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The ethics of participatory digital mapping with communities

Posted in communication for development, development, disaster and emergencies, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mapping, open data, participation, politics, protection, smart aid, social media, technology salon, TSNYC, wait... what?, tagged community, development, digital, ethics, evaluation, mapping, monitoring, Open Street Map, participatory, privacy, protection, protocol, research, Technology Salon, TSNYC on February 11, 2013 | 5 Comments »

The February 5 Technology Salon in New York City asked “What are the ethics in participatory digital mapping?” Judging by the packed Salon and long waiting list, many of us are struggling with these questions in our work.

Some of the key ethical points raised at the Salon related to the benefits of open data vs privacy and the desire to do no harm. Others were about whether digital maps are an effective tool in participatory community development or if they are mostly an innovation showcase for donors or a backdrop for individual egos to assert their ‘personal coolness’. The absence of research and ethics protocols for some of these new kinds of data gathering and sharing was also an issue of concern for participants.

During the Salon we were only able to scratch the surface, and we hope to get together soon for a more in-depth session (or maybe 2 or 3 sessions – stay tuned!) to further unpack the ethical issues around participatory digital community mapping.

The points raised by discussants and participants included:

1) Showcasing innovation

Is digital mapping really about communities, or are we really just using communities as a backdrop to showcase our own innovation and coolness or that of our donors?

2) Can you do justice to both process and product?

Maps should be less an “in-out tool“ and more part of a broader program. External agents should be supporting communities to articulate and to be full partners in saying, doing, and knowing what they want to do with maps. Digital mapping may not be better than hand drawn maps, if we consider that the process of mapping is just as or more important than the final product. Hand drawn maps can allow for important discussions to happen while people draw. This seems to happens much less with the digital mapping process, which is more technical, and it happens even less when outside agents are doing the mapping. A hand drawn map can be imbued with meaning in terms of the size, color or placement of objects or borders. Important meaning may be missed when hand drawn maps are replaced with digital ones.

Digital maps, however, can be printed and further enhanced with comments and drawings and discussed in the community, as some noted. And digital maps can lend a sense of professionalism to community members and help them to make a stronger case to authorities and decisions makers. Some participants raised concerns about power relations during mapping processes, and worried that using digital tools could emphasize those.

3) The ethics of wasting people’s time.

Community mapping is difficult. The goal of external agents should be to train local people so that they can be owners of the process and sustain it in the long term. This takes time. Often, however, mapping experts are flown in for a week or two to train community members. They leave people with some knowledge, but not enough to fully manage the mapping process and tools. If people end up only half-trained and without local options to continue training, their time has essentially been wasted. In addition, if young people see the training as a pathway to a highly demanded skill set yet are left partially trained and without access to tools and equipment, they will also feel they have wasted their time.

4) Data extraction

When agencies, academics and mappers come in with their clipboards or their GPS units and conduct the same surveys and studies over and over with the same populations, people’s time is also wasted. Open digital community mapping comes from a viewpoint that an open map and open data are one way to make sure that data that is taken from or created by communities is made available to the communities for their own use and can be accessed by others so that the same data is not collected repeatedly. Though there are privacy concerns around opening data, there is a counter balanced ethical dilemma related to how much time gets wasted by keeping data closed.

5) The (missing) link between data and action

Related to the issue of time wasting is the common issue of a missing link between data collected and/or mapped, action and results. Making a map identifying issues is certainly no guarantee that the government will come and take care of those issues. Maps are a means to an end, but often the end is not clear. What do we really hope the data leads to? What does the community hope for? Mapping can be a flashy technology that brings people to the table, but that is no guarantee that something will happen to resolve the issues the map is aimed at solving.

6) Intermediaries are important

One way to ensure that there is a link between data and action is to identify stakeholders that have the ability to use, understand and re-interpret the data. One case was mentioned where health workers collected data and then wanted to know “What do we do now? How does this affect the work that we do? How do we present this information to community health workers in a way that it is useful to our work?” It’s important to tone the data down and make them understandable to the base population, and to also show them in a way that is useful to people working at local institutions. Each audience will need the data to be visualized or shared in a different, contextually appropriate way if they are going to use the data for decision-making. It’s possible to provide the same data in different ways across different platforms from paper to high tech. The challenge of keeping all the data and the different sharing platforms updated, however, is one that can’t be overlooked.

7) What does informed consent actually mean in today’s world?

There is a viewpoint that data must be open and that locking up data is unethical. On the other hand, there are questions about research ethics and protocols when doing mapping projects and sharing or opening data. Are those who do mapping getting informed consent from people to use or open their data? This is the cornerstone of ethics when doing research with human beings. One must be able to explain and be clear about the risks of this data collection, or it is impossible to get truly informed consent. What consent do community mappers need from other community members if they are opening data or information? What about when people are volunteering their information and self-reporting? What does informed consent mean in those cases? And what needs to be done to ensure that consent is truly informed? How can open data and mapping be explained to those who have not used the Internet before? How can we have informed consent if we cannot promise anyone that their data are really secure? Do we have ethics review boards for these new technological ways of gathering data?

8) Not having community data also has ethical implications

It may seem like time wasting, and there may be privacy and protection questions, but there are are also ethical implications of not having community data. When tools like satellite remote sensing are used to do slum mapping, for example, data are very dehumanized and can lead to sterile decision-making. The data that come from a community itself can make these maps more human and these decisions more humane. But there is a balance between the human/humanizing side and the need to protect. Standards are needed for bringing in community and/or human data in an anonymized way, because there are ethical implications on both ends.

9) The problem with donors….

Big donors are not asking the tough questions, according to some participants. There is a lack of understanding around the meaning, use and value of the data being collected and the utility of maps. “If the data is crap, you’ll have crap GIS and a crap map. If you are just doing a map to do a map, there’s an issue.” There is great incentive from the donor side to show maps and to demonstrate value, because maps are a great photo op, a great visual. But how to go a level down to make a map really useful? Are the M&E folks raising the bar and asking these hard questions? Often from the funder’s perspective, mapping is seen as something that can be done quickly. “Get the map up and the project is done. Voila! And if you can do it in 3 weeks, even better!”

Some participants felt the need for greater donor awareness of these ethical questions because many of them are directly related to funding issues. As one participant noted, whether you coordinate, whether it’s participatory, whether you communicate and share back the information, whether you can do the right thing with the privacy issue — these all depend on what you can convince a donor to fund. Often it’s faster to reinvent the wheel because doing it the right way – coordinating, learning from past efforts, involving the community — takes more time and money. That’s often the hard constraint on these questions of ethics.

Check this link for some resources on the topic, and add yours to the list.

Many thanks to our lead discussants, Robert Banick from the American Red Cross and Erica Hagen from Ground Truth, and to Population Council for hosting us for this month’s Salon!

The next Technology Salon NYC will be coming up in March. Stay tuned for more information, and if you’d like to receive notifications about future salons, sign up for the mailing list!

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Children on the Move and the migration debate in development

Posted in activism, children, CoM, development, ICTs, mobile and technology, migration, politics, protection, social justice, VAC, wait... what?, youth, tagged children on the move, debate, development, ICTs, migration on February 4, 2013 | 4 Comments »

I spent the weekend working on a paper about “Children on the Move.” I’m not even close to done with it yet, but the topic is fascinating. Some reports say that 1/3 of migrants are between the ages of 12 and 25, including millions of children under the age of 18. The number of children and youth who migrate is difficult to pin down with certainty, given that migration is often within country, seasonal, across porous borders, and because most child migrants don’t have legal means to migrate or they lack identification, leaving them under the radar and uncounted.

