Developing new models for social transformation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Sarah Pearson: We live in unprecedented times. A period where globalisation has supported relative peace and growing prosperity. Where technological innovation has transformed social connectivity, democratised access to information and power, and driven new industry and jobs. The current pandemic, geopolitical power struggles, and a widening disparity in the distribution of the benefits of technology, however, threatens this progression. Many people have been, and many more are being left behind, with the recent COVID-19 pandemic seriously affecting progress in areas such as gender equality. Innovation, from an operational, business model, technological and societal perspective, is poised and ripe to help. This research focused on how this innovation could be applied to philanthropies seeking to address social change, overcome disadvantage, and build Equality of Opportunity.

Opportunities abound: starting with how we lead and govern in Foundations so that we unleash creativity and opportunity, throughout the organisation and externally; how we become more open and access new impactful ideas we would not have dreamt of without looking more widely; how we fund differently in order to make the most of our corpus, apply a gender lens, provide more than financial resources,
and support long term impact through new funding models; how we manage programs with sufficient flexibility to allow for unforeseen impact and experimentation by those we support; with whom and how we partner to deliver greater systemic change, and how to engage in an inclusive ecosystem of impact; how we leverage data to understand the issues, provide an asset for innovation, and measure our impact; and crucially how we set up for a diverse, experimental, learning culture. And in all of this, how we connect to and empower those with lived expertise to build economic self-determination, and combine with other expertise to grow inclusive problem-solving communities…(More)”.

Seemingly contrasting disciplines

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by Andreas Pawelke: “Development organizations increasingly embrace systems thinking (and portfolio approaches) in tackling complex challenges.

At the same time, there is a growing supply of (novel) data sources and analytical methods available to the development sector.

Little evidence exists, however, of these two seemingly contrasting disciplines to be combined by development practitioners for systems transformation with little progress made since 2019 when Thea Snow called for system thinkers and data scientists to work together.

This is not to say that system thinkers disregard data in their work. A range of data types is used, in particular the thick, rich, qualitative data from observations, deep listening and micro-narratives. And already back in 2013, MIT researchers organized an entire conference around big data and systems thinking.

When it comes to the use of non-traditional data in the work of system innovators in international development, however, there seems to be little in terms of examples and experiences.

Enhancing system innovation?

Is there a (bigger) role to play for non-traditional data in the systems work of development organizations?

Let’s start with definitions:

A system is an interconnected set of elements that form a unified whole or serve a function.

Systems thinking is about recognizing and taking into account the complexity of the world while trying to understand how the elements of a system are interconnected and how they influence each other.

System innovation emphasizes the act of changing (shifting) systems through innovations to a system (transformation), not within a system (improvement).

Non-traditional data refers to data that is digitally captured, mediated or observed. Such data is often (but not always) unstructured, big and used as proxies for purposes unrelated to its initial collection. We’re talking about the large quantities of digital data generated from our digital interactions and transactions but also (more or less) novel sources like satellites and drones that generate data that is readily available at large spatial and temporal scales.

There are at least three ways how non-traditional data could be used to enhance the practice of system innovation in the development sector:

  1. Observe: gain a better understanding of a system
  2. Shift: identify entry points of interventions and model potential outcomes
  3. Learn: measure and observe changes in a system over time..(More)”

When do “Nudges” Increase Welfare?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Hunt Allcott, Daniel Cohen, William Morrison & Dmitry Taubinsky: “Policymakers are increasingly interested in non-standard policy instruments (NPIs), or “nudges,” such as simplified information disclosure and warning labels. We characterize the welfare effects of NPIs using public finance sufficient statistic approaches, allowing for endogenous prices, market power, and optimal or suboptimal taxes. While many empirical evaluations have focused on whether NPIs increase ostensibly beneficial behaviors on average, we show that this can be a poor guide to welfare. Welfare also depends on whether the NPI reduces the variance of distortions from heterogenous biases and externalities, and the average effect becomes irrelevant with zero pass-through or optimal taxes. We apply our framework to randomized experiments evaluating automotive fuel economy labels and sugary drink health labels. In both experiments, the labels increase ostensibly beneficial behaviors but also may decrease welfare in our model, because they increase the variance of distortions…(More)”.

