Steve
Mapping the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence for the conduct of diplomacy
DiploFoundation: “This report provides an overview of the evolution of diplomacy in the context of artificial intelligence (AI). AI has emerged as a very hot topic on the international agenda impacting numerous aspects of our political, social, and economic lives. It is clear that AI will remain a permanent feature of international debates and will continue to shape societies and international relations.
It is impossible to ignore the challenges – and opportunities – AI is bringing to the diplomatic realm. Its relevance as a topic for diplomats and others working in international relations will only increase….(More)”.
Knowledge and Politics in Setting and Measuring SDGs
Special Issue of Global Policy: “The papers in this special issue investigate the politics that shaped the SDGs, the setting of the goals, the selection of the measurement methods. The SDGs ushered in a new era of ‘governance by indicators’ in global development. Goal setting and the use of numeric performance indicators have now become the method for negotiating a consensus vision of development and priority objectives. The choice of indicators is seemingly a technical issue, but measurement methods
The case studies in this collection show the open multi-stakeholder negotiations helped craft more transformative and ambitious goals. But across many goals, there was slippage in ambition when targets and indicators were selected. The papers also highlight how the increasing role of big data and other non-traditional sources of data is altering data production, dissemination and use, and fundamentally altering the epistemology of information and knowledge. This raises questions about ‘data for whom and for what’ – fundamental issues concerning the power of data to shape knowledge, the democratic governance of SDG indicators and of knowledge for development overall.
Introduction
Knowledge and Politics in Setting and Measuring the SDGs – Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and Desmond McNeill
Case Studies
The Contested Discourse of Sustainable Agriculture – Desmond McNeill
Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: Feminist Mobilization for the SDGs – Gita Sen
Keeping Out Extreme Inequality from The SDG Agenda – The Politics of Indicators – Sakiko Fukuda-Parr
The Design of Environmental Priorities in the SDGs – Mark Elder and Simon Høiberg Olsen
Data Governance
The IHME in the Shifting Landscape of Global Health Metrics – Manjari Mahajan
The Big (data) Bang: Opportunities and Challenges for Compiling SDG Indicators – Steve MacFeely …(More)”
The Digitalization of Public Diplomacy
Book by Ilan Manor: “This book addresses how digitalization has influenced the institutions, practitioners
Participation 2.0? Crowdsourcing Participatory Development @ DFID
Paper by Anke Schwittay, Paul Braund: “Through an empirical analysis of Amplify, a crowdsourcing platform funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), we examine the potential of ICTs to afford more participatory development. Especially interactive Web2.0 technologies are often assumed to enable the participation of marginalized groups in their development, through allowing them to modify content and generate their own communication.
We use the concepts of platform politics and voice to show that while Amplify managers and designers invested time and resources to include the voices of Amplify beneficiaries on the platform and elicit their feedback on projects supported via the platform, no meaningful participation took place. Our analysis of the gaps between participatory rhetoric, policy and practice concludes with suggestions for how ICTs could be harnessed to contribute to meaningful participatory development that matters materially and politically.
Innovations in satellite measurements for development
Ran Goldblatt, Trevor Monroe, Sarah Elizabeth Antos, Marco Hernandez at the World Bank Data Blog: “The desire of human beings to “think spatially” to understand how people and objects are organized in space has not changed much since Eratosthenes—the Greek astronomer
The increasing availability of satellite data has transformed how we use remote sensing analytics to understand, monitor and achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. As satellite data becomes ever more accessible and frequent, it is now possible not only to better understand how the Earth is changing, but also to utilize these insights to improve decision making, guide policy, deliver services, and promote better-informed governance. Satellites capture many of the physical, economic and social characteristics of Earth, providing a unique asset for developing countries, where reliable socio-economic and demographic data is often not consistently available. Analysis of satellite data was once relegated to researchers with access to costly data or to “super computers”. Today, the increased availability of “free” satellite data, combined with powerful cloud computing and open source analytical tools have democratized data innovation, enabling local governments and agencies to use satellite data to improve sector diagnostics, development indicators, program monitoring and service delivery.
Drivers of innovation in satellite measurements
- Big (geo)data – Satellites in Global Development are improving every day, creating new opportunities for impact in development. They capture millions of images from Earth in different spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions, generating data in ever increasing volume, variety and velocity.
- Open Source –Open source annotated datasets, the World Bank’s Open Data, and other publicly available resources allow to process and document the data (e.g. Cumulus, label maker) and perform machine learning analysis using common programming languages such as R or Python.
- Crowd – crowdsource platforms like MTurk, Figure-eight and Tomnod are used to collect and enhance inputs (reference data) to train machines to identify automatically specific objects and land cover on Earth.
- High Quality Ground Truth –Robust algorithms that analyze the entire planet require diverse training data, and traditional development Microdata for use in machine learning training, validation and calibration, for example, to map urbanization processes.
- Cloud – cloud computing and data storage capabilities within platforms like AWS, Azure and Google Earth Engine provide scalable solutions for storage, management and parallel processing of large volumes of data.