Children move for all kinds of reasons, from and into all kinds of situations. The push-pull factors that cause them to migrate vary a great deal from situation to situation. Often the movement of children is lumped under trafficking and child labor, and all children who move are considered victims, and all those who support children to move are labeled criminals or traffickers and all parents who allow their children to move are lambasted for not caring about them. If you read what children and parents involved in migration say, it’s clear that this is not the case.

One person I interviewed for the paper noted off the record that sometimes those working with children who migrate are forced to put them in the category of “trafficked” or “at risk of trafficking” because there is no real category (or funding) to support children who are “seeking better opportunity” or “fleeing domestic violence” or “scared for my life because of the gangs in my community, and traveling across several countries up to the US seems like less of a risk.”

Just like adult migrants, children often move of their own will to seek opportunity in other places. Their movement in and of itself is not negative, but moving without protection mechanisms and support can indeed put them at risk. Policies and systems that don’t talk to each other also put children and youth in peril, whether it is when children themselves move, or when their parents move with them.

For the report I’m doing, I’m looking at how ICTs are being used by children and youth to make their journey safer, and ways that communities, local child protection committees, institutions, governments and NGOs are using or could use some of these new ICT tools to better support and protect children and youth who move for any reason.

Some interesting efforts are happening, including some ingenious local networks in West Africa that work across communities to help ensure children’s paths and travels are as safe as possible; and a radio and SMS project in Tanzania that is building up a pro-child protection constituency by encouraging people to tell stories about when and where they have supported or helped a child.

It’s been heartbreaking to read about Afghan youth who are forcibly returned to a country they can barely remember because they have turned 18 and are no longer supported by the UK child welfare system, yet at least a tiny bit encouraging that a UK organization is working on a mobile app that could provide these youth with at least a map and some information about their ‘homeland’ so that they know where to go for help when they step off the plane in what is now a foreign country.

Reading about migrant parents in the US losing their children to foster care because they have been detained for migration violations and are unable to show up to court to keep their children, or they lack critical information about how the system works, or they are not allowed more than one phone call makes my blood boil. Having been married to a Salvadoran, I’ve experienced my own fair share of migration difficulties and horror stories. They are not pretty, and family separation hurts, no matter what color or nationality the family is. It seems that the root of some countries’ inability to deal with migration in a dignified way is an underlying devaluation of people from other places and an inability to see them as human. Can ICTs play a role in changing attitudes at the broad scale? Or can we at least enable migrants in detention more communication with families so that they don’t lose contact with their children? A few initiatives are looking at storytelling as a way to bring more humanity into the migration debate.

As both Duncan Green (Why is migration a Cinderella issue in development) and Owen Barder (Is migration too toxic for development) have written recently, migration has not been a hot topic on the development agenda, and it’s only now starting to get some play.

Why is that? I think Owen’s comment is pretty good to spark some thought:

Migration is a Cinderella issue in development because there is nobody to speak for the people who are disadvantaged by the current rules. Domestic civil society organisations which work on migration are mainly focused on the rights of immigrants, not on improving the impact of migration on development or creating opportunities for people in poor countries. DFID is largely in retreat from non-aid issues. The big development NGOs at best speak for their own visions of development, and at worst promote the aid industry of which they are part. As a result, people in developing countries are denied some of the most powerful and inexpensive ways in which they could improve their lives.

We need to find a way to look at all angles and aspects of migration, including that of child migration, in a holistic way that involves all these different actors. I think that one reason migration is not talked about enough in the development debate is because it is a touchy political issue that might make a donor base freak out. It also tends to makes agencies that work with children a bit uncomfortable – If we protect children who migrate, will we be seen to be encouraging illegal migration? Will we be seen as supporting child labor? Are we liable if we give children safety tips or information, and then something happens to them? How can we do no harm? What about unintended consequences?

More recently, many child-focused agencies have started to better come to grips with the realities that children are going to migrate, and it’s altogether possible that staying in their home community is actually not in their best interest. These are thorny questions, however, that are difficult to deal with, especially in the open when the political debate around migration has been so traditionally ugly.

Perhaps framing migration as an economic issue will help bring it into the debate, but I do hope we don’t lose touch with the human side of migration.

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16 thoughts on open government and community and economic development

Posted in social media, participation, protection, development, smart aid, politics, ICT4D, mapping, transparency, accountability, communications, governance, open government, open data, open development, open knowledge, communication for development, C4D, monitoring and evaluation, tagged participation, aid, mapping, citizen, accountability, grassroots, transparency, government, open government, IATI, international aid transparency initiative, EWB, annual policy forum, open data, engagement, intermediaries, privacy on January 16, 2013 | 8 Comments »

This past Monday I had the opportunity to join Engineers without Borders (EWB) in Calgary, Canada, at their Annual Policy Forum on Global Development to discuss “How can open government contribute to community and economic development?”

Morning panels covered some examples of open government initiatives from Finland, Ghana and Canada. In the afternoon we heard about some of the challenges with open data, open government and the International Aid Transparency Initiative. Table discussions followed both of the panels. The group was a mix of Canadian and African government representatives, people from organizations and groups working in different countries on open government and open data initiatives, and young people who are connected with EWB. The session was under Chatham House Rule in order to encourage frank conversation.

Drawing from such documents as the Open Government Partnership’s Open Government Declaration, Harlan Yu and David G. Robinson’s “The New Ambiguity of “Open Government,” Beth Noveck’s What’s in a Name? Open Gov and Good Gov and Nathaniel Heller, A Working Definition of ‘Open Government’, the following definition of Open Government was used to frame the discussions.

Below (in a very-much-longer-than-you-are-supposed-to-write-in-a-blogpost summary) are the highlights and points I found interesting and useful as related to Open Development, Open Data, Open Government and the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI)

1. Participation thresholds need to be as low as possible for people to participate and engage in open government or open data initiatives. You need to understand well what engagement tools are most useful or comfortable for different groups. In some places, to engage the public you can use tools such as etherpad, wiki platforms, google docs, open tools and online collaboration spaces. In other places and with other populations, regardless of what country, you may be more successful with face-to-face methods or with traditional media like television and radio, but these need to be enhanced with different types of feedback methods like phone calls or surveys or going house to house so that your information is not only traveling one way. Community organizing skills are key to this work, regardless of whether the tools are digital or not.

2. Literacy remains a huge challenge hindering access to information and citizen engagement in holding government accountable in many countries. This is why face-to-face engagement is important, as well as radio and more popular or broad-based communication channels. One participant asked “how can you make open government a rural, rather than an urban only, phenomenon?” This question resonated for participants from all countries.

3. Language is still a critical issue. Language poses a big challenge for these kinds of initiatives, from the grassroots level to the global level, within and among countries, for citizens, governments, and anyone trying to share or collect data or information. It was noted that all the countries who have published data to IATI are publishing in English. All the IATI Standards are in English, as is the entire support system for IATI. As one participant noted, this begs the question of who the information in IATI is actually designed for and serving, and who are the expected users of it. Open data initiatives should consider the implications of language they publish in, both politically and practically.

4. Open data can serve to empower the already empowered. As one speaker noted, “the idea that everyone has the potential to make use of open data is simply not true.” Access to digital infrastructure and educational resource may be missing, meaning that many do not have the ability to access, interpret or use data for their own purposes. Governments can also manipulate data and selectively release data that serves their own interests. Some questioned government motives, citing the example of a government that released “data” saying its unemployment rate was 10% when “everyone knew this to be false, and people grumbled but we did not feel empowered to challenge that statement.” Concern was expressed over the lack of an independent body or commission in some countries to oversee open data and open government processes. Some did not trust the government bodies who were currently in charge of collecting and opening information, saying that due to politics, they would never release any information that made their party or their government look bad.

