the shore…..

What is my message to you today? Or rather my request to you: take an interest in the world of public finance, of policy making, of public audit and bring your expertise to improve the services to the public. Governments and public auditors will not use your possibilities if you do not help them a little bit to understand what you could do for them; if you do not reach out to their world to connect your and my world.

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5 The mission of my office is to assess and further improve the regularity, efficiency, effectiveness and integrity of the State of the Netherlands and the institutions associated with it. In our daily work we try to promote and contribute to good governance.

Good governance has 8 major characteristics. It is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law.

It assures that corruption is minimized, the views of minorities are taken into account and that the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision making. It is also responsive to the present and future needs of society.

And the key to all this is sound information.

The need for sound information is as old as the world. The need is a constant parameter.

But the form information can be gathered, analysed etc. has dramatically changed.

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6 We are still used to a linear information process bases on a paper trail:

• Creation

• Usage and maintenance

• Archive

• Heritage One after the other.

But in fact we live in a digital time where all functions of information have to be served integrated from the start on – information designed as a flower.

We have to migrate from steps following each other in time to information serving all functions needed at the same time. To migrate from this line to the flower.

Good governance and democracy can be served fantastically if we are able to absorb this new information paradigm. If we are able to serve the public sector with the right information: relevant, valid, reliable and timely. And right in terms of providing a truthful image of the world we live in, an image – also key - openly shared.

Open spending.

Open data is the general term. In science they are debating “open access”. In civil society there is a movement calling for “open spending”.

I want to share with you some of the examples that more or less illustrate what I am looking for if I call for connecting your and my world to move to “open spending”.

I have to throw different examples to you now, that may seem just loosely connected. This

illustrates in my view the stage of maturity of “open spending” – there is not yet a common practice that I can communicate.

First: Recovery.gov, a website launched early 2009 by the freshly installed new president of the US Barack Obama. The government provides insight in the spending of the funds of the Recovery program. It not only provides statistics, but it also visualises the spending information on a map

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7 down to your own zip code. The website opens up spending to the general public. The public can look up what projects are funded in their neighbourhood and -because the underlying data is open- they can create their own combination of data into charts and graphs. The website also enables citizens to become an auditor by verifying the data on the website with their own observations on the ground. Citizens are invited to report fraud, abuse or waste of these public funds. And in that sense the interaction with the public is facilitated in an accessible way.

The website also enables policy makers to centrally monitor and steer the Recovery program through a dashboard.

Another example, private initiative this time:

Ushahidi.com. Ushahidi is the Swahili word for “testimony” and originates from crowd mapping incidents after the elections in Kenya that developed into civil unrest if not civil war in 2008.

Later it was used for crisis mapping such as the oil spill in the Mexican Gulf and the mine incident in the south of Chile. Lots of Ushahidi sites were active during the Arab Spring: Ushahidi Tunisia, Ushahidi Egypt etc. The beauty of the Ushahidi design is not only the crowd mapping but also the timeline building up reporting more or less real time. Long before any official evaluation study you can follow the development of events. This is not exactly “open spending” of course, but with its reporting tool it inspires certainly for open spending as well.

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8 Another example of the value of integrating data and finance and mapping is this map from the Economist of prescriptions of branded statins. The headline of the Economist: 200 million British Pound could be saved if open data on prescriptions would be used for policy making (evaluation).

Quite a headline from the perspective of the National Health Services, I would say. But the same data viewed through the eyes of pharmaceutical companies leads to a complete different

conclusion. For them this map clearly visualises the market potential of areas where the % of branded statins is still low!

So this example shows that using open data and plotting this information on a map provides a completely new insight that was not there before.

It also shows us data can be used and understood in different ways.

The sad part of this example of course is that this analysis is made by a data journalist and not by the policy makers of the National Health Services themselves. But it would be even more sad if the policy makers don’t use the analysis. So, let’s say this is a first step.

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9 Speaking of health there are two Dutch examples worth sharing with you.

On the left side the iSPEX experiment. iSPEX is a research project that last year won the prestigious Academic Year Award in the Netherlands for its idea to use smartphones as a measuring instrument for atmospheric aerosols. The aim of the project is to distribute more than 10.000 special

measuring instruments for aerosols that can be connected to a smartphone.

