Solutions to Plastic Pollution: A Conceptual Framework to Tackle a Wicked Problem

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Chapter by Martin Wagner: “There is a broad willingness to act on global plastic pollution as well as a plethora of available technological, governance, and societal solutions. However, this solution space has not been organized in a larger conceptual framework yet. In this essay, I propose such a framework, place the available solutions in it, and use it to explore the value-laden issues that motivate the diverse problem formulations and the preferences for certain solutions by certain actors. To set the scene, I argue that plastic pollution shares the key features of wicked problems, namely, scientific, political, and societal complexity and uncertainty as well as a diversity in the views of actors. To explore the latter, plastic pollution can be framed as a waste, resource, economic, societal, or systemic problem.

Doing so results in different and sometimes conflicting sets of preferred solutions, including improving waste management; recycling and reuse; implementing levies, taxes, and bans as well as ethical consumerism; raising awareness; and a transition to a circular economy. Deciding which of these solutions is desirable is, again, not a purely rational choice. Accordingly, the social deliberations on these solution sets can be organized across four scales of change. At the geographic and time scales, we need to clarify where and when we want to solve the plastic problem. On the scale of responsibility, we need to clarify who is accountable, has the means to make change, and carries the costs. At the magnitude scale, we need to discuss which level of change we desire on a spectrum of status quo to revolution. All these issues are inherently linked to value judgments and worldviews that must, therefore, be part of an open and inclusive debate to facilitate solving the wicked problem of plastic pollution…(More)”.

Digital Technology, Politics, and Policy-Making

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Open access book by Fabrizio Gilardi: “The rise of digital technology has been the best of times, and also the worst, a roller coaster of hopes and fears: “social media have gone—in the popular imagination at least—from being a way for pro-democratic forces to fight autocrats to being a tool of outside actors who want to attack democracies” (Tucker et al., 2017, 47). The 2016 US presidential election raised fundamental questions regarding the compatibility of the internet with democracy (Persily, 2017). The divergent assessments of the promises and risks of digital technology has to do, in part, with the fact that it has become such a pervasive phenomenon. Whether digital technology is, on balance, a net benefit or harm for democratic processes and institutions depends on which specific aspects we focus on. Moreover, the assessment is not value neutral, because digital technology has become inextricably linked with our politics. As Farrell (2012, 47) argued a few years ago, “[a]s the Internet becomes politically normalized, it will be ever less appropriate to study it in isolation but ever more important to think clearly, and carefully, about its relationship to politics.” Reflecting on this issue requires going beyond the headlines, which tend to focus on the most dramatic concerns and may have a negativity bias common in news reporting in general. The shortage of hard facts in this area, linked to the singular challenges of studying the connection between digital technology and politics, exacerbates the problem.
Since it affects virtually every aspect of politic and policy-making, the nature and effects of digital technology have been studied from many different angles in increasingly fragmented literatures. For example, studies of disinformation and social media usually do not acknowledge research on the usage of artificial intelligence in public administration—for good reasons, because such is the nature of specialized academic research. Similarly, media attention tends to concentrate on the most newsworthy aspects, such as the role of Facebook in elections, without connecting them to other related phenomena. The compartmentalization of academic and public attention in this area is understandable, but it obscures the relationships that exist among the different parts. Moreover, the fact that scholarly and media attention are sometimes out of sync might lead policy-makers to focus on solutions before there is a scientific consensus on the nature and scale of the problems. For example, policy-makers may emphasize curbing “fake news” while there is still no agreement in the research community about its effects on political outcomes…(More)”.

What is the Power Footprint of International Organizations?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog at WeRobotics: “It’s undeniable that international nonprofit organizations headquartered in the West hold a vast amount of power compared to local organizations in the “Majority World”. Systemic factors, such as colonialism and racism, have enabled international nonprofit organizations (INGOs) to increase their authority, control, and influence in multiple industries like humanitarian aid and global development. You might say that these NGOs have a large “power footprint.” Power itself is of course not inherently bad. All organizations need some level of power to drive change. But power can become menacing when centralized and rooted in a singular worldview. The result, as we’ve seen in the INGO space, is a Western-centric system that drives change in a foreign-led, top-down, and techno-centric manner…

How do we measure our own power footprints to create more visibility and transparency? Can we co-create practical metrics to measure the power footprint of INGOs? Can we make the consequences or byproducts of said footprints more visible? Can we gain inspiration from other fields? How is the carbon footprint measured, for example?…

We realize full well that measuring power footprints is a wholly different undertaking to measuring carbon footprints. Analogies can capture the imagination and serve as powerful metaphors, however. Heavy industries have significant positive impact by creating countless jobs and higher standards of living. Over time, however, the cumulative impact of large carbon footprints triggers a global climate emergency. In a similar vein, the massive power footprints of INGOs may be contributing to another global emergency: the pandemic of inequality. There’s lots to unpack here, so we’re working on a longer peer-reviewed piece that expands on these ideas and several other points that we don’t have the space to get into here.

