A $9.8 Trillion Opportunity. World Economic Forum report (2025)

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The report serves as an entry point to this ‘forecasting’ stream of work that organizations working in the digital rights ecosystem often overlook, especially when resources are scarce, and they are focused on current challenges and ongoing projects.

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• Advocacy tech
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• Emerging tech

This report summarizes a December 2024 workshop on the specific issue of AI adoption within democracy movements and offers some key recommendations.

• Advocacy tech
• Artificial Intelligence
• Learn about civic tech

Ever wonder, “How can civic tech help improve government service delivery?” If so, check out this new research from the Canadian Digital Service! It includes 5 case studies of partnerships between the Canadian government and civic tech groups, plus tools to assess if civic tech might be a good partner for a government initiative. Find it here: https://digital.canada.ca/2025/01/23/how-can-civic-tech-help-improve-government-service-delivery/

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• Supporting public sector from outside government

This report analyses nearly 800 case studies from 83 countries and identifies five critical trends in government innovation that are reshaping public services.

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• Digital transformation

By Jennifer Pahlka and Andrew Greenway for the Niskanen Center

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• Govtech
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• Internal government tech capacity

Los centros de pensamiento son «asociaciones de investigadores, de áreas diversas del saber, que, mediante la investigación, el debate académico, la producción de documentos y la relación con sectores y problemas estratégicos de la realidad nacional, definen e inciden, a partir de su trabajo en red, en la evaluación y formulación de políticas públicas».

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• Civil society research outfits

Landscape Scan of Digital Public Goods Use in Government

• Govtech
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The Index will enable civil society to work together with national and regional parliaments to identify systemic challenges to achieving parliamentary openness and to co-create reforms that will strengthen the capacity of parliaments to enhance their openness.

• Parliamentary and congressional monitoring
• Evaluate impact
• Report cards and audits

Paper by Joy Aceron, 2019. This paper explains why and how a reform program that opened up spaces for participatory budgeting was ultimately unable to result in pro-citizen power shifts that transformed governance.

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• Evaluate impact
• Participatory budgeting
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3 essays by Beth Kerley, Carl Miller, and Fernanda Campagnucci outline possible paths toward a prodemocratic vision for AI

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• Participatory democracy
• Artificial Intelligence
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How Member-Led Upgrades Are Optimizing Legislative Branch Capacity and Resilience

• Govtech
• Parliamentary and Legislative Tech
• Digital transformation

Hardcover book and online platform providing an overview of over 80 solutions from the European civic tech ecosystem

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• Learn about civic tech
• Civic tech catalogs
• Books

Hashtag Generation is a non profit organization and movement led and run by a group of young tech-savvy, socially conscious Sri Lankans advocating for the meaningful civic and political participation of youth, especially young women and young people from minority groups

• Issue
• hate speech
• Peace, justice, and strong institutions

• Civic data
• Fight disinformation
• Campaign tools

A special report by Micah Sifry

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• Advocacy tech
• Organize campaigns
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The 2019 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) data and publication "Illuminating Inequalities" released on 11 July 2019 shed light on the number of people experiencing poverty at regional, national and subnational levels, and reveal inequalities across countries and among the poor themselves.

• No poverty
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• Reduced inequalities

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• Economic development

Relevant section: Politics: Regulation of AI, its economic implications and the evolving geopolitics of AI.

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• Artificial Intelligence
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This report provides an overview of how various EMAs work, a review of popular EMAs and their notable features (LINE, Signal, Telegram, Viber, WhatsApp, and WeChat), and examples of how EMAs have been used for political manipulation

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• Media
• Fight disinformation
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The [Human Rights Watch] report finds that data collected by the state for administering public services, such as registering for the Covid vaccine, administering tax benefits, and mandatory membership in professional associations, was repurposed to spread Fidesz’s campaign messages.