5. Privacy rights can be exploited if data is opened without data protection laws and effort to build capacity around how to make certain data anonymous. Citizens may also not be aware of what rights are being violated, so this should also be addressed.

6. Too much open data discussion takes place without a power analysis, as one participant commented, making some of the ideas around open data and open government somewhat naïve. “Those who have the greatest stake will be the most determined to push their point of view and to make sure it prevails.”

7. Open data needs to become open data 2.0. According to one participant, open data is still mostly one-way information delivery. In some cases there isn’t even any delivery – information is opened on a portal but no one knows it’s there or what it refers to or why it would be useful. When will open data, open government and open aid become more of a dialogue? When will data be released that answers questions that citizens have rather than the government deciding what it will release? The importance of working with community groups to strengthen their capacity to ask questions and build critical consciousness to question the data was emphasized. A counter point was that government is not necessarily there to start collecting information or creating data sets according to public demand. Governments collect certain data to help them function.

8. Intermediaries working on open government should be careful of real or perceived bias. Non-profits have their own agendas, and ‘open data’ and ‘open information’ is not immune to being interpreted in non-objective ways. Those working on civic engagement initiatives need to be careful that they are not biased in their support for citizen initiatives. One presenter who works on a platform that encourages citizens to be involved in petitioning new laws for contemplation in Parliament said “Our software is open source so that anyone can set up a similar process to compete with us if they feel we are biased towards one or another type of agenda.”

9. Technology-based engagement tools change who is participating. Whether in Finland, Canada, Ghana or Malawi, it’s critical to think about reaching those who are not active already online, those who are not the typical early adopters. To reach a broader public, one speaker noted “We are going to remote places, doing events in smaller towns and cities to see how people want to influence and take part in this. Making sure the website is accessible and understandable.”

10. Technological platforms are modifying how political parties and democratic processes operate. This may or may not be a good thing. Normally priorities arise and are discussed within political parties. Will people now bypass the party process and use ‘direct democracy’ channels if they are passionate about an issue but do not want to enter into negotiation around it? Will this weaken political processes or longer standing democratic processes? One speaker considered this change to be positive. People are not happy with being able to vote every 4 years and they want opportunities to participate in between elections cycles and direct voice in how priorities are decided. Others questioned whether bypassing official processes can lead to less participation and more apathy overall on national issues. Some questioned whether within fairly long-standing democracies, open data will have any real impact, considering existing levels of apathy and the lack of political participation.

11. Strong information, statistical, monitoring and evaluation systems are critical for open data and open government processes and to ensure more effective management of development results. This is still a challenge for some countries that need to review their mechanisms and improve their tools and processes for data collection and dissemination. If there is no data, or no current data, there is not much point in opening it. In addition, there are capacity and technical competency challenges within institutions in some countries. One participant mentioned a lack of current government geological information about gold and oil deposits that weakens government capacity to negotiate with the private sector extraction industry and ensure partnerships and earnings will contribute to national development. In addition more evidence is needed on the impact, use, and outcomes of open data. At the moment it’s quite difficult to say with any real authority what the outcomes and impact of open data and open government have been.

12. IATI (International Aid Transparency Initiative) needs more partners. Government representatives noted that they are opening their data, but they can only open the data they possess. In order for data on aid to be useful, more data is needed, especially that of NGOs who are implementing programs. Not many NGOs have published their information to the IATI standard at this point. “The really interesting thing will be when we can start mashing up and mapping out the different kinds of information,” as one speaker noted, “for example, this is the goal of the Open Aid Partnership. It will involve combining information from the donor, development indicators from the World Bank, and country information, and this will open up amazing possibilities once this is all geo-coded.” There are reporting challenges related to IATI and open government data, however, because at times countries and NGOs do not see the benefits of reporting – it feels like just one more top-down administrative burden. There are also issues with donor governments reporting their committed intentions and amounts, recipient governments reporting back, and communications with citizens on both sides (donor and recipient countries). One example that was reported to be enjoying some success was the multi-donor budget support initiative in Ghana, where development partners and government work together to establish development indicators and commitments. If the government delivers on the indicators, the development partners will then provide them with the funding. Development partners can also earmark funding to particular areas if there is government agreement.

13. We need more accountability towards ‘beneficiaries’.Currently many of these initiatives are perceived as being focused on donors and donor publics. As one participant noted, “the interesting thing is less about government and more about getting regular people involved in these processes. When you engage the public you’ll engage government leaders in thinking they will need to change to respond to what citizens are asking for.” Another noted that the essential issue is the link between transparency/accountability and citizens and their own governments. In addition, as one participant asked, “How can you strengthen capacity among citizens to ask the right questions about the data that’s being opened?” For example, citizens may ask about the number of schools being built, but not ask about the quality of education being provided. Public education was a strong focus of discussions around citizen engagement during the policy forum.

14. Should citizens be consulted on everything? however, was one big question. The public at large may not understand the ramifications of its own deep misunderstandings on particular issues and may be inputting from a viewpoint that lacks scientific evidence or fact. “It’s one thing to have an opinion about whether your child should be able to drink energy drinks before age 16, it’s another to input about technical programs like the best policy for green energy,” commented one group.

15. Can citizens really have greater participation if government is still in control of data? was another big question. An example was given of an open consultative process that became unwieldy for a local government, which then shut down the consultation process and changed the nature of the documents to ‘administrative’ and therefore no longer open. Others asked why governments pat themselves on the back over being part of the Open Government Partnership yet they do not have Freedom of Information Acts (FOIA) or they prosecute those who open data in alternative ways, such as Bradley Manning and Aaron Swartz.

16. If citizens don’t get a response from government (or if they don’t like the response, or feel it’s biased or manipulated), apathy and cynicism will increase. It’s important to make sure that ‘open government’ is not just a box that gets ticked off, but rather a long-term change in mentality of those in power and deeper expectations and efforts by citizens for openness and participation in conversations of national importance.

The conclusion was that Open Government is somewhat of a paradox, rooted in aims that are not necessarily new. Open Government strives to enable leaders in their communities to create change and transform their lives and those of people in their communities. It is a complex process that involves many actors and multiple conflicting goals and interests. It’s also something new that we are all learning about and experimenting with, but we are very impatient to know what works and what the impact is. In the room, the feeling was one of ‘radical pragmatism,’ as one participant put it. Open Government is a big idea that represents a big change. It’s something that can transform communities at the global level and there is a great deal of hope and excitement around it. At the same time, we need to acknowledge the challenges associated with it in order to address them and move things forward.

I’ll do a follow up post with the points I made during the panel as this post is clearly way too too long already. Kudos if you are still reading, and a huge thanks to the organizers and participants in the EWB policy forum.

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TSNYC: Data visualization for immigration advocacy

Posted in social media, ICTs, mobile and technology, protection, development, ICT4D, activism, mapping, wait... what?, technology salon, open data, communication for development, CoM, migration, TSNYC, tagged data, visualization, rights, Technology Salon, advocacy, transfer, NYC, TSNYC, migration, immigration, FOIA, detention, center, human rights watch, rights lab on November 29, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

The November 14, 2012, Technology Salon NYC (TSNYC) focused on ways that ICTs can support work with children who migrate. An earlier post covers the discussion around Population Council’s upcoming ‘Adolescent Girls on the Move’ report. The current post focuses on the strategic use of data visualization for immigration advocacy, based on opening points from Brian Root and Enrique Piracés of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Visualizing the US Detention Network and the transfers between detention centers.