…As petabytes of geo data are being collected, novel methods are developed to convert these data into meaningful information about the nature and pace of change on Earth, for example, the formation of urban landscapes and human settlements, the creation of transportation networks that connect cities or the conversion of natural forests into productive agricultural land. New possibilities emerge for harnessing this data for a better understanding
Crowdsourced mapping in crisis zones: collaboration, organisation and impact
Amelia Hunt and Doug Specht in the Journal of International Humanitarian Action: “Crowdsourced mapping has become an integral part of humanitarian response, with high profile deployments of platforms following the Haiti and Nepal earthquakes, and the multiple projects initiated during the Ebola outbreak in North West Africa in 2014, being prominent examples. There have also been hundreds of deployments of crowdsourced mapping projects across the globe that did not have a high profile.
This paper, through an analysis of 51 mapping deployments between 2010 and 2016, complimented with expert interviews, seeks to explore the organisational structures that create the conditions for effective mapping actions, and the relationship between the commissioning body, often a non-governmental organisation (NGO) and the volunteers who regularly make up the team charged with producing the map.
The research suggests that there are three distinct areas that need to be improved in order to provide appropriate assistance through mapping in humanitarian crisis: regionalise, prepare and research. The paper concludes, based on the case studies, how each of these areas can be handled more effectively, concluding that failure to implement one area sufficiently can lead to overall project failure….(More)”
The UN Principles on Personal Data Protection and Privacy
United Nations System: “The Principles on Personal Data Protection and Privacy set out a basic framework for the processing of personal data by, or on behalf of, the United Nations System Organizations in carrying out their mandated activities.
The Principles aim to: (i) harmonize standards for the protection of personal data across the UN System; (ii) facilitate the accountable processing of personal data; and (iii) ensure respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals, in
The
Blockchain and Sustainable Growth
Cathy Mulligan in the UN Chronicle: “…What can blockchain give us, then?
Blockchain’s 1,000 Thought Experiments
Blockchain is still new and will evolve many times before it can be fully integrated into society. We have seen similar trajectories before in the technology industry; examples include the Internet of things, mobile telephony and even the Internet itself. Every one of those technologies went through various iterations before it was fully integrated and used within society. Many technical, social and political obstacles had to be slowly but surely overcome.
It is often useful, therefore, to approach emerging technologies with some depth of thought—not by expecting them to act immediately as a fully functional solution but rather as a lens on the possible. Such an approach allows for a broader discussion, one in which we can challenge our preconceived notions. Blockchain has already illustrated the power of individuals connected via the Internet with sufficient computing power at their disposal. Far from merely tweeting, taking and sharing photos or videos, such people can also create an entirely new economic structure.
The power of blockchain thus lies not in the technology itself but rather in how it has reframed many discussions across various parts of our society and economy. Blockchain shows us that there are options, that we can organize society differently. It has launched 1,000 different thought experiments but the resulting solutions, which will be delivered a decade or two from now, may or may not be based on blockchain or cryptocurrencies. The discussions that started from this point, however, will have been important contributions to the progress that society makes around digital technologies and what they can mean for humankind. For these reasons, it is important that everyone, including the United Nations, engage with these technologies to understand and learn from them.
At its most basic level, blockchain speaks to a deep, human need, one of being able to trust other people, organizations and companies in a world where most of our interactions are mediated and stored digitally. It is arguable how well it captures that notion of trust, or whether any technology can ever actually replicate what a human being thinks, feels and acts like when they trust and are trusted. These concepts are deeply human, as are the power structures within which digital solutions are built. Blockchain is often discussed as removing intermediaries or creating democratic solutions to problems, but it may merely replace existing analogue power structures with digital ones, and cause decision-making within such contexts to become more brutally binary. ‘Truth’ on the blockchain does not leave room for interpretation, as today’s systems do.
Context is critical for the development of any technology, as is the political economy within which it exists. Those who have tried to use blockchain, however, have quickly realized something: it forces a new level of cooperation. It requires partnerships and deep discussions of what transparency and inclusion truly look like….
Perhaps one of the reasons that blockchain has received so much attention is because it speaks to something that many people across the world are feeling instinctively: that we can only create new solutions to some of the world’s oldest problems by working together and including everyone in the discussion. Blockchain appeals to many people as a viable solution precisely because it is about applying a counter-intuitive approach to problems; despite the often technology-deterministic manner in which it is discussed, it is important to listen to the underlying message. The call to inclusion, trust
Seven design principles for using blockchain for social impact
Stefaan Verhulst at Apolitical: “2018 will probably be remembered as the
In 2019, business will continue to explore blockchain for sectors as disparate as finance, agriculture, logistics
In a recent report I prepared with Andrew Young, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, we looked at the potential risks and challenges of using blockchain for social change — or “Blockchan.ge.” A number of implementations and platforms are already demonstrating potential social impact.
The technology is now being used to address issues as varied as homelessness in New York City, the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar and government corruption around the world.
In an illustration of the breadth of current experimentation, Stanford’s Center for Social Innovation recently analysed and mapped nearly 200 organisations and projects trying to create positive social change using blockchain. Likewise, the GovLab is developing a mapping of blockchange implementations across regions and topic areas; it currently contains 60 entries.
All these examples provide impressive — and hopeful — proof of concept. Yet despite the very clear potential of blockchain, there has been little systematic analysis. For what types of social impact is it best suited? Under what conditions is it most likely to lead to real social change? What challenges does blockchain face, what risks does it pose and how should these be confronted and mitigated?
These are just some of the questions our report, which builds its analysis on 10 case studies assembled through original research, seeks to address.
While the report is focused on identity management, it contains a number of lessons and insights that are applicable more generally to the subject of blockchange.
In particular, it contains seven design principles that can guide individuals or