Design-led policy and governance in practice: a global perspective

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Paper by Marzia Mortati, Louise Mullagh & Scott Schmidt: “Presently, the relationship between policy and design is very much open for debate as to how these two concepts differ, relate, and interact with one another. There exists very little agreement on their relational trajectory with one course, policy design, originating in the policy studies tradition while the other, design for policy, being founded in design studies. The Special Issue has paid particular attention to the upcoming area of research where design disciplines and policy studies are exploring new ways toward convergence. With a focus on design, the authors herein present an array of design methods and approaches through case studies and conceptual papers, using co-design, participatory design and critical service design to work with policymakers in tackling challenging issues and policies. We see designers and policymakers working with communities to boost engagement around the world, with examples from the UK, Latvia, New Zealand, Denmark, Turkey, the UK, Brazil and South Africa. Finally, we offer a few reflections to build further this research area pointing out topics for further research with the hope that these will be relevant for researchers approaching the field or deepening their investigation and for bridging the academic/practice divide between design studies and policy design…(More)”.

Social Media Seen as Mostly Good for Democracy Across Many Nations, But U.S. is a Major Outlier

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Pew Research: “As people across the globe have increasingly turned to Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other platforms to get their news and express their opinions, the sphere of social media has become a new public space for discussing – and often arguing bitterly – about political and social issues. And in the mind of many analysts, social media is one of the major reasons for the declining health of democracy in nations around the world.

Bar chart showing most say that social media has been good for democracy but has had important negative and positive effects on politics and society

However, as a new Pew Research Center survey of 19 advanced economies shows, ordinary citizens see social media as both a constructive and destructive component of political life, and overall most believe it has actually had a positive impact on democracy. Across the countries polled, a median of 57% say social media has been more of a good thing for their democracy, with 35% saying it is has been a bad thing.

There are substantial cross-national differences on this question, however, and the United States is a clear outlier: Just 34% of U.S. adults think social media has been good for democracy, while 64% say it has had a bad impact. In fact, the U.S. is an outlier on a number of measures, with larger shares of Americans seeing social media as divisive…(More)”.

Navigating the Crisis: How Governments Used Intelligence for Decision Making During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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Report by Geoff Mulgan, Oliver Marsh, and Anina Henggeler: “…examines how governments — and the societies around them — mobilised intelligence to handle the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects. It also makes recommendations as to how they could improve their ability to organise intelligence for future challenges of all kinds, from pandemics to climate change.

The study draws on dozens of interviews with senior officials and others in many countries including Estonia, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Finland, USA, Chile, Canada, Portugal, Taiwan, Singapore, India, Bangladesh, UAE, South Korea and the UK, as well as the European Commission and UN agencies — along with roundtables and literature analysis.

The pandemic was an unprecedented event in its global impacts and in the scale of government responses. It required a myriad of policy decisions: about testing, lockdowns, masks, school closures, visiting rules at care homes and vaccinations.

Our interest is in what contributed to those decisions, and we define intelligence broadly to include data, evidence, models, tacit knowledge, foresight and creativity and innovation — all the means that can help governments make better decisions, particularly under conditions of stress and uncertainty.

Each type of intelligence played an important role. Governments needed health as well as non-health data to help understand how the virus was spreading in real time and its impacts. They needed models — for example, to judge if their hospitals were at risk of being overrun. They needed evidence — for example on whether enforcing mask-wearing would be effective. And they needed to tap into the knowledge of citizens and frontline staff quickly to spot potential problems and frictions.

Most governments had to improvise new methods of organising that intelligence, particularly as they grappled not just with the immediate health challenges, but also with the knock-on challenges to economies, communities, mental health, school systems and sectors such as hospitality.