In sum, we know that power is relational, complicated, and polarizing. We also know we’ve got to start somewhere. We need to co-create a transparent mechanism to make the invisible visible and ensure that the reduction of power footprints is real and not just symbolic. The alternative is to continue having the same conversations over and over without ever doing something to affect change. So we’ve developed 5 very preliminary metrics for illustrative purposes, and applied them to our own INGO, WeRobotics.

Each proposed metric is rooted in a question to ourselves and fellow INGOs:

  1. Are our country offices (or equivalent) independent?
  2. Are they locally-led?
  3. Can they exit at any time?
  4. Are we ceding market share?
  5. Do we have a clear Endgame or exit strategy?…(More)”

Data governance: Enhancing access to and sharing of data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

OECD Recommendation: “Access to and sharing of data are increasingly critical for fostering data-driven scientific discovery and innovations across the private and public sectors globally and will play a role in solving societal challenges, including fighting COVID-19 and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But restrictions to data access, sometimes compounded by a reluctance to share, and a growing awareness of the risks that come with data access and sharing, means economies and societies are not harnessing the full potential of data.


Adopted in October 2021, the OECD Recommendation on Enhancing Access to and Sharing of Data (EASD) is the first internationally agreed upon set of principles and policy guidance on how governments can maximise the cross-sectoral benefits of all types of data – personal, non-personal, open, proprietary, public and private – while protecting the rights of individuals and organisations.


The Recommendation intends to help governments develop coherent data governance policies and frameworks to unlock the potential benefits of data across and within sectors, countries, organisations, and communities. It aims to reinforce trust across the data ecosystem, stimulate investment in data and incentivise data access and sharing, and foster effective and responsible data access, sharing, and use across sectors and jurisdictions.


The Recommendation is a key deliverable of phase 3 of the OECD’s Going Digital project, focused on data governance for frowth and well-being. It was developed by three OECD Committees (Digital Economy Policy, Scientific and Technological Policy, and Public Governance) and acts as a common reference for existing and new OECD legal instruments related to data in areas such as research, health and digital government. It will provide a foundation stone for ongoing OECD work to help countries unlock the potential of data in the digital era….(More)”.

Mobile Big Data in the fight against COVID-19

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Editorial to Special Collection of Data&Policy by Richard Benjamins, Jeanine Vos, and Stefaan Verhulst: “Almost two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, parts of the world feel like they may slowly be getting back to (a new) normal. Nevertheless, we know that the damage is still unfolding, and that much of the developing world Southeast Asia and Africa in particular — remain in a state of crisis. Given the global nature of this disease and the potential for mutant versions to develop and spread, a crisis anywhere is cause for concern everywhere. The world remains very much in the grip of this public health crisis.

From the beginning, there has been hope that data and technology could offer solutions to help inform governments’ response strategy and decision-making. Many of the expectations have been focused on mobile data analytics, and in particular the possibility of mobile network operators creating mobility insights and decision-making tools generated from anonymized and aggregated telco data. This hoped-for capability results from a growing group of mobile network operators investing in systems and capabilities to develop such decision-support products and services for public and private sector customers. The value of having such tools has been demonstrated in addressing different global challenges, ranging from the possibilities offered by models to better understand the spread of Zika in Brazil to interactive dashboards that aided emergency services during earthquakes and floods in Japan. Yet despite these experiences, many governments across the world still have limited awareness, capabilities, budgets and resources to leverage such tools in their efforts to limit the spread of COVID-19 using non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI).

This special collection of papers we launched in Data & Policy examines both the potential of mobile data, as well as the challenges faced in delivering these tools to inform government decision-making. To date, the collection

Consisting of 11 papers from 71 researchers and experts from academia, industry, and government, the articles cover a wide range of geographies, including Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Ecuador, Estonia, Europe (as a whole), France, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Italy, Malawi, Nigeria, Nordics, and Spain. Responding to our call for case studies to illustrate the opportunities (and challenges) offered by mobile big data in the fight against COVID-19, the authors of these papers describe a number of examples of how mobile and mobile-related data have been used to address the medical, economic, socio-cultural and political aspects of the pandemic….(More)”.

The Case For Exploratory Social Sciences

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Discussion Paper by Geoff Mulgan: “…Here I make the case for a new way of organising social science both in universities and beyond through creating sub-disciplines of ‘exploratory social science’ that would help to fill this gap. In the paper I show:
• how in the 18th and 19th centuries social sciences attempted to fuse interpretation and change
• how a series of trends – including quantification and abstraction – delivered advances but also squeezed out this capacity for radical design
• how these also encouraged some blind alleys for social science, including what I call ‘unrealistic realism’ and the futile search for eternal laws

I show some of the more useful counter-trends, including evolutionary thinking, systems models and complexity that create a more valid space for conscious design. I argue that now, at a time when we badly need better designs and strategies for the future, we face a paradoxical situation where the people with the deepest knowledge of fields are discouraged from systematic and creative exploration of the future, while those with the appetite and freedom to explore often lack the necessary knowledge…(More)”.

