What is PeaceTech?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Behruz Davletov, Uma Kalkar, Marine Ragnet, and Stefaan Verhulst: “From sensors to detect explosives to geographic data for disaster relief to artificial intelligence verifying misleading online content, data and technology are essential assets for peace efforts. Indeed, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war is a direct example of data, data science, and technology as a whole has been mobilized to assist and monitor conflict responses and support peacebuilding.

Yet understanding the ways in which technology can be applied for peace, and what kinds of peace promotion they can serve, as well as their associated risks remain muddled. Thus, a framework for the governance of these peace technologies—#PeaceTech—is needed at an international and transnational level to guide the responsible and purposeful use of technology and data to strengthen peace and justice initiatives.

Today, The GovLab is proud to announce the release of the “PeaceTech Topic Map: A Research Base for an Emerging Field,” an overview of the key themes and challenges of technologies used by and created for peace efforts…(More)”.

Global Review of Smart City Governance Practices

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by UN Habitat: “Through smart city initiatives, digital technologies are increasingly applied in cities to modernize city operations and transform service delivery. The ongoing digital transformation provides new opportunities but also creates challenges, and it is increasingly apparent that delivering effective urban digital services is a complex task. Nowadays, smart city projects are typically driven by technology and little attention is given to governance dynamics. In addition, the novelty and complexity of many smart city initiatives make it difficult for public sector organizations to fully grasp how to effectively manage digital transformation processes.

As many cities and public sector organizations across the world have been experimenting with smart city initiatives, their actions have generated a data-rich environment from which to learn. As such, this report features findings from a systematic literature review and a global online survey completed by approximately 300 respondents, who have reported on the smart city governance practices of more than 250 municipalities in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America.

With the objective to support both urban managers and practitioners, the report highlights several dimensions for effective smart city governance and ways to foster a people-centered approach to smart cities. It serves as a knowledge resource to present best practices, gaps in smart city governance mechanisms, and the various elements to consider when governing the planning and implementation of smart city initiatives.

The report is part of UN-Habitat’s strategy to promote a people-centered approach to digital transformation supporting local governments in establishing the right capacities, regulatory frameworks, collaborations and arrangements for using technology to advance human developments and show commitment to human rights, both in online and offline environments…(More)”.

Missions for governance: Unleashing missions beyond policy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Demos Helsinki: “How can governments pursue meaningful industrial policy in the 21st century? How can they incentivise new markets to lead the twin transition? How can they create good jobs for future disadvantaged workers?

Most importantly, can the current setup of government achieve these essential transformations?

In this white paper, we propose a way to think about and implement missions that can unleash them beyond mere policy tools, launching a new type of governance for the 21st century.

The rise of mission-oriented innovation policy (MOIP) has given policymakers a practical approach to enabling and accelerating societal, economic, and technological transformations. The main premise behind its ever-growing dissemination across global policy networks is straightforward: in the face of the challenges posed by the 21st century, traditional innovation policy is broken.

Indeed, between 2010 and 2020, governments did not invest in clean energy as much as they should have; there was slow growth in markets for education, care, and other social services; and even antivirals were underfunded, leading to a slower response to the pandemic….(More)”.

Ethical Considerations in Re-Using Private Sector Data for Migration-Related Policy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

IOM practitioner’s paper: “This paper assesses the ethical risks of using non-traditional data sources to inform migration related policymaking and suggests practical safeguards for various stages during the data cycle. The past decade has witnessed the rapid growth of non-traditional data (social media, mobile phones, satellite data, bank records, etc.) and their use in migration research and policy. While these data sources may be tempting and shed light on main migration trends, ensuring the ethical and responsible use of big data at every stage of migration research and policymaking is complex.

The recognition of the potential of new data sources for migration policy has grown exponentially in recent years. Data innovation is one of the crosscutting priorities of IOM’s Migration Data Strategy.
Further, the UN General Assembly recognises rapid technological developments and their potential in
achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration highlights the importance of harnessing data innovation to improve data and evidence for informed policies on migration. However, with big data comes big risks. New technological developments have opened new challenges, particularly, concerning data protection, individual privacy, human security,
and fundamental rights. These risks can be greater for certain migrant and displaced groups.
The identified risks are:…(More)” (see also Big Data for Migration Alliance)

Brain capital: A new vector for democracy strengthening

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the Brain Capital Alliance: “Democracies are increasingly under siege. Beyond direct external (e.g., warfare) and internal (e.g., populism, extremism) threats to democratic nations, multiple democracy-weakening factors are converging in our modern world. Brain health challenges, including mental, neurologic, and substance use disorders, social determinants of health, long COVID, undesired effects of technology, mis- and disinformation, and educational, health, and gender disparities, are associated with substantial economic and sociopolitical impediments. Herein, we argue that thriving democracies can distinguish themselves through provision of environments that enable each citizen to achieve their full brain health potential conducive to both personal and societal well-being. Gearing policymaking towards equitable and quality brain health may prove essential to combat brain challenges, promote societal cohesion, and boost economic productivity. We outline emerging policy innovations directed at building “pro-democratic brain health” across individual, communal, national, and international levels. While extensive research is warranted to further validate these approaches, brain health-directed policymaking harbors potential as a novel concept for democracy strengthening….(More)”.

