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Closing the wage gap in Iceland; increasing civic engagement through childcare in Georgia; and, new certification program from What Works Cities initiative of Bloomberg Philanthropies

Government Innovators Network 

 
March 30, 2017
In This Issue

Feature: What Works Cities Certification

What's New

In the News

Data-Smart City Solutions

graphic of city skyline

What Works Cities Certification: What Excellence Looks like in Local Government

An initiative of Bloomberg Philanthropies

In a brief published this week, Stephen Goldsmith discusses the new What Works Cities Certification program, which recognizes US cities that have effectively used data across a number of criteria, creates objective standards of success, and helps cities at any stage in the data journey understand how they can improve their practices. Applicants to the program can benchmark their performance against peers, and high-achieving cities will be recognized with silver, gold, or platinum certification. Learn more>>

WHAT'S NEW


four hanging lightbulbs with only one lit

Succeed Fast by Failing Faster

Innovators Insights Blog

Nick Kittle, the chief innovation officer of Adams County, Colorado, asserts that a great innovator must be willing to fail, to fail smart, to fail often, to fail fast, and to fail forward. Read more>>

adult students in classroom

Harvard Executive Education

Harvard Kennedy School

The Senior Executives in State and Local Government program provides a balance of traditional and hands-on learning experiences to help seasoned public officials meet the changing needs of their constituents and communities. Sessions in June and in July. Learn more>>

IN THE NEWS


Brookhaven Launches Kid-Friendly City Council Meetings

To encourage greater civic engagement, the Georgia city of Brookhaven will start offering supervised recreational activities for children while their parents attend city council or other city business meetings. Believed to be one of the first such initiatives in the public sector, the Kids Night In program will feature Parks and Recreation Department staff who will be on hand to supervise as children play games or watch movies, and to assist with homework, no matter how long the meeting lasts. The city will pilot the program for six months to determine if it should become permanent.

Seattle Will Offer Employees 12 Weeks of Paid Parental Leave

Seattle city employees can now receive up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave and they will also get up to four weeks of paid leave to care for family members with serious health conditions. Employees will be eligible for the benefits after being employed by the city for six months. The new policy, which will apply to more than 11,000 employees, is expected to cost the city an extra $3 million a year. According to city officials, the goal of the bill is to ensure that no one is forced to choose between their job and caring for their family, as well as to ease some of the burden of family-care obligations that often fall to women, and particularly women of color.

Armed with Smartphones, Cameroon Forest Defenders Take on Illegal Loggers

The Cameroon government and environmental groups are teaming up to train community volunteers to report illegal deforestation through their smartphones. By sending geo-tagged images of freshly cut stumps to the police, forest ministry, and the National Anti-Corruption Commission, these forest defenders can report suspicious activity to be investigated. Making this information available to all three institutions is an important step in curbing the corruption that might occur if the information was reported to just one institution. Unmanaged deforestation has led to billions of CFA francs in lost income to the government and has hurt communities that make their living from the forest.

How Some Places Are Easing the Often-Fatal Transition from a Psych Ward

Ohio will be opening a “step-down” mental health facility to house patients being released from psychiatric hospitals to combat the high rate of post-discharge suicides. The facility, which will be one of the few of its kind in the nation, will prioritize those with the most severe mental illnesses and help them transition out of the hospital. It will also continue to provide services to patients that might struggle to get treatment. Ohio is looking to replicate models that other states have used to save lives and decrease behavioral health incidents. The cost for the facility is being funded through a combination of monies from the state, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and a crowdfund campaign.

All Your Wasted Time on the Internet Could Be Heating Up People's Houses

Stockholm is seeking to harness the heat generated by citizens browsing the internet by transferring that heat from where it collects in data centers to local heating centers that can power 20,000 apartments. The city then hopes to sell excess heat to its local district heating company or exchange free cooling as a service. In so doing, the energy used to power and cool data centers can actually become carbon positive, potentially reducing emissions by 8,000 metric tons annually. The city is already working with some small heating centers and hopes to use tax credits to incentivize more companies to build data centers. Stockholm’s goal is to get 10 percent of its heat from data centers by 2040.

Iceland Plans to Become World's First Country to Require Equal Pay for Women

Iceland is expected to pass a national law to ensure that men and women are paid equally, which would make it the first nation to approve such legislation. The law would require that all companies with 25 or more employees be certified every three years to ensure that they are adhering to equal pay rules. The country expects the law to be fully in place by 2020.

DATA-SMART CITY SOLUTIONS


Planning the Data-Driven City

This post explores the various models cities have used for open data, analytics, and infrastructure, identifying best practices for achieving data-smart goals. While each city’s data plan will need to fit its unique concerns, creating detailed goals and accountability tools, promoting civic engagement, completing data inventories, and creating data standards are practices that will benefit any data program.

A Starter Kit for Data-Smart Cities

This guide points to resources that may help a chief data officer or other government data leader answer questions about how to move toward a data-driven enterprise. Topics include how to evaluate your city’s readiness for data-driven government, how to protect privacy, and what kinds of questions you can answer using data.

 

ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER


Innovators Insights is the news digest from the Government Innovators Network on the latest in government innovations. This digest is sent out every two weeks and is compiled and written by the editorial staff of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School. In each issue, the editorial team identifies top policy and programmatic news that is related to government innovations so that you can stay informed about creative government at its best.

Editor: Jessica Engelman
Researcher & Writer: Brendan St. Amant
Note: The stories in this newsletter link to source articles on other websites and may not be available after a certain length of time.



ABOUT THE ASH CENTER


The Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation advances excellence in governance and strengthens democratic institutions worldwide. Through its research, education, international programs, and government innovations awards, the Center fosters creative and effective problem solving and serves as a catalyst for addressing many of the most pressing needs of the world's citizens. The Ford Foundation is a founding donor of the Center. Additional information about the Ash Center is available at http://ash.harvard.edu.

 
 
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