The project

The HRW initiative used data to track and visualize the movement of people through the US immigration detention system after noticing that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was moving people very freely without notifying their families or attorneys. HRW was aware of the problem but not its pervasiveness. The team obtained some large data sets from the US government via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. They used the data to track individuals’ routes through the immigration detention system, eventually mapping the whole system out at both aggregate levels and the level of individual. The patterns in the data informed HRW’s advocacy at the state and federal levels. In the process, HRW was able to learn some key lessons on advocacy and the importance of targeting data visualizations to specific advocacy purposes.

Data advocacy and storytelling

The data set HRW obtained included over 5.4 million records of 2.3 million people, with 10-12 variables. The team was able to connect these records to individuals, which helped tell a meaningful story to a broad audience. By mapping out all the US facilities involved and using geo-location to measure the distance that any individual had been transferred, the number of times an individual from Country X in Age Range X was transferred from one facility to another was visible, and patterns could be found. For example, often people on the East Coast were transferred to Texas, where there is a low ratio of immigration lawyers per detainee.

Even though the team had data and good stories to tell with the data, the two were not enough to create change. Human rights are often not high priority for decision makers, but budgeting is; so the team attached a cost to each vector that would allow HRW to tell decision makers how much was being spent for each of these unnecessary transfers.

They were also able to produce aggregated data at the local level. They created a state dashboard so that people could understand the data at the state level, since the detention facilities are state-run. The data highlighted local-level inefficiencies. The local press was then able to tell locally relevant stories, thus generating public opinion around the issue. This is a good example of the importance of moving from data to story telling in order to strengthen advocacy work.

HRW conveyed information and advocated both privately and publicly for change in the system. Their work resulted in the issuing of a new directive in January 2012.

FOIA and the data set

Obtaining data via FOIA acts can be quite difficult if an organization is a known human rights advocate. For others it can be much easier. It is a process of much letter sending and sometimes legal support.

Because FOIA data comes from the source, validation is not a major issue. Publishing methodologies openly helps with validation because others can observe how data are being used. In the case of HRW, data interpretations were shared with the US Government for discussion and refutation. The organization’s strength is in its credibility, thus HRW makes every effort to be conservative with data interpretation before publishing or making any type of statement.

One important issue is knowing what data to ask for and what is possible or available. Phrasing the FOI request to obtain the right data can be a challenge. In addition, sometimes agencies do not know how to generate the requested information from their data systems. Google searches for additional data sets that others have obtained can help. Sites such as CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), which has 20,000 documents open on Scribd, and the Government Attic project, which collects and lists FOI requests, are attempting to consolidate existing FOI information.

The type of information available in the US could help identify which immigration facilities are dealing with the under-18 population and help speculate on the flow of child migrants. Gender and nationality variables could also tell stories about migration in the US. In addition, the data can be used to understand probability: If you are a Mexican male in San Jose, California, what is the likelihood of being detained? Of being deported?

The US Government collects and shares this type of data, however many other countries do not. Currently only 80 countries have FOI laws. Obtaining these large data sets is both a question of whether government ministries are collecting statistics and whether there are legal mechanisms to obtain data and information.

Data parsing

Several steps and tools helped HRW with data parsing. To determine whether data were stable, data were divided by column and reviewed, using a SHELL. Then the data were moved to a database (MySQL), however other programs may be a better choice. A set of programs and scripts was built to analyze the data, and detention facilities were geo-located using GeoNames. The highest quality result was used to move geo-location down to the block level and map all the facilities. Then TileMill and Quantum GIS (QGIS) were used to make maps and ProtoViz (now D3) was used to create data visualizations.

Once the data were there, common variables were noted throughout the different fields and used to group and link information and records to individuals. Many individuals had been in the system multiple times. The team then looked at different ways that the information could be linked. They were able to measure time, distance and the “bounce factor”, eg.., how many times an individual was transferred from one place to the other.

Highlighting problematic cases: One man’s history of transfers.

Key learning:

Remember the goal. Visualization tools are very exciting, and it is easy to be seduced by cool visualizations. It is critical to keep in mind the goal of the project. In the HRW case the goal was to change policy, so the team needed to create visualizations that would specifically lead to policy change. In discussions with the advocacy team, they defined that the visualizations needed to 1) demonstrate the complexity 2) allow people to understand the distance 3) show the vast numbers of people being moved.

Privacy. It is possible to link together individual records and other information to tell a broader story, but one needs to be very careful about this type of information identifying individuals and putting them at risk. For this reason not all information needs to be shared publicly for advocacy purposes. It can be visualized in private conversations with decision makers.

Data and the future

Open data, open source, data visualization, and big data are shaping the world we are embedded in. More and more information is being released, whether through open data, FOIA or information leaks like Wikileaks. Organizations need to begin learning how to use this information in more and better ways.

Many thanks to the Women’s Refugee Commission and the International Rescue Committee for hosting the Salon.

The next Technology Salon NYC will be coming up soon. Stay tuned for more information, and if you’d like to receive notifications about future salons, sign up for the mailing list!

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Technology Salon NYC summary: ICTs and Child Migration

Posted in ICTs, mobile and technology, protection, disaster and emergencies, development, children, ICT4D, girls, m4D, wait... what?, communication for development, C4D, CoM, migration, TSNYC, tagged girls, protection, child, ICTs, adolescent, TSNYC, children on the move, CoM, migration, immigration on November 20, 2012 | 1 Comment »

The November 14, 2012, Technology Salon NYC focused on ways that ICTs can support work with children who migrate. Our lead discussants were: Sarah Engebretsen and Kate Barker from Population Council, and Brian Root and Enrique Piracés from Human Rights Watch.

This post summarizes discussions that surfaced around the Population Council’s upcoming Girls on the Move report, which looks at adolescent girls’ (ages 10-19) internal and regional migration in ‘developing’ countries, including opportunity and risk. (In a second blog post I will cover Human Rights Watch’s points and resulting discussions.)

The Girls on the Move report (to be released in February 2013) will synthesize current evidence, incorporate results of specially commissioned research, illustrate experiences of migrant girls, provide examples of promising policies and programs, and offer concrete action-oriented recommendations.

1) How are migrant girls using ICTs?

While the report’s focus is not technology, the research team notes that there is some evidence showing that adolescent girls are using ICTs for:

Extending social networks. In China and Southeast Asia, migrant girls are building and accessing personal networks through mobiles and texting. This is especially pronounced among girls who work long hours in tedious jobs in factories, and who do not have much time with family and friends. Text messaging helps them maintain connections with existing social networks. It also gives them space for flirtation, which may not be something they can do in their former rural context because of cultural norms that look down on flirtatious behavior.

Finding new jobs. Both boys and girls use mobiles and text messaging for exchanging quick news about job openings. This suggests there could be an opening for program interventions that would connect to migrant children through texting, and that might supply information on community resources, for example, where to go in cases of threat or emergency—that might then propagate across migrant virtual networks.

Sending remittances. Based on research with adolescent girls and drawing from examples of adult migrants, it seems likely that a vast majority of migrant girls save money and send it to their families. Evidence on how girl migrants are using remittances is limited, but a survey conducted in Kenya found that 90% of adult migrants had sent money home to families in other parts of Kenya via mobile phone in the 30 days before the survey. There is more research needed on adolescent girls’ remittance patterns. Research is also lacking on adolescent girls’ access to and use of mobile phones and on whether mobile phones are owned or borrowed from another person who is the handset owner. Remittances, however, as one participant pointed out, are obviously only sent by mobile in countries with functioning mobile money systems.