Listening to Users and Other Ideas for Building Trust in Digital Trade

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Susan Ariel Aaronson: “This paper argues that if trade policymakers truly want to achieve data free flow with trust, they must address user concerns beyond privacy. Survey data reveals that users are also anxious about online harassment, malware, censorship and disinformation. The paper focuses on three such problems, specifically, internet shutdowns, censorship and ransomware (a form of malware), each of which can distort trade and make users feel less secure online. Finally, the author concludes that trade policymakers will need to rethink how they involve the broad public in digital trade policymaking if they want digital trade agreements to facilitate trust….(More)”.

Keeping labour data flowing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by ILO: “The availability of data tends to be taken for granted by the vast majority of people. The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates this vividly: estimates of case numbers and deaths have been widely quoted throughout and assumed by most to be available on demand.

However, those responsible for compiling official statistics know all too well that, even at the best of times, providing high-quality data to meet even just a small part of user needs is incredibly challenging and, on the whole, very resource-intensive. That said, the world has, in general, been steadily moving in the right direction, with more and better data being produced over time.

At the end of 2019, most users and producers of statistics would have predicted, with good reason, that the trend of increasing data availability would continue in the new decade, not least in the field of labour statistics. What no one could foresee then is that one of the cornerstones of data collection for surveys, namely the ability to visit and interview respondents, could be undermined so rapidly and drastically as was the case in 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Various organizations and specialized agencies in the United Nations system, including the ILO and collectively through the Intersecretariat Working Group on Household Surveys, have sought to track the impact of COVID-19 on data collection. In March 2021, the ILO launched a global survey to understand better the extent to which the crisis had affected the compilation of official labour market statistics. Information was received from 110 countries, of which 97 had planned to complete a labour force survey (LFS) in 2020. The findings point to both the tremendous challenges faced and the remarkable efforts undertaken to provide information on the world of work during the pandemic.

Nearly half of countries had to suspend interviewing at some point in 2020

Close to half (46.4 per cent) of the countries with plans to conduct a LFS in 2020 had to suspend interviews at some point in the year.The highest levels of suspensions were reported by countries in Africa and the Arab States (70.6 per cent) and in the Americas (66.7 per cent). While some countries were able to attempt to recover those interviews later on, the majority were not, which means they completely lost data that had been expected to be available, creating a risk of gaps in data series for key labour market indicators, among others…(More)”

Pandora Papers & Data Journalism: how investigative journalists use tech

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article at Moonshot: “The Pandora Papers’s 11.9 million records arrived from 14 different offshore services firms; a 2.94 terabyte data trove exposes the offshore secrets of wealthy elites from more than 200 countries and territories.

It contains data for 330 politicians and public officials, from more than 90 countries and territories, including 35 current and former country leaders, as well as celebrities, fraudsters, drug dealers, royal family members and leaders of religious groups around the world.

It involved more than 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries.

It took ICIJ more than a year to structure, research and analyze the data, which will be incorporated into the Offshore Leaks database: The task involved three main elements: journalists, technology and time….(More)”

Building Consumer Confidence Through Transparency and Control

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Cisco 2021 Consumer Privacy Survey: “Protecting privacy continues to be a critical issue for individuals, organizations, and governments around the world. Eighteen months into the COVID-19 pandemic, our health information and vaccination status are needed more than ever to understand the virus, control the spread, and enable safer environments for work, learning, recreation, and other activities. Nonetheless, people want privacy protections to be maintained, and they expect organizations and governments to keep their data safe and used only for pandemic response. Individuals are also increasingly taking action to protect themselves and their data. This report, our third annual review of consumer privacy, explores current trends, challenges, and opportunities in privacy for consumers.

The report draws upon data gathered from a June 2021 survey where respondents were not informed of who was conducting the study and respondents were anonymous to the researchers. Respondents included 2600 adults (over the age of 18) in 12 countries (5 Europe, 4 Asia Pacific, and 3 Americas). Participants were asked about their attitudes and activities regarding companies’ use of their personal data, level of support for COVID-19 related information sharing, awareness and reaction to privacy legislation, and attitudes regarding artificial intelligence (AI) and automated decision making.

The findings from this research demonstrates the growing importance of privacy to the individual and its implications on the businesses and governments that serve them. Key highlights of this report

  1. Consumers want transparency and control with respect to business data practices – an increasing number will act to protect their data
  2. Privacy laws are viewed very positively around the world, but awareness of these laws remains low
  3. Despite the ongoing pandemic, most consumers want little or no reduction in privacy protections, while still supporting public health and safety efforts
  4. Consumers are very concerned about the use of their personal information in AI and abuse has eroded trust…(More)”.