Decentralized Review System for Transparent and Accountable Governance
Several reports published by major international and national , intergovernmental and nongovernmental , financial , universities [ 37 ] and think tank agencies such as United Nations ( UN ) [ 40 ], [ 35 ], World Bank ( WB ) [ 38 ], International Monetary Fund ( IMF ) [ 34 ], Africa Development Bank ( ADB ) [ 43 ], Transparency International [ 39 ], World Economic Forum ( WEF ) [ 41 , 42 , 36 ], etc . opine that ICT technologies can control corruption by making it hard to be committed . Often , the most important module in these ICT technologies in Digital governance is one that ensures transparency and accountability [ 44 ], [ 45 ].
The emergent Blockchain technology is being seen as the candidate technology for implementing the trust and accountability module across a range of applications and domains [ 31 ], [ 30 ], [ 32 ], [ 33 ]. Blockchain , being decentralized and distributed , is both immune to single-point-of-failure cyber-attacks [ 29 ] and is robust against cyber-attacks common with traditional centralized systems . Furthermore , because of the hashing-based chaining of blocks in the blockchain , tampering attempts are curtailed altogether .
Different countries have different governance organizations . The stakeholders in a government include citizens , executives and bureaucrats , taxing agencies , international organizations , political parties , the judicial system , and derived and related offices for the smooth functioning of administration and delivery of governance to citizens . From the perspective of corruption , stakeholders can be placed under two categories : governance deliverers and beneficiaries . Corruption [ 46 ] essentially involves the abuse of governing power to deprive the beneficiaries of their rightful resources allocated to them , including the services to be delivered to them . Annually 5 % of global GDP is lost due to corruption [ 25 ], [ 50 ]. There are several interventions to curb corruption . One popular intervention [ 47 ], [ 51 ] is through “ Community monitoring of governments in power ,” which also includes “ reviewing and complaints by citizens .”
The Digital governance systems do have modules that are specifically meant for accepting reviews ( including complaints , appreciations , and suggestions ) from beneficiaries , both collectively from communities and individually from citizens . However , most , if not all , of those implementations follow a centralized approach , which makes them susceptible to problems that nullify the very purpose of collecting feedback and complaints .
In this paper , we present a blockchain-based review system for the digital transformation of governance to improve the quality and efficacy of governance by engaging citizens and considering citizens ’ satisfaction . Such a review system is key to realizing impactful and sustainable governance . It is worth noting that this decentralized-review system , which we report on in this paper , directly contributes towards the Sustainable Development Goal ( SDG ) 16 ( SDG # 16 ) of “ Peace , Justice and Strong institutions .” [ 27 ].
A review system is an essential component of good governance because it helps to ensure that the government is accountable and responsive to the needs and concerns of citizens . By review system , we mean a process or tool that allows people to provide feedback on products , services , or other types of content . This feedback is usually in the form of a rating or review , where
Journal of Innovation 49