Keeping in touch with family back home. In Western Kenya, migrant brides who are very isolated placed great importance on mobiles to stay in touch with family and friends back home. Facebook is very popular in some countries for keeping in touch with families and friends back home. In Johannesburg and Somalia, for example, one participant said “Facebook is huge.” Migrating adolescent girls and domestic working girls in Burkina Faso, however, do not have Internet access at all, via mobiles or otherwise.

2) Areas where ICTs could support work on child protection and migration

Child Protection Systems There is a general global move towards developing child protection systems that work for different kinds of vulnerable children. These efforts are important in the transit phase and right upon arrival as these phases are particularly risky for children who migrate. ICTs can play a role in managing information that is part of these systems. Ways to connect community child protection systems into district and national systems need more investigation.

Reporting abuse and getting help One example of ways that ICTs are supporting child protection in India and several other countries is Child Help Lines. ChildLine India received almost 23 million calls as of March 2012, with 62% of callers between the ages of 11 and 18. The helplines provide vulnerable groups of children and youth with referrals to local services, and in the best cases they are public-private partnerships that link with national and state governments. Of note is that boys call in more often than girls, and this raises questions about girls’ access to phones to actually make a call to obtain support. It also points to the need for differentiated strategies to reach both boys and girls.

3) Technology and exclusion

Social exclusion and access is a specific challenge due to the pronounced social exclusion of many migrant girls, particularly those who are married or working in socially isolated jobs such as child domestic workers. Girls in these situations may not have any access to technology at all, including to mobile phones. Girls and women especially tend to have less access than men; they are often not the owners of devices. There is a research gap here, as no one actually knows how many migrating adolescent girls access mobiles and how many can borrow a phone for use. It is not clear if girls have their own phones, or if they are using an employer’s or a friend’s phone or a public call box. This would be a key factor in terms of working with adolescent girls and understanding risk and designing programs.

Technology should build on – not be seen as a replacement for – social networks. Girls access to social capital is a huge underlying topic. There is normally a rupture in social networks when girls move. They become socially isolated and this puts them at great risk. Domestic girl workers leave home and become more vulnerable to exploitation — they have no friends or family around them, and they may not be able to access communication technologies. For this reason it is critical to understand that technology cannot replace social networks. A social network is needed first, and then ICTs can allow girls to remain in touch with those in their network. It is very important to think about understanding and/or building social networks before pushing the idea of technology or incorporating technologies.

4) ICTs and potential risk to child migrants

SMS, anonymity and privacy. According to a study one participant was involved in, some children and youth report feeling that they can speak up more freely by SMS since they can text privately even in close quarters. Others noted that some organizations are incorporating online counseling services for similar reasons. A study in Nigeria is ongoing regarding this same topic, and in Southeast Asia it has been shown that girls often use text messages to flirt using an alternate identity.

Retaliation. Concerns were raised regarding the possibility for retaliation if a child reports abuse or uses a mobile for flirting and the phone is confiscated. Practices of self-protection and message deleting are not very well implemented in most cases. A participant noted that some of the low-end phones in Tanzania and Kenya periodically delete outgoing messages and only keep 15 messages on the phone at a time. This can help somewhat, though it is not a feature that is particularly aimed at protection and privacy, rather, it is more a function of low memory space. Safer Mobile is one initiative that looks at risk and privacy; however, like most efforts looking at risk, it is focused on political conflict and human rights situations, not at privacy and protection for child migrants or other types of abuse reporting that children may be involved in.

5) Research gaps and challenges

Migration contexts. It was emphasized that migration during an emergency situation is very different from a voluntary migration, or seasonal migration. Work is being done around communication with disaster or emergency affected populations via the Communication with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) Network, but this theme does not seem to be one of widespread discussion among US-based NGOs and humanitarian organizations.

Migrants are not necessarily disadvantaged however a bias exists in that researchers tend to look for disadvantage or those who are disadvantaged. They often ask questions that are biased towards showing that migrants are disadvantaged, but this is not always the case. Sometimes migrating children are the most advantaged. In some contexts migrating requires family support and funds to migrate, and those with the least amount of resources may not be able to move. In some cases migrant children have a huge, strong family structure. In others, children are escaping early marriage, their parents’ passing away or other difficult situations.

Integrated information and data crossing. One issue with research around migrants is that most looks solely at migrants and does not cross migration with other information. Many girls migrate with the idea that they will be able to get an education, for example, but there is not a lot of information on whether migrating girls have more or less access to education. The literature tends to focus on girls in the worst situations. In addition, although there are 4 times as many internal migrants as there are international migrants, focus tends to be on international migration.

In a second post, I will cover Human Rights Watch’s work on using data visualization to advocate for the rights of immigrants in the US.

Many thanks to our lead discussants from the Population Council and to the Women’s Refugee Commission and the International Rescue Committee for hosting! The next Technology Salon NYC will be coming up in January 2013. Stay tuned for more information and if you’d like to receive notifications about future salons, sign up for the mailing list!

Also, if you have research or examples of how child and youth migrants are using ICTs before, during or after their journey, or information on how organizations are using ICTs to support the process, please let me know.

Related posts and resources:

How can ICTs support and protect children who migrate?

New communication tools and disaster affected communities

Empowering communities with technology tools to protect children

Children on the Move website

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Storified Twitter Chat on ICTs and Children on the Move

Posted in children, CoM, development, disaster and emergencies, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, protection, wait... what?, tagged children on the move, displacement, facebook, ICTs, migration, mobiles, new technologies, protection, storify, twitter chat, working children, youth on August 15, 2012 | 1 Comment »

On August 14, @zehrarizvi and I co-hosted a Twitter chat on ways that ICTs can support and protect “children on the move,” eg., children and youth who migrate, are displaced, or move around (or are moved). Background information on the issue and the research.

We discovered some new angles on the topic and some resources and studies that are out or will be coming out soon, for example an upcoming Girls Count study on Girls on the Move by Population Council, a UNHCR paper on ICTs and urban refugee protection in Cairo, and Amnesty’s Technology, People and Solutions work.

Thanks to everyone who participated – whether you were actively tweeting or just observing. We hope it was as useful to you all as it was to us! If you think of anything new to add, please tweet it using #CoMandICT or email me at linda.raftree [at] planusa.org.

Read the Storify version here (with a bonus picture of @chrisalbon holding up a ‘burner’ phone). Don’t know what a ‘burner’ phone is? Click and take a look.

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Twitter chat: Can ICTs support and protect displaced or migrating children?

Posted in children, CoM, communication for development, development, disaster and emergencies, GBV, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, protection, VAC, youth, tagged child protection, children, children on the move, migration, Oak, Plan International USA, research, support, technology, twitter chat, women's refugee commission, youth on August 10, 2012 | 1 Comment »

On Tuesday, August 14, @zehrarizvi and I will be hosting a Twitter Chat on the topic of new technologies and ‘children on the move.’

As I wrote in an earlier post, I’m working on some research at Plan International USA, funded by Oak Foundation. The research aims to compile a ‘State of the Practice’ report that will include examples and case studies of current ICT use by, with, among and for ‘children on the move’; applicable cases and lessons learned from other sectors; gaps, challenges, areas where ICTs may pose new or additional risk; and remaining questions and challenges for future exploration and collaboration.

In talking about this research with Zehra (who is working at the Women’s Refugee Commission on a project related to the empowerment and protection of displaced adolescent girls, also supported by Oak) we realized we are both quite interested in exploring the role of new ICTs in supporting and protecting children who are migrating, displaced or otherwise ‘on the move’. So we decided to collaborate on the Twitter chat.

