Urban Creativity Now

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Playbook by Urban Change Academy: “The coronavirus pandemic has changed city life almost beyond recognition. Many people are struggling with loss, financial insecurity, and loneliness. At the same time, the crisis has made many things possible that were previously unthinkable or difficult to imagine – parks became open-air fitness studios, car parks turned into playgrounds, exhibition halls changed into hospital wards. Bicycles have been given more space on the streets in many cities, retailers and restaurateurs have become more creative and found new ways to serve their customers despite shop closures.

Many of these things have come about spontaneously, without any underlying strategies or development plans. they demonstrate a creativity we have not seen that we have not seen in cities for a long time. As the Urban Change Academy, we were wondering: what can cities learn from these projects? This playbook reflects that approach.

Urban Creativity Now is a collection of impulses, observations, and perspectives on the Covid pandemic and how it is changing our cities. In three parts, we explore the question of how cities and citizens are dealing with this crisis and what options for action arise from it…(More)”.

Mapping the Demand Side of Computational Social Science for Policy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Alonso Raposo, M., et al: “This report aims at collecting novel and pressing policy issues that can be addressed by Computational Social Science (CSS), an emerging discipline that is rooted in the increasing availability of digital trace data and computational resources and seeks to apply data science methods to social sciences. The questions were sourced from researchers at the European Commission who work at the interface between science and policy and who are well positioned to formulate research questions that are likely to anticipate future policy needs.

The attempt is to identify possible directions for Computational Social Science starting from the demand side, making it an effort to consider not only how science can ultimately provide policy support — “Science for Policy – but also how policymakers can be involved in the process of defining and co-creating the CSS4P agenda from the outset — ‘Policy for Science’. The report is expected to raise awareness on the latest scientific advances in Computational Social Science and on its potential for policy, integrating the knowledge of policymakers and stimulating further questions in the context of future developments of this initiative…(More)”.

Democracy Report 2022: Autocratization Changing Nature?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem): “This Democracy Report documents several signs that autocratization is changing nature. With five military coups and one self-coup, 2021 featured an increase in coups unprecedented over the past two decades. These coups contributed to driving the uptick in the number of closed autocracies. They also seem to signal a shift toward emboldened actors, given the previous decline in coups during the 21st century.
Polarization and government misinformation are also increasing. These trends are interconnected. Polarized publics are more likely to demonize political opponents and distrust information from diverse sources, and mobilization shifts as a result. The increase in misinformation and polarization further signals what may prove to be a changing nature of autocratization in the world today. We discuss this shift in detail in the third part of the report: “Autocratization Changing Nature?”.
Another sign of emboldened political leaders is the increasing number of countries where critical, formal aspects of democracy are eroding. The autonomy of institutions such as Election Management Bodies (EMBs) are now attacked and undermined in many autocratzing countries alongside the judiciary and the legislature. This year’s Democracy Report documents such changes.
The Democracy Report 2022 is published along with version 12 of the V-Dem dataset. The dataset is produced by the worldwide V-Dem collaboration and is based on assessments by over 3,700 experts from more than 180 countries, resulting in over 30 million data points. The Democracy Report 2022 is authored by a team at the V-Dem Institute, and we alone are accountable for its contents.
The Democracy Report 2022 analyzes the evidence from three perspectives. The first part examines the state of the world in 2021 based on the Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) and the Regimes of the World (RoW) Index. The second part of the report focuses on countries that are in a process of changing. The third part presents data on coups, polarization, and disinformation, all of which signal that the fundamental dynamics of the current wave of autocratization may be changing.
In summary: The worldwide wave of autocratization is deepening, engulfing more countries, and seems to be changing nature…(More)”.

Technology rules? The advent of new technologies in the justice system

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by The Justice and Home Affairs Committee (House of Lords): “In recent years, and without many of us realising it, Artificial Intelligence has begun to permeate every aspect of our personal and professional lives. We live in a world of big data; more and more decisions in society are being taken by machines using algorithms built from that data, be it in healthcare, education, business, or consumerism. Our Committee has limited its investigation to only one area–how these advanced technologies are used in our justice system. Algorithms are being used to improve crime detection, aid the security categorisation of prisoners, streamline entry clearance processes at our borders and generate new insights that feed into the entire criminal justice pipeline.