As we show there was extraordinary innovation globally around the gathering of data, from mass serological testing to analysis of sewage, from mobilising mobile phone data to citizen generated data on symptoms. There was an equally impressive explosion of research and evidence; and innovative approaches to problem solving and creativity, from vaccine development to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

However, we also point to problems:

  • Imbalances in terms of what was attended to — with physical health given much more attention than mental health or educational impacts in models and data, which was understandable in the early phases of the crisis but more problematic later on as trade-offs had to be managed
  • Imbalances in different kinds of expertise in scientific advice and influence, for instance in who got to sit on and be heard in expert advisory committees
  • Very varied ability of countries to share information and data between tiers of government
  • Very varied ability to mobilise key sources, such as commercial data, and varied use of intelligence from outside sources, such as from other countries or from civic groups,
  • Even when there were strong sources of advice and evidence, weak capacities to synthesise multiple kinds of intelligence at the core of governments…(More)”.

The Dangers of Systems Illiteracy

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Review by Carol Dumaine: “In 1918, as the Great War was coming to an end after four bloody years of brutal conflict, an influenza pandemic began to ravage societies around the globe. While in Paris negotiating the terms of the peace agreement in the spring of 1919, evidence indicates that US president Woodrow Wilson was stricken with the flu. 

Wilson, who had been intransigent in insisting on just peace terms for the defeated nations (what he called “peace without victory”), underwent a profound change of mental state that his personal physician and closest advisors attributed to his illness. While sick, Wilson suddenly agreed to all the terms he had previously adamantly rejected and approved a treaty that made onerous demands of Germany. 

Wilson’s reversal left Germans embittered and his own advisors disillusioned. Historian John M. Barry, who recounts this episode in his book about the 1918 pandemic, The Great Influenza, observes that most historians agree “that the harshness toward Germany of the Paris peace treaty helped create the economic hardship, nationalistic reaction, and political chaos that fostered the rise of Hitler.” 

This anecdote is a vivid illustration of how a public health disaster can intersect with world affairs, potentially sowing the seeds for a future of war. Converging crises can leave societies with too little time to regroup, breaking down resilience and capacities for governance. Barry concludes from his research into the 1918 pandemic that to forestall this loss of authority—and perhaps to avoid future, unforeseen repercussions—government leaders should share the unvarnished facts and evolving knowledge of a situation. 

Society is ultimately based on trust; during the flu pandemic, “as trust broke down, people became alienated not only from those in authority, but from each other.” Barry continues, “Those in authority must retain the public’s trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one.”

Charles Weiss makes a similar argument in his new book, The Survival Nexus: Science, Technology, and World Affairs. Weiss contends that the preventable human and economic losses of the COVID-19 pandemic were the result of politicians avoiding harsh truths: “Political leaders suppressed evidence of virus spread, downplayed the importance of the epidemic and the need to observe measures to protect the health of the population, ignored the opinions of local experts, and publicized bogus ‘cures’—all to avoid economic damage and public panic, but equally importantly to consolidate political power and to show themselves as strong leaders who were firmly in control.” …(More)”.

Active Urbanism and choice architecture: Encouraging the use of challenging city routes for health and fitness

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Anna Boldina, Paul H. P. Hanel & Koen Steemers: “Inactivity is one of the major health risks in technologically developed countries. This paper explores the potential of a series of urban landscape interventions to engage people in physical activity. Online surveys were conducted with 595 participants living in the UK by inviting them to choose between conventional pavement or challenging routes (steppingstones, balancing beams, and high steps) using photorealistic images. Across four experiments, we discovered that 80% of walkers claim they would pick a challenging route in at least one of the scenarios, depending on perceived level of difficulty and design characteristics. Where a challenging option was shorter than a conventional route, this increased the likelihood of being chosen by 10%, and the presence of handrails by 12%. This suggests that people can get nudged into physical activities through minor changes to the urban landscape. We discuss implications for policy makers and urban designers…(More)”.