We’re hoping to gather ideas and perspectives from people working in the areas of migration, working children, displacement, child protection, conflict settings, environmental migration, diaspora communities, ICTs and other related areas.

Please join us on Tuesday, August 14 from 9-10.30 EST. The hashtag will be #CoMandICT.

We will cover 4 key questions in this first chat:

Which organizations are working in the area of child migration or ‘children on the move’ and what are they doing?
Are new technologies involved? If so, how? If not, why not?
Are there existing youth networks that could provide insight into how new technologies are used by children/youth on the move?
What else should we know about? What are we missing in our thinking about this project? Who should we talk with?

Tips for a good Twitter Chat:

Login 5 mins ahead of time and be ready with a short introduction (eg, “Joe Garcia here, child protection at XYZ in Malawi, managing cross-border project w working children” or “Cathy Kramer, ICT specialist working on mobile data privacy issues at TechTechTechieFirm”).
Tools like TweetChat which automatically add the hashtag and refresh often are helpful to keep up with the conversation.

We look forward to chatting on Tuesday August 14^th at 9 am EST and welcome any questions or comments before then!

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How can ICTs support and protect children who migrate?

Posted in children, communication for development, development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, participation, protection, VAC, youth, tagged #CoMandICT, child, child protection, children on the move, CoM, diaspora, migration, mobility, new tactics, Oak, online discussion, Plan, research, study, twitter chat on August 6, 2012 | 3 Comments »

Over the next year, I’ll be working on some research supported by Oak Foundation* that will look at the intersection of ICTs and children who migrate, a.k.a. ‘Children on the Move.’ As part of the research, we will be conducting a Twitter chat on Tuesday, August 14, at 9h EST and an ongoing online discussion hosted by New Tactics from October 17 through 23.

I hope interested folks will join to share experiences, good practice, challenges, thoughts and ideas on the intersection of ICTs and Children on the Move.

Background

Globally, some 214 million persons are international migrants. In addition, there are an estimated 740 million internal migrants according to the Global Movement for Children. Youth make up a large share of migrants from and in developing countries. Shifts in demographic factors, economic disparity, violent conflict and state failure, natural disasters, resource and environmental pressures, especially climate change, and lack of opportunities for education or employment mean that this number is likely to increase. About one-third of migrants from developing countries are between the ages of 12 and 25, including millions of children under the age of 18. (Stats from here.) ”Yet, in debates on both child protection and migration, children who move are largely invisible. As a result, policy responses to support these vulnerable children are fragmented and inconsistent.”

Drawing from the African Movement of Working Children and Youth’s report “Early Exodus and Child Trafficking in West Africa: What progress have working children and youth made?” Sept 2008

‘Children on the Move’

Children migrate and move for a host of reasons. They may move on their own will to seek improved opportunities. They may be escaping violence and abuse in the home or at school or running away from an arranged marriage or other cultural practice. They may move due to a lack of opportunity, reduced resources, conflict, or disaster. They may want to get away from life in a refugee camp, or flee other kinds of hardship. They might migrate together with parents or other adults, or they may go alone or with others their age. The migration decision may be made by children themselves, or they may be encouraged by their parents.

In the past, the phenomenon of child mobility has not been seen in its full scope. Children who migrated were often automatically lumped in with those who were trafficked against their will. Programs to support children on the move have not always addressed the variety of motivations and situations. This lack of understanding of the myriad of reasons for children’s mobility has hindered efforts to support and protect them in their different scenarios. More recently efforts have been made to better understand children’s mobility, for example this fascinating 2008-2010 regional study project, supported by a broad platform of child protection agencies, documented and analyzed the many forms taken by the mobility of children and youths in West and Central Africa.

The term ‘Children on the Move‘ has been suggested to describe this group of children under the age of 18 who have aims, motivations and different life circumstances. This is a group which transcends categories. These children may be in a ‘pre-mobility, mobility or post-mobility’ situation (either having arrived to a destination or having returned home). They may also be ‘children left behind’ by their parents or guardians, who, without abandoning them, have emigrated for work within their country of residence or abroad. They may be stateless children, who also suffer the risks and vulnerabilities of mobility.

Risks Children on the Move face

When children move against their will, and /or in absence of protection services and actors, they become highly vulnerable to the worst forms of child labor, exploitation and other abuses. This vulnerability is present before they move, during their trip, once they reach a new destination or even after they return home, and therefore support and protection need to be considered from the time they are thinking about moving (or others are thinking about moving them), through the actual migration or ‘move’, upon their arrival, and in the case of their return. In addition, some children may be involved in a series of migrations or they may migrate seasonally. “During movement, a child can float from one sub category to the other. For example, an internally displaced child can be recruited by armed forces or moved across borders for the purpose of exploitation. The risks and opportunities differ per trajectory and conditions of movement,” according to the CoM website.

Captured from “Best practices in the fight against early exodus and child trafficking” as printed in the African Movement of Working Children and Youth’s ”Early Exodus and Child Trafficking in West Africa: What progress have working children and youth made?” report, Sept 2008.

Children who migrate often face discrimination and marginalization due to beliefs and policies that treat migration as a problem and children who migrate as criminals, and therefore a great deal of work needs to be done to change perceptions and increase societal awareness around the situation of children on the move. Protecting children and reducing their risk of exploitation is a mandate, regardless of the reasons for which they move or migrate.

A systemic approach to protection

In order to improve support for and protection of children on the move, it’s important to look at the situation holistically and systemically and to include the aforementioned different phases of mobility. In addition, several areas need consideration, including children’s own needs and rights; children’s self-protection; community-based protection; government responsibilities and social services; advocacy and public policy and so on. Duty bearers and donors need to improve coordination across silos and borders in order to get better at information exchange, research and data analysis; the creation of prevention and awareness strategies and programs; monitoring actions during all stages; and feedback mechanisms and accountability. (See the proceedings from the CoM Conference for more details.)

How can ICTs help?

Alongside the growth in children’s mobility, access to new technologies, specifically the mobile phone, has exploded. Yet most often, when child protection and ICTs are mentioned in the same sentence, it is with regard to cyber security and protecting children from the Internet or potential on-line predators.

ICTs are playing a huge role in connecting diaspora with those ‘back home.’ The question arises: How are or how could ICTs be enhancing child protection initiatives and supporting children on the move.

The positive and empowering role of ICTs to support children’s self-protection, improve information and communication via new technology tools and enhance systemic approaches to risk reduction has not been fully developed with regard to child protection in its broader sense, or with regard to child mobility and child protection.

The research

The research will aim to compile a ‘State of the Practice’ report that will include examples and case studies of current ICT use by, with, among and for CoM; applicable cases and lessons learned from other sectors; gaps, challenges, areas where ICTs may pose new or additional risk; and remaining questions and challenges for future exploration and collaboration.