Nowadays with so many people having a smartphone in their hand, every person turns into a sensor. They expect that with this method they can yield more information about aerosols then currently available and in that way influence policy.

On the right hand side of the slide you can see the allergy radar, a website on which you can upload your allergy information. That information is used for alerting people on where allergic problems are likely to be and it is also used for scientific research.

The domain of development cooperation does use geographical information more and more. For instance in monitoring the progress in achieving the millennium development goals (MDG’s). On the internet several sites present maps on the MDGs.

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10 Or like the World Bank’s initiative ‘Mapping for result’, which provides an interactive map to

visualize the locations of Bank-financed projects and international aid programs at the sub-national level.

These projects combine different kinds of data from different sources but the aim is primarily on transparency and accountability. They don’t qualify yet as “open spending” sites.

All these examples show much is possible, but when we go back to public policy and audit the examples aren’t innumerable.

One of the first public areas though where you see they absorb the new possibilities is the area of disaster and crisis management.

Disaster and crisis management are domains pre-eminently suitable for integrated information in decision making.

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11 The integration of data and information is key in saving lives and preventing further damage and casualties.

In several initiatives we see emergency units share and integrate their data and information real- time and by doing so creating a Common Operation Picture (a COP), with which each emergency service can optimize their next move. This COP enables better decision making in disaster situation.

Geographical information is of course a crucial element of the COP.

In this case the real-time aspect is really important. It influences the relevance of available data and the accuracy of the decisions made. The information loop for plan-do-check-act is very short and the better this operates the better the services are able to manage the crisis as needed.

Saving lives as goal seems to be for the moment the main driver of developments. In the medical domain we see the concept of integrated imaging. This stands for using different techniques like rontgen, scans etc. to capture the human body, integrating the results of these different techniques leads to an integrated image of the human body. Integrated imaging enhances imaging as a tool for treating, managing, and even predicting disease. It makes clear what before (with only using one singular technique) could not be seen.

Due to an integrated image and thus better information, unnecessary surgeries, long-term hospitalizations, and loss of independence and functionality can be avoided. And maybe that is more cost effective too – who knows.

Seeing all this my key question is: can we – can you - help the public sector to migrate the concept of common operational pictures to other public policy domains and can we integrate it with financial data? And by doing so capture the dynamics of reality better and serve the people better.

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12 Our office is very much involved in an experiment to do exactly that here in Rotterdam.

On this slide you see yourselves having this Forum in the building where the arrow says “YOU”.

Not far away from here on the other side of the river you find the southern districts of the city.

There are a number of neighbourhoods in which social problems cumulate. Central and local government and other agencies, schools, employers and lots of other institutions have signed an agreement to join forces to lift up these areas and to overcome in the coming ten years the problems in social deprivation, housing, education, employment and crime.

We are working on getting all information, including financial information, from various sources plotted on one map.

All responsible parties and agencies are able to access, search, and exploit a common source of information and services in order to build a common operational picture about a dynamic environment. I don’t have to tell you that technically this is possible and feasible.

But this needs far more than technique.

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13 We are trying to create a common operational picture in a net centric environment. Questions we are facing together are:

• How can we integrate data and information from various sources?

• How can we develop an information structure that provides an integrated image or report on reality?

• How can we make sure that all actors involved stay committed to keeping the common operational picture up to date, without the sense of emergency which is common to crisis situations where literally lives immediately are at stake?

Besides these design issues, there are special challenges for us as auditors involved: instead of providing assurance afterward, the auditor helps designing the information structure at the start but without compromising his independence. Making sure the structure is in compliance with essential conditions and is robust. That the design has an audit trail from the beginning and can function as an example of open spending. So that not only we can rely on the output of the system for audits, but that all stakeholders feel it is the truth about their common reality, it facilitates communication and collaboration and is breaking down barriers between institutions, disciplines and cultures.

I come to the end of my presentation.

I hope I have triggered you to think about ways how you, with your fascinating experience, can bring new ways of working to the public sector, to public auditing.

All of you came from all corners of the globe – all of you live in a municipality in one of the 200 countries of the world.

Look for my colleague supreme audit institution in your country – and if you need guidance where to find them go to the website of Intosai, all addresses are there - and see what you can do for your own public sector to enhance open spending.

Thank you for your attention

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