We began our work on the understanding that Artificial Intelligence (AI), used correctly, has the potential to improve people’s lives through greater efficiency, improved productivity. and in finding solutions to often complex problems. But while acknowledging the many benefits, we were taken aback by the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence tools potentially being used without proper oversight, particularly by police forces across the country. Facial recognition may be the best known of these new technologies but in reality there are many more already in use, with more being developed all the time.

When deployed within the justice system, AI technologies have serious implications for a person’s human rights and civil liberties. At what point could someone be imprisoned on the basis of technology that cannot be explained? Informed scrutiny is therefore essential to ensure that any new tools deployed in this sphere are safe, necessary, proportionate, and effective. This scrutiny is not happening. Instead, we uncovered a landscape, a new Wild West, in which new technologies are developing at a pace that public awareness, government and legislation have not kept up with.
Public bodies and all 43 police forces are free to individually commission whatever tools they like or buy them from companies eager to get in on the burgeoning AI market. And the market itself is worryingly opaque. We were told that public bodies often do not know much about the systems they are buying and will be implementing, due to the seller’s insistence on commercial confidentiality–despite the fact that many of these systems will be harvesting, and relying on, data from the general public.
This is particularly concerning in light of evidence we heard of dubious selling practices and claims made by vendors as to their products’ effectiveness which are often untested and unproven…(More)”.

Evidence is a policymaker’s biggest weapon

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Jacquelyn Zhang: “Fundamentally, public policy is supposed to address serious social problems. However, poorly designed policies exist. Often this happens when a well-intentioned policy generates unexpected and unintended consequences, and sometimes, these consequences leave policymakers farther away from their goal than when they started.

Consider just a few examples.

The first is the impact of an immigration law that was used in the United States ostensibly to control the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country. The controversial bill imposes extreme restrictions on undocumented immigrants in the state of Alabama and limits every aspect of immigrants’ lives.

By employing a synthetic control methodology, the bill proved to have a substantial and negative unintended effect – an increase in violent crimes. This could be linked back to the bill because while violent crime increased, property crime did not.

This may be because the passage of one of the country’s strictest anti-immigration laws signalled to the community that the system had more tolerance for discrimination against undocumented immigrants in Alabama, fuelling distrust and eventually violent conflict.

This is not a freak event either. Policymakers know that enacting laws doesn’t just change the wording of legislation. It shapes social norms, prescribes attitudes, and affects community behaviour. Of course, this is also why good policy-making can be so productive…(More)”.

Artificial Intelligence for Children

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WEF Toolkit: “Children and youth are surrounded by AI in many of the products they use in their daily lives, from social media to education technology, video games, smart toys and speakers. AI determines the videos children watch online, their curriculum as they learn, and the way they play and interact with others.

This toolkit, produced by a diverse team of youth, technologists, academics and business leaders, is designed to help companies develop trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) for children and youth and to help parents, guardians, children and youth responsibly buy and safely use AI products.

AI can be used to educate and empower children and youth and have a positive impact on society. But children and youth can be especially vulnerable to the potential risks posed by AI, including bias, cybersecurity and lack of accessibility. AI must be designed inclusively to respect the rights of the child user. Child-centric design can protect children and youth from the potential risks posed by the technology.

AI technology must be created so that it is both innovative and responsible. Responsible AI is safe, ethical, transparent, fair, accessible and inclusive. Designing responsible and trusted AI is good for consumers, businesses and society. Parents, guardians and adults all have the responsibility to carefully select ethically designed AI products and help children use them safely.

What is at stake? AI will determine the future of play, childhood, education and societies. Children and youth represent the future, so everything must be done to support them to use AI responsibly and address the challenges of the future.

This toolkit aims to help responsibly design, consume and use AI. It is designed to help companies, designers, parents, guardians, children and youth make sure that AI respects the rights of children and has a positive impact in their lives…(More)”.

Going Digital Toolkit

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OECD Toolkit: “The ongoing digital transformation of the economy and society holds many promises to spur innovation, generate efficiencies and improve services, and in doing so boost growth. Digital technologies empower people by increasing access to information and enabling new forms of social engagement.

Yet such benefits come with other challenges as digital technologies change the nature and structure of organisations, markets and communities, and raise concerns about equity and inclusion. It is essential that people, firms and governments come together to put digital technologies and data to work for economic and social well-being.

How should platform work and app-based ride services be regulated? How can we measure digital well-being? What are the competition effects of consumer data? The OECD Going Digital Toolkit includes indicators, policy guidance and related publications to answer these questions and help countries realise the promises of digital transformation for all.