Certainly new questions, frameworks and areas to explore will arise along the way, but at present, questions include:

What needs do children have in different categories and stages of mobility and how are these being (or how could they be) enhanced via better use of new ICTs?
Which new technologies are already accessible and being used by various stakeholders (e.g. children, parents and caretakers, intermediaries, broader communities, local child protection committees and ‘safe houses’, local institutions, social workers, experts, civil servants, governments, national and international NGOs, local and national law enforcement agencies), especially children, adolescents and youth; during pre-mobility, mobility and post-mobility, and upon return, endogenous or institutional, and for what purpose or to what end?
What information and communication systems are currently in use at child and family, community, district, national, transnational /regional and global levels for supporting or protecting children on the move and can these systems be improved, promoted or better accessed using new ICTs such as mobile phones?
Are there existing scalable, replicable or adaptable examples of the use of ICTs in this area we can learn from? What were the successes, challenges, failures and lessons/good practices?
Can new ICTs support communication for development (C4D) approaches and models to help children on the move protect themselves, inform them of available support, and/or change broader societal attitudes toward migrating children to more positive and supportive ones?
What can we learn from how ICTs are being used in other areas (health, human rights monitoring, data gathering / tracking, early warning systems, disasters and emergencies)? Which of these might lend themselves to use with, for, among and by children on the move? Are there relevant evaluations or case studies we can look at and learn from?
What are the specific challenges and risks in terms of children on the move that need special attention and exploration when designing programs or eco-systems that integrate ICTs? Security? Privacy? Connectivity? Cost? Context? Sustainability? Feasibility?
Where do we take it from here (what needs to happen next)?

Please join us for the Twitter chat on August 14 at 9 a.m. EST. We’ll be using the hashtag #CoMandICT for the discussion and to keep track of future Twitter conversations on this topic. Stay tuned here at Wait… What? or contact me @meowtree or by email for more information.

Please also consider joining the broader discussion on “Empowering Communities with Technology Tools to Protect Children” the week of October 17-23 hosted by our friends over at New Tactics.

Some related resources:

The excellent 2008 report by the African Movement of Working Children and Youth: Early Exodus and Child Trafficking in West Africa: What progress have working children and youth made?

The AMWCY’s 2009 report “From the gong gong to ICTs“

The fascinating study by a consortium of child protection groups on Child Mobility in West and Central Africa.

More information about Children on the Move.

Report from the International Conference on Children on the Move (Barcelona, 2010).

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*This work is supported through a grant from Oak Foundation to Plan International USA.

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New communication tools and disaster-affected communities

Posted in accountability, communication for development, communications, disaster and emergencies, ICTs, mobile and technology, participation, protection, smart aid, social media, transparency, wait... what?, tagged affected, agencies, BBC, communication, disaster, emergency, humanitarian, innovation, media action, new, policy briefing, populations, response, social media, technology on August 3, 2012 | 1 Comment »

The use of social media and new technologies in disaster and crisis situations will likely be framed forevermore as ‘Before Haiti’ (BH) and ‘After Haiti’ (AH). The terrible earthquakes that devastated the country and the resulting flood of humanitarian interventions that followed mark the moment that the world woke up to the role that new technology and new media can and do play in the immediate local response to a crisis as well as the ongoing emergency response once international volunteers and aid organizations arrive to the scene.

‘Still left in the dark? How people in emergencies use communication to survive — and how humanitarian agencies can help,’ is a new policy briefing by BBC Media Action. It does a fantastic job of highlighting the ways that new media is changing disaster response and the fact that the humanitarian industry is not doing enough to keep pace.

The briefing asks: ‘Are humanitarian agencies prepared to respond to, help and engage with those who are communicating with them and who demand better information?’ As the report shows, the answer is ‘not really’.

Many humanitarian agencies continue to see ‘communication’ as something done to raise money or boost the profile of their own efforts, says the report. Yet the sector increasingly needs a clear, strategic focus that responds to the information and communication needs of disaster-affected populations. ’While responders tend to see communication as a process either of delivering information (‘messaging’) or extracting it, disaster survivors seem to see the ability to communicate and the process of communication itself as every bit as important as the information delivered.’ Communicating with affected populations can improve programming and response, not to mention, as highlighted in the Listening Project and referred to in the BBC report, ‘Listening is seen as an act of respect.’

The briefing is not one-sided, however, and it does a good job of understanding some of the common perceptions around the use of new technologies. There is ICT and social media hype on the one hand (often the position of international ICT specialists, based on very little hard evidence). And there is strong questioning of the value of these tools at all on the other hand (often the position of aid workers who are turned off by the hype and want to see proven practice if they are to consider investing time and resources in new ICTs). The briefing paper provides examples that may serve to convince those who are still unconvinced or uninterested.

Many of us see the reality that social media tools are still quite out of reach of the poorest members of a community or country. But writing new media and technologies off entirely is ‘too crude an analysis,’ says the briefing paper, ‘and one that is being challenged by data from the field.’ In Thailand, for example, use of social media increased by 20 percent in both metropolitan and rural areas when the 2010 floods began. ’Communities now expect — and demand — interaction,’ the paper emphasizes.

Throughout the paper there are good examples of ways that in the immediate aftermath of a disaster local individuals and companies are quickly creating and rolling out communication platforms that are more relevant, feasible and sustainable than some of the initiatives that have been led by international agencies.

An important point that the report makes is that the most successful use of new media in disaster response combines multiple communication channels — new and old — allowing information to flow in and out, to and from different populations with different media habits and levels of access. For example, local journalists and radio stations may pull information from Twitter and Facebook and broadcast it via the radio. They may also be broadcasting online, meaning that they not only reach their local population, but they also reach the diaspora community. ‘Good communication work,’ the paper notes, ‘is, by definition, multi-platform. It is about integrating media, non mass media and technology tools in a manner that is rooted firmly in an understanding of how communities approach information issues.’

So ‘while aid agencies hesitate, local communities are using communications technology to reshape the way they prepare for and respond to emergencies.’ This hesitation remains in the face of growing evidence, according to the paper, that agencies who invest in meaningful communication with disaster-affected communities garner a range of benefits. ‘The communication process becomes central to effective relationships, mitigating conflict and identifying and preventing rumours and misunderstandings.’ Doing it right, however requires good program design, which in turn, requires aid agencies to focus time and expertise on improving communications with affected populations, which, of course, requires budget allocated to these kinds of activities.

For those agencies that want to look more closely at integrating some of these tools and approaches, the report gives several great examples. The recommendations section is also very useful.

One of the recommendations I think it is especially good to highlight is ‘analyse the communications landscape’ (see InfoAsAid’s materials). I would, however, have liked to see mention of involving members of local communities in a participatory analysis of that landscape. In addition to the technical analysis, it’s important to know who trusts which information sources, and why. For example, the information sources trusted by men may be different than those that women trust. The same goes for children, youth and adolescents. Access is also a critical issue here, especially in terms of reaching more marginalized groups, as the population affected by a disaster is not homogeneous and there will be hierarchies and nuances that should be considered in order to avoid leaving certain people or groups out. I would have liked more mention of the need to take a specialized approach and make a focused effort regarding communication with children and adolescents, with women, with certain ethnic groups or persons with disability, as they may be left out if care is not taken to include them.

Another recommendation I found very useful was ‘think of the whole population, not just beneficiaries.’ The paper cautions that working only with the population that directly benefits from an individual agencies’ funding is a positive angle for transparency and accountability, but it ‘seems to have a profoundly limiting effect in practice.’ Beneficiaries need information about more than just one aid agency, and those who are not benefiting from a particular agency’s programs also have information needs.

The report mentions that sometimes in the aftermath of a disaster, when people use new media to communicate, confidentiality and privacy risks are not fully considered. I’d like to see this aspect addressed a bit more in the future as there is a lack of documented good practice around privacy and protection. (Note: I’ll be involved in some research on ICTs, migration and child protection over the next year, so watch this space if it’s a topic of interest.) Humanitarian agencies may have strong policies here, but this is an area that others may not consider in their rush to offer support following a disaster.

Overall the report is extremely useful for those considering how to improve two-way (or multi-way) communication in a post-disaster situation and I very much enjoyed reading it as it sparked learning and fresh ideas, and documented some good work being done by local as well as international groups.

