Paper by Khaled Moustafa in Cities: “The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic should teach us some lessons at health, environmental and human levels toward more fairness, human cohesion and environmental sustainability. At a health level, the pandemic raises the importance of housing for everyone particularly vulnerable and homeless people to protect them from the disease and against other similar airborne pandemics. Here, I propose to make good use of big data along with 3D construction printers to construct houses and solve some major and pressing housing needs worldwide. Big data can be used to determine how many people do need accommodation and 3D construction printers to build houses accordingly and swiftly. The combination of such facilities- big data and 3D printers- can help solve global housing crises more efficiently than traditional and unguided construction plans, particularly under environmental and major health crises where health and housing are tightly interrelated….(More)”.
Africa has a growing food security problem: why it can’t be fixed without proper data
Simon Roberts and Jason Bell at the Conversation: “The COVID-19 pandemic and consequent lockdown measures have had a huge negative impact on producers and consumers. Food production has been disrupted, and incomes have been lost. But a far more devastating welfare consequence of the pandemic could be reduced access to food.
A potential rise in food insecurity is a key policy point for many countries. The World Economic Forum has stated this pandemic is set to “radically exacerbate food insecurity in Africa”. This, and other supplier shocks, such as locust swarms in East Africa, have made many African economies more dependent on externally sourced food.
As the pandemic continues to spread, the continued functioning of regional and national food supply chains is vital to avoid a food security crisis in countries dependent on agriculture. This is true in terms of both nutrition and livelihoods. Many countries in Southern and East African economies are in this situation.
The integration of regional economies is one vehicle for alleviating pervasive food security issues. But regional integration can’t be achieved without the appropriate support for investment in production, infrastructure and capabilities.
And, crucially, there must be more accurate and timely information about food markets. Data on food prices are crucial for political and economic stability. Yet they are not easily accessible.
A study by the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development highlights how poor and inconsistent pricing data severely affects the quality of any assessment of agricultural markets in the Southern and East African region….(More)”
Where are there gaps in gender data in five Latin American and Caribbean countries?
Data2X: “This report builds on our 2019 technical report, Bridging the Gap: Mapping Gender Data Availability in Africa, but shifts the geographic focus to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
It reports on the availability of gender data in Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Paraguay at the international, national, and microdata levels, and it assesses the availability of 93 gender indicators, their disaggregations, and their frequency of observation in international and national databases and publications.
Additionally, with the assistance of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC), the report documents the availability of statistical indicators to support gender development plans in the five countries.
Through this report, we hope to help move the development community one step closer to producing high-quality and policy-relevant gender indicators to inform better decisions….Read the report.“
Mapping the new era of digital activism
About: “Over the past seven months the team at the Change.org Foundation have been working from home to support campaigns created in response to COVID-19. During this unprecedented time in history, millions of people, more than ever before, used our platform to share their stories and fight for their communities.
The Pandemic Report 2020 is born out of the need to share those stories with the world. We assembled a cross-functional team within the Foundation to dig into our platform data. We spotted trends, followed patterns and learned from the analysis we collected from country teams.
This work started with the hypothesis that the Coronavirus pandemic may have started a new chapter in digital activism history.
The data points to a new era, with the pandemic acting as a catalyst for citizen engagement worldwide….(More)”.
Making Open Development Inclusive: Lessons from IDRC Research
Book edited by Matthew L. Smith and Ruhiya Kristine Seward: “A decade ago, a significant trend in using and supporting open practices emerged in international development. “Open development” describes initiatives as wide-ranging as open government and data, open science, open education, and open innovation. The driving theory was that these types of open practices enable more inclusive processes of human development. This volume, drawing on ten years of empirical work and research, analyzes how open development has played out in practice.
Focusing on development practices in the Global South, the contributors assess the crucial questions of who is able to participate and benefit from open practices, and who cannot. Examining a wide range of cases, they offer a macro analysis of how open development ecosystems are governed, and evaluate the inclusiveness of a variety of applications, including creating open educational resources, collaborating in science and knowledge production, and crowdsourcing information….(More)”.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) – Is Blockchain a True Savior in This Pandemic Crisis
Paper by Ajay Chawla and Sandra Ro: “The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted virtually all businesses, but the effect has not been stable yet. While the current disruption may present challenges to the blockchain industry in the short term, it will also unlock new opportunities in the mid and longer-term. By providing help in the COVID-19 crisis and recovery, blockchain can play a pivotal role in accelerating post-crisis digital transformation initiatives and solving those problems highlighted in the current system.
Of course, no one could have foreseen the unprecedented upheaval caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic which has almost disrupted and dislocated economies and ecosystems across the planet but COVID-19 has brought supply chains to their knees.
Nevertheless, there are some bright spots where blockchain is used to combat the effects of COVID-19 and aid in the recovery process. These innovative use cases can demonstrate the benefits of blockchain to a wider audience.
Organizations including the World Health Organisation (WHO), Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, among other tech companies, government agencies, and international bodies are all working together to develop the blockchain-based platforms and solutions.
Blockchain technology is anchored by its ability to enable decentralized sharing of verified, trusted, and secure information among individuals or organizations. Furthermore, it can be paired with critical security and cryptography to protect the privacy of the users and individuals contributing data while still providing provenance and trust in the shared data.
By providing help in the COVID-19 crisis and recovery, blockchain can play a pivotal role in accelerating post-crisis digital transformation initiatives and solving those problems highlighted in the current system.