Abandoned: the human cost of neurotechnology failure

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Liam Drew: “…Hundreds of thousands of people benefit from implanted neurotechnology every day. Among the most common devices are spinal-cord stimulators, first commercialized in 1968, that help to ease chronic pain. Cochlear implants that provide a sense of hearing, and deep-brain stimulation (DBS) systems that quell the debilitating tremor of Parkinson’s disease, are also established therapies.

Encouraged by these successes, and buoyed by advances in computing and engineering, researchers are trying to develop evermore sophisticated devices for numerous other neurological and psychiatric conditions. Rather than simply stimulating the brain, spinal cord or peripheral nerves, some devices now monitor and respond to neural activity.

For example, in 2013, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a closed-loop system for people with epilepsy. The device detects signs of neural activity that could indicate a seizure and stimulates the brain to suppress it. Some researchers are aiming to treat depression by creating analogous devices that can track signals related to mood. And systems that allow people who have quadriplegia to control computers and prosthetic limbs using only their thoughts are also in development and attracting substantial funding.

The market for neurotechnology is predicted to expand by around 75% by 2026, to US$17.1 billion. But as commercial investment grows, so too do the instances of neurotechnology companies giving up on products or going out of business, abandoning the people who have come to depend on their devices.

Shortly after the demise of ATI, a company called Nuvectra, which was based in Plano, Texas, filed for bankruptcy in 2019. Its device — a new kind of spinal-cord stimulator for chronic pain — had been implanted in at least 3,000 people. In 2020, artificial-vision company Second Sight, in Sylmar, California, laid off most of its workforce, ending support for the 350 or so people who were using its much heralded retinal implant to see. And in June, another manufacturer of spinal-cord stimulators — Stimwave in Pompano Beach, Florida — filed for bankruptcy. The firm has been bought by a credit-management company and is now embroiled in a legal battle with its former chief executive. Thousands of people with the stimulator, and their physicians, are watching on in the hope that the company will continue to operate.

When the makers of implanted devices go under, the implants themselves are typically left in place — surgery to remove them is often too expensive or risky, or simply deemed unnecessary. But without ongoing technical support from the manufacturer, it is only a matter of time before the programming needs to be adjusted or a snagged wire or depleted battery renders the implant unusable.

People are then left searching for another way to manage their condition, but with the added difficulty of a non-functional implant that can be an obstacle both to medical imaging and future implants. For some people, including Möllmann-Bohle, no clear alternative exists.

“It’s a systemic problem,” says Jennifer French, executive director of Neurotech Network, a patient advocacy and support organization in St. Petersburg, Florida. “It goes all the way back to clinical trials, and I don’t think it’s received enough attention.”…(More)”.

How to think about policy in a polycrisis

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Article by Martin Wolf: “Welcome to the “polycrisis” — a world in which, as historian Adam Tooze says, “economic and non-economic shocks” are entangled “all the way down”. We have an inflation shock that emanates from the disruptions caused by a pandemic, the policy responses to that pandemic and an energy shock caused by a war. That war in turn is related to the breakdown in relations among great powers. Slow growth, rising inequality and over-reliance on credit have undermined political stability in many high-income democracies. The credit boom led to a great financial crisis whose outcome included a decade of ultra-low interest rates and so even more financial fragility worldwide. Adding to these stresses is the threat of climate change.

It is indeed convenient to think about the world in intellectual silos, focusing in turn on macroeconomics, finance, politics, social change, politics, disease and the environment, to the exclusion of the others. In a reasonably stable world, this may even work well. The alternative of thinking about the interactions among these aspects of experience is also too hard. But sometimes, as now, it becomes inescapable.

It is not just theoretically true that everything depends on everything else. It is a truth we can no longer ignore in practice. As my colleague Gillian Tett often warns, silos are perilous. We have to think systemically. Economists have to recognise how the economy is interconnected with other forces. Navigating today’s storms compels us to develop a wider understanding.

This is not an argument against detailed analysis of individual elements in the picture. Economists should still look carefully at the things they know about, because they are both complex and important in themselves. Thus the data and analysis in the OECD’s latest Economic Outlook continue to be both invaluable and illuminating. But, inevitably, they also omit vital aspects….(More)”.