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• Digital security and privacy
• Organize campaigns
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Report by the British Red Cross on aid groups' rush to use chatbots, from a skeptical perspective

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• Disaster response and humanitarian tech
• Bots
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This [Canadian] report includes the following: Importance of ethics in AI and government, Understanding the impacts of AI on society, Balancing AI-driven efficiency with privacy and security concerns, and Cyber-security and digital trust.

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• Govtech
• Artificial Intelligence
• Ethical tech and responsible tech

A Playbook for learning about funding and financing options for the African civic technology community.

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• Get funding
• Build something
• Fieldwide resources

A report by Written by Nneka Sobers and Dr. Anthony Townsend.

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• case studies

• Govtech
• Reports

A report by International Republican Institute "synthesiz[ing] core challenges and lessons learned from practitioners, funders and government to help answer the questions of why civic and govtech initiatives struggle long term and what can be done about it."

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• Fieldwide resources
• Reports

This report from Katharine Lusk and Azer Bestravos of Boston University evaluates of the state of the field across the 43 academic institutions that make up the Public Interest Technology University Network as of the summer of 2021, providing insight into the ways in which PIT-UN members are investing in its five priority areas, and sheds light on the state of the field more generally.

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• students

• Academia
• Fieldwide resources
• Reports

This brief is the compilation of the findings from of a series of workshops on creating a vision for how our [US] government can build and foster a culture of innovation over the next 20 years.

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• Govtech
• Digital transformation
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A COVID-era research project into emerging technologies and their use for the public interest

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• Emerging tech
• Reports
• High-tech COVID Interventions

Uma cartilha em que trazemos ferramentas para que profissionais da área de marketing e publicidade possam navegar melhor e com mais confiança frente às complexidades da relação entre publicidade e desinformação.

• guides
• reports

• Media
• Fight disinformation
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In the spring of 2022, we partnered with the editors of the Yale Journal of Law and Technology to commission a collection of papers examining what it means to have a healthy or vibrant digital public sphere.

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• Reports
• Digital Public Infrastructure

Understand the role of the Telegram app in the dissemination of disinformation among Brazilian far-right groups and Analyse (online) radicalization process and (offline) political violence against democratic institutions, especially the Brazilian presidential election in October 2022

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• Fight disinformation
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Report striving to build awareness of the direct and indirect impacts of gendered and sexualized disinformation on women in public life, as well as its corresponding impacts on national security and democratic participation.

• harassment
• women
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• Media
• Fight disinformation
• Reports

This new guide is designed to help democracy practitioners better understand social media trends, content, data, and networks.

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• Media
• Fight disinformation
• Media and social media analysis

A report analyzing the online environment and potential risks for the 2021 German Federal Elections.

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• Media
• Fight disinformation
• Voting and elections

This tool offers an adaptable method to measure the gendered aspects and understand the drivers of this violence.

• Gender Equality
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• Voting and elections
• Media and social media analysis
• Reports

Public Agenda's Healthier Democracies project studied public engagement systems from 15 locations around the world, and, accordingly, each study has its own report with key learnings and takeaways.

• case studies
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• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
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ODI & ARUP report and call to action

• Climate action
• city
• Sustainable cities and communities

• Civic data
• Urban planning
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See how local governments are responding to tech solutions to persistent problems #InnovatingRegulation

• permits
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• Reports
• Procurement
• Regulation

L'Atelier BNP Paribas 2017 report on "how technology is renewing civic engagement". (PDF file)

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• Learn about civic tech
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• Defining the field

Extensive Tracxn 2018 report on the Govtech startup investment landscape.

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• Govtech
• Learn about civic tech
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(PDF) Thinking about GovTech (2019) introduces the concept of GovTech and identifies eight activities that policymakers can undertake to foster national GovTech innovation ecosystems and help to steer them towards positive outcomes for citizens and public administrators.

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• Govtech
• Reports

Knight Foundation's seminal 2013 report on the growing field of Civic Tech

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• Learn about civic tech
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• Defining the field