It also contains Going Digital Toolkit notes that identify innovative approaches to addressing the most pressing policy and measurement challenges of the digital age…(More)”.

Data-Informed Societies Achieving Sustainability: Tasks for the Global Scientific, Engineering, and Medical Communities

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Proceedings by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine: “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in 2015 by all United Nations Member States, offers a “shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” The Agenda outlines 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which address a range of global challenges, including poverty, inequality, climate change, and environmental degradation, among others. Advances in technology and the proliferation of data are providing new opportunities for monitoring and tracking the progress of the SDGs. Yet, with these advances come significant challenges, such as a lack infrastructure, knowledge, and capacity to support big data…(More)“.

Cities4Cities: new matchmaking platform launched to support Ukrainian local and regional authorities

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Council of Europe: “A new matchmaking online platform, Cities4Cities, developed to help Ukrainian cities was launched in Strasbourg today. The platform is a free online exchange tool; it allows local authorities in Ukraine and in the rest of Europe to share their needs and offers related to local infrastructure and get in direct contact to receive practical help.

The platform was launched at the initiative of Bernd Vöhringer (Germany, EPP/CCE), President of the Chamber of Local Authorities of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities and Mayor of the city of Sindelfingen, with the support of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

Bernd Vöhringer explained that the need for co-ordination of support action coming from the local level became very clear to him after the visit in the end of March to the Polish twin city of Sindelfingen, Chełm, situated near the Ukrainian border where he saw first-hand the “urgent need for material, financial and human resources support”. “The platform will be a place to match the demands/needs of Ukrainian cities with the capacity, know-how and supply of other European cities,” he noted, “It will enable faster and more efficient support to our Ukrainian friends and partners”.

Secretary General of the Congress, Andreas Kiefer, said that the Congress “welcomes the efforts of local and regional authorities of the member States of the Council of Europe and their associations in support for their Ukrainian counterparts and citizens”, and the Cities4Cities initiative is an example of such result-oriented solidarity action at the local level. “In the recently adopted Declaration the Congress stressed that democracy, multilevel governance and human rights are stronger than war, and reiterated its firm stand by Ukraine and its people”, Kiefer concluded.

Ambassador Borys Tarasyuk, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the Council of Europe, stressed that the initiative will serve well the purpose of providing practical assistance to the most vulnerable, amidst the immense human tragedy and challenges, and will complement the political support and solidarity expressed by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities and the Council of Europe as a whole…(More)”.

What counts’ as accountability, and who decides?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Working Paper by Jonathan Fox: “Accountability is often treated as a magic bullet, an all-purpose solution to a very wide range of problems—from corrupt politicians or the quality of public service provision to persistent injustice and impunity. The concept has become shorthand to refer to diverse efforts to address problems with the exercise of power. In practice, the accountability idea is malleable, ambiguous — and contested.

This working paper unpacks diverse understandings of accountability ideas, using the ‘keywords’ approach. This tradition takes everyday big ideas whose meanings are often taken for granted and makes their subtexts explicit. The proposition here is that ambiguous or contested language can either constrain or enable possible strategies for promoting accountability. After all, different potential coalition partners may use the same term with different meanings—or may use different terms to communicate the same idea. Indeed, the concept’s fundamental ambiguity is a major reason why it can be difficult to communicate ideas about accountability across disciplines, cultures, and languages. The goal here is to inform efforts to find common ground between diverse potential constituencies for accountable governance.

This analysis is informed by dialogue with advocates and reformers from many countries and sectors, many of whom share their ideas in blogposts on the Accountability Keywords website (see also #AccountabilityKeyword on social media). Both the working paper and blogposts reflect on accountability-related words and sayings that resonate with popular cultures, to get a better handle on what sticks.

The format of the working paper is nonlinear, designed so that readers can go right to the keywords that spark their interest:

  • The introduction maps the landscape of accountability keywords.
  • Section 2 addresses what counts as accountability?
  • Section 3 identifies big concepts that overlap with accountability but are not synonyms- such as good governance, democracy, responsiveness and responsibility.
  • Section 4 shows the relevance of accountability adjectives by spelling out different ways in which the idea is understood.
  • Section 5 unpacks widely used, emblematic keywords in the field.
  • Section 6 considers more specialized keywords, focusing on examples that serve as shorthand for big ideas within specific communities of practice.
  • Section 7 brings together a range of widely-used accountability sayings, from the ancient to the recently-invented—illustrating