However, at the present moment, blockchain is not the panacea of all the problems. While the promise and potential of blockchain are undoubtedly transformative, it is still in the nascence of its evolution.
Keeping a tab on this technology and our capacities is the right direction we can head towards….(More)”.
Sandboxing Nature: How Regulatory Sandboxes Could Help Restore Species, Enhance Water Quality and Build Better Habitats Faster
White Paper by Phoebe Higgins & Timothy Male: “Late in 2017, the United Kingdom’s energy regulator, Ofgem, gave fast approval for a new project allowing residents to buy and sell renewable energy from solar panels and batteries within their own apartment buildings. Normally, this would not be legal since UK energy rules dictate that locally generated energy can only be used by the owner or sold back to the grid at a relatively low price. However, the earlier establishment of a regulatory sandbox for such energy delivery modernizations created a path to try something new and get it approved quickly. In April 2018, only a few months after project initiation, the first peer-to-peer energy trades within apartment complexes started.
Energy policy is not the only space where rules need fast modification to make allowances for all the novelty arising in the world today. The protection and restoration of our water, healthy soil and wildlife resources are static processes, starved for creativity. A United Nations’ panel recently reported on the extinction risks that face more than one million species around the globe. In a 2009 National Rivers and Streams Assessment, the EPA reported that 46 percent of U.S. waterways were in ‘poor’ biological condition, and more than 40 percent were polluted with high levels of nitrogen or phosphorus.
Innovators have big ideas that could help with these problems, but ponderous regulatory systems and older generations of bureaucrats aren’t used to the fast pace of new technologies, tools and products. Often, it is a simple thing—one word or phrase in a policy or regulation—that is a barrier to a new technology or technique being widely used. However, one sentence can be just as hard and slow to change as a whole law. Rather than simply accept this regulatory status quo, we believe in the need to find, nurture and learn from new concepts even when it means deliberately
breaking old rules.
Regulatory sandboxes like the one in the United Kingdom open the door to testing new approaches within a controlled environment. While they don’t ensure success, they make it possible for new technologies and tools to be explored in real-world settings. Not just so that innovators can learn, but also to allow government bureaucracies to catch up to the present and adapt to the future. Our planet and country need more opportunities to do this….(More)“
Data Collaboratives
Andrew Young and Stefaan Verhulst at The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying and Public Affairs: “The rise of the open data movement means that a growing amount of data is today being broken out of information silos and released or shared with third parties. Yet despite the growing accessibility of data, there continues to exist a mismatch between the supply of, and demand for, data (Verhulst & Young, 2018). This is because supply and demand are often widely dispersed – spread across government, the private sector, and civil society – meaning that those who need data do not know where to find it, and those who release data do not know how to effectively target it at those who can most effectively use it (Susha, Janssen, & Verhulst, 2017). While much commentary on the data era’s shortcomings focuses on issues such as data glut (Buchanan & Kock, 2001), misuse of data (Solove & Citron, 2017), or algorithmic bias (Hajian, Bonchi, & Castillo, 2016), this mismatch between supply and demand is at least equally problematic, resulting in tremendous inefficiencies and lost potential.
Data collaboratives, when designed responsibly (Alemanno, 2018), can help to address such shortcomings. They draw together otherwise siloed data – such as, for example, telecom data, satellite imagery, social media data, financial data – and a dispersed range of expertise. In the process, they help match supply and demand, and ensure that the appropriate institutions and individuals are using and analyzing data in ways that maximize the possibility of new, innovative social solutions (de Montjoye, Gambs, Blondel, et al., 2018)….(More)”.
Landlord Tech Watch
About: “Landlord Tech—what the real estate industry describes as residential property technology, is leading to new forms of housing injustice. Property technology, or “proptech,” has grown dramatically since 2008, and applies to residential, commercial, and industrial buildings, effectively merging the real estate, technology, and finance industries. By employing digital surveillance, data collection, data accumulation, artificial intelligence, dashboards, and platform real estate in tenant housing and neighborhoods, Landlord Tech increases the power of landlords while disempowering tenants and those seeking shelter.
There are few laws and regulations governing the collection and use of data in the context of Landlord Tech. Because it is generally sold to landlords and property managers, not tenants, Landlord Tech is often installed without notifying or discussing potential harms with tenants and community members. These harms include the possibility that sensitive and personal data can be handed over to the police, ICE, or other law enforcement and government agencies. Landlord Tech can also be used to automate evictions, racial profiling, and tenant harassment. In addition, Landlord Tech is used to abet real estate speculation and gentrification, making buildings more desirable to whiter and wealthier tenants, while feeding real estate and tech companies with property – be that data or real estate. Landlord Tech tracking platforms have increasingly been marketed to landlords as solutions to Covid-19, leading to new forms of residential surveillance….(More)”.
Governance responses to disinformation: How open government principles can inform policy options
OECD paper by Craig Matasick, Carlotta Alfonsi and Alessandro Bellantoni: “This paper provides a holistic policy approach to the challenge of disinformation by exploring a range of governance responses that rest on the open government principles of transparency, integrity, accountability and stakeholder participation. It offers an analysis of the significant changes that are affecting media and information ecosystems, chief among them the growth of digital platforms. Drawing on the implications of this changing landscape, the paper focuses on four policy areas of intervention: public communication for a better dialogue between government and citizens; direct responses to identify and combat disinformation; legal and regulatory policy; and media and civic responses that support better information ecosystems. The paper concludes with proposed steps the OECD can take to build evidence and support policy in this space…(More)”.