As this post goes live, mySociety Head of Research Rebecca Rumbul is out in Mexico, hosting a session at the Open Government Partnership Global Summit.

She’s presenting our latest paper, which seeks to provide a firm foundation for future impact research, by asking the most basic questions about who actually uses civic technology and why.

The headline findings

It’s not a difficult read, but if you’re looking for some easy takeaways, we got ’em. Try these for starters:

• Civic technology is used by a wide spectrum of individuals, but there are big differences between countries, especially when comparing developed countries to developing countries.
• Generally, more men than women use civic tech (although this isn’t the case in the USA).
• In the USA and UK, civic tech users tend to be above the age of 45 (over 70%) and well educated: to degree level or higher.
• In Kenya and South Africa, civic tech users tend to be under the age of 45, and more individuals without higher educational qualifications participate through these platforms.
• Comparative to population of each participating country, users from ethnic minorities are under-represented.
• Confidence in civic tech websites is very high. In each country surveyed, an overwhelming majority of individuals (over 85%) believed that these websites help them to hold the government to account, and believed that the government would behave differently if they were unable to see the information contained on these sites. On average 97% of users would use these sites again.

Now go and read