Democratic Innovations From Around the World: Lessons for the West

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Richard Youngs, and Ken Godfrey: “Recent initiatives for fostering citizen participation in Europe, Australia, and Canada have attracted much attention, especially selection-based “mini-publics”—of which one form, citizens’ assemblies, has become increasingly popular. Yet new forms of participation have also emerged in other countries and regions around the world. Like the innovations in Western democracies, these are far from perfect, but they offer valuable insights for those concerned with widening the pathways to democratic participation within Western states. The European Democracy Hub ran a project on democratic innovations outside the West in order to explore these lessons. This article synthesizes findings from the project by categorizing distinctive types of citizen participation from examples around the world and teasing out their policy implications…

With citizens’ frustration with and alienation from political elites becoming more widespread and severe around the world, as manifest in a rising number of significant antigovernment protests globally, the need for innovative channels of citizen participation has become more pressing. Despite the powerful global dynamics of democratic regression, many positive forms of such participation have taken shape in the last several years. Indeed, many analysts detect that a new ethos of citizen participation is defining efforts to push back against democratic decay.

Selection-based mini-publics are establishing an especially impressive track record as one form of citizen participation. These forums choose citizens by lot to deliberate on certain policy issues. In the West, this sortition template—now routinely implemented with highly sophisticated techniques of stratified selection to ensure representation from diverse sectors of society—is seen as the gold standard of participation, as it gives all citizens an equal chance to participate and ensures debates are highly structured around preset remits or elaborate formal institutional processes….(More)”.

The Data4COVID-19 Review: Assessing the Use of Non-Traditional Data During a Pandemic Crisis

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Hannah Chafetz, Andrew J. Zahuranec, Sara Marcucci, Behruz Davletov, and Stefaan Verhulst: “As the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate, pandemics pose major challenges on all levels–with cataclysmic effects on society. 

Decision-makers from around the world have sought to mitigate the consequences of COVID-19 through the use of data, including data from non-traditional sources such as social media, wastewater, and credit card and telecommunications companies. However, there has been little research into how non-traditional data initiatives were designed or what impacts they had on COVID-19 responses. 

Over the last eight months, The GovLab, with the support of The Knight Foundation, has sought to fill this gap by conducting a study about how non-traditional data (NTD) sources have been used during COVID-19. 

On October 31st, The GovLab published the report: “The COVID-19 Review: Assessing the Use of Non-Traditional Data During a Pandemic Crisis.” The report details how decision makers around the world have used non-traditional sources through a series of briefings intended for a generalist audience. 

The briefings describe and assess how non-traditional data initiatives were designed, planned, and implemented, as well as the project results. 

Findings

The briefings uncovered several findings about why, where, when, and how NTD was used during COVID-19, including that:

  • Officials increasingly called for the use of NTD to answer questions where and when traditional data such as surveys and case data were not sufficient or could not be leveraged. However, the collection and use of traditional data was often needed to validate insights.
  • NTD sources were primarily used to understand populations’ health, mobility (or physical movements), economic activity, and sentiment of the pandemic. In comparison with previous dynamic crises, COVID-19 was a watershed moment in terms of access to and re-use of non-traditional data in those four areas.
  • The majority of NTD initiatives were fragmented and uncoordinated, reflecting the larger fragmented COVID-19 response. Many projects were focused on responding to COVID-19 after outbreaks occurred. This pattern reflected an overall lack of preparedness for the pandemic and need for the rapid development of initiatives to address its consequences.
  • NTD initiatives frequently took the form of cross-sectoral data partnerships or collaborations developed to respond to specific needs. Many institutions did not have the systems and infrastructure in place for these collaborations to be sustainable.
  • Many of the NTD initiatives involving granular, personal data were implemented without the necessary social license to do so–leading to public concerns about ethics and hindering public trust in non-traditional data. 

Stefaan Verhulst, Co-Founder and Chief R&D of The GovLab explains: “The use of NTD offers growing potential during crisis situations. When managed responsibly, NTD use can help us understand the current state of the crisis, forecast how it will progress, and respond to different aspects of it in real-time.”…(More)”.

People’s Plan for Nature

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

About: “The nature crisis affects everyone, and we believe everyone should have a say in how we solve it. The People’s Plan for Nature is the UK’s biggest ever conversation about the future of nature.

The People’s Plan for Nature will include recommendations for governments (local and national), food and farming businesses, non-governmental organisations, communities, and individuals.
 
These recommendations will be the outcome of the People’s Assembly for Nature, a citizens’ assembly that will run as part of the project. This assembly will bring together a group of people from all walks of life to have an honest conversation, find common ground and make recommendations for the protection and restoration of nature in the UK.
 
This will ensure the People’s Plan for Nature is rooted in the values, ideas and experiences of people from all corners of the UK…(More)”.

Improving Access and Management of Public Transit ITS Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the National Academies: “With the proliferation of automated vehicle location (AVL), automated passenger counters (APCs), and automated fare collection (AFC), transit agencies are collecting increasingly granular data on service performance, ridership, customer behavior, and financial recovery. While granular intelligent transportation systems (ITS) data can meaningfully improve transit decision-making, transit agencies face many challenges in accessing, validating, storing, and analyzing these data sets. These challenges are made more difficult in that the tools for managing and analyzing transit ITS data generally cannot, at this point, be shared across transit agencies because of variation in data collection systems and data formats. Multiple vendors provide ITS hardware and software, and data formats vary by vendor. Moreover, agencies may employ a patchwork of ITS that has been acquired and modified over time, leading to further consistency challenges.
Standardization of data structures and tools can help address these challenges. Not only can standardization streamline data transfer, validation, and database structuring, it encourages the development of analysis tools that can be used across transit agencies, as has been the case with route and schedule data, standardized in the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) format..(More)”.

Evaluating Social Innovation Prototypes

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Guide by Social Innovation Canada: “…practical resource for those involved with social research and development and who would like to create, test, and learn from prototypes. This how-to guide explores 12 principles to guide the testing process, five key steps for carrying out the process, and includes tables that summarize a variety of prototyping techniques, evaluation methods, and sampling strategies. Learn how to effectively use prototypes and test promising solutions to address social challenges….(More)”