I don’t have a lot of pity or patience for aid agencies who are ‘left behind’ because they refuse to move with the changing times or because their approaches are not effective or relevant. There are several forces that are ‘disrupting’ humanitarian work these days, and the report does a great job of identifying some of them. It also highlights the importance of local actors, local private sector and diaspora communities who have always played an important role in aid and development but have only recently been given more recognition.

International agencies still play a critical role in the humanitarian space, but they need to understand and adapt to the changes happening around them. This report can serve as a discussion piece and offer guidance for those agencies who want to use new media and technology to enable them to do a better job of listening to, working with and being accountable to disaster affected populations.

In summary, highly recommended reading!

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Finding solutions and avoiding handouts in the Sahel

Posted in development, disaster and emergencies, politics, protection, smart aid, tagged complex, Crisis, food, indicators of crisis, long-term solutions, sahel on July 26, 2012 | 2 Comments »

This is a guest post by Roland Berehoudougou, disaster risk manager for Plan International’s West Africa Region. He explains the numerous factors that came together and conspired against the people of the Sahel, transforming the lean season into an emergency.

Photo: Roland Berehoudougou.

When Plan International and other aid agencies sounded the alarm bells and appealed for public assistance to finance an emergency response to the Sahel Food Crisis, there were those sceptics who saw this crisis as an annual chronic food shortage which was being exploited by aid agencies to raise money.

Those skeptics were wrong.

So what is an emergency? What is a food crisis? What is involved in declaring an emergency or pronouncing a situation to be a “food crisis”? A number of issues are taken into consideration including forecast about the availability, cost of food, environmental factors and other internal and external factors which are discussed below.

The Sahel Food Crisis is the result of a complex emergency in which these factors have come together to create this food and nutritional crisis. In fact, had these not occurred then there would be no food crisis, no emergency, and no fundraising appeals.

Captured from Plan International’s Pinterest. http://pinterest.com/pin/64809682107912974/

Drought causes conflict
In the last three to five years, the people in the Sahel have been confronted with either lower than average rain, normal rainfall or excessive rainfall causing floods. As a result harvest levels have been good in some places and poor in others.

In countries of poor harvests, farmers and their families have been coping using straightforward approaches of cutting back on their expenses. In the Sahel, families sold their livestock; others sold their furniture and other possessions. After three consecutive years, their assets have been depleted and men, women and children have been looking for work to supplement household incomes.

The conflicts in Cote d’Ivoire, the Maghreb, and Libya meant that more than 200,000 migrant workers from the Sahel had to flee those countries and return home. Given the average size of families in the Sahel, about 7-12 members per family, two million people suddenly became affected and had reduced incomes.

In addition, the Malian refugees which poured over the borders into neighbouring countries are an additional stress on food insecure areas. For every one refugee, there are five animals. So if you consider 375,000 animals coming over with 75,000 refugees, for example, those animals can dry up a water-scarce irrigation dam in just few days. Yet, cattle are a lifeline and in a food crisis, they cannot be forgotten.

In addition to depriving people of a considerable source of income, the drought in the Sahel is a source of conflict. Shepherds, for example, who are forced to take their animals southward in search of pasture, come into conflict with farmers.

Cultural differences
People in the Sahel eat a different staple to what is grown outside the region and this has implications during a food crisis. Let’s take a scenario where countries on the west coast, such as Liberia or Cote d’Ivoire, may have enough food to export. However, it is not the type of food that people in the Sahel eat and they therefore won’t import it. Instead they import from one another at prevailing market rates which has a knock-on effect on availability and cost.

Market forces – influenced by global factors – dictate price. There is a common market across West Africa where traders move and sell freely. When Nigeria is buying, WFP is buying, other NGOs are buying the price increases. If you look at food prices you will see that prices this year compared to the same period last year is more than 100% in Mali, more than 70% in Burkina 42% in Niger.

So, as an NGO, Plan International had to change its strategy and approach our donors for permission to do cash-for-work or food-for-work programmes rather than waiting to do food distribution programmes after the food stock is totally depleted.

A food crisis may, therefore, not necessarily mean a shortage of food but rather the inability of a people to afford to buy the food.

Arab Spring
In addition to the complications of prolonged inconsistent harvest levels, market forces, and inflow of refugees and their livestock, the situation has become complicated by the rise of desert locusts this year.

The breeding grounds of locusts are in the border areas of Libya and Algeria. When the Gadaffi government was in office, they provided a lot of money for insect control in locust breeding grounds but since the Arab Spring and events following it the finance for the pest control has dried up. The continuing insecurity on these borders also prevents pest control activities. We are now seeing a different impact of the Arab Spring spilling into the Sahel in the form of locust swarms.

The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) which monitors locust movement say that swarms have been sighted in northern Niger. If these swarms come southward through the agricultural belt farmers will experience yet another problem. When these clouds of locusts descend on newly planted fields, they can devour acres of crops and trees in just 30 minutes. The locust swarms have also been sighted in northern Mali but because of the insecurity, no one can go there to control the pests.

NGOs do not do pest control as it is a very costly exercise involving planes and other equipment which we do not have. This role falls to specialised agencies such as FAO and governments. This is a looming disaster.

Road to hell
To cope with the food crisis, children have left school and have taken to the road to find work to help their parents. Some girls are working as domestic help in homes, other are begging on the streets, and boys are finding work in traditional gold mining in Burkina and Niger. A number of serious hazards face these children including respiratory problems from inhalation of dust and exposure to mercury, arsenic and other chemicals used in the process.

Many children who go to work on plantations, in cotton fields and other types of farming also face risks of exploitation and potential trafficking.

Finding solutions
At Plan we are trying to address the food insecurity, in the areas we work, in a holistic way.

We are providing drought-resistant seeds, supporting the government to train farmers in drought-season activities and supporting the 3N programme (“Niger Nourish Nigeriens”). One of its principal objectives is reducing dependence on climate through irrigation and rain water collection projects.

Plan, whose core work is Child Centred Community Development (CCCD), is also empowering communities to get involved in the cereal market and beat speculators at their own game by creating community-managed cereal banks. After a harvest the price of cereal drops and farmers are forced to sell their crops at low prices to meet the schooling cost for their children and other social costs. Speculators buy the cereal and store it until food shortages kick-in around mid-year and then release the cereal at high market prices.

Plan-supported communities are doing the same thing – except that they sell at a lower price to members of their village. The income generated is used to increase the storage capacity of the cereal bank and support social infrastructures in the village such as building facilities like medical centres and schools.

We are also implementing micro-finance project for women and youth using the VSLA strategy (www.vsla.net). We have discovered that if we provide economic empowerment for women then there is a trickle down effecting benefiting children who will receive balance meals, medical care and an education. We are seeing improvements in the quality of life for families in our programme areas.

Using this approach, many villages are now being lifted out of poverty and Plan is replicating this in other areas in which we are working.

No handouts
When Plan appealed to developing nations for assistance for the Sahel Food Crisis, it was not to address an annual chronic food shortage. It was to address a complex emergency that has stretched an already stressed situation to its breaking point which in turn has put four million children at risk of malnutrition.

No one is ever happy about being in a situation to ask for help to feed their families.

Plan is using aid money in such a way so as to prevent dependency on long-term aid. The United Nations agencies of OCHA and UNDP have demonstrated that for a dollar of foreign aid spent on preventing disasters saves an average of seven dollars in humanitarian disaster response.

At Plan we are seeking to empower and support the people living the Sahel to get out of the situation themselves. We are in it for the long haul. We are working hard to make ourselves and our work redundant and build resilience in the Sahel and hope. None of this is possible without the support of governments and people from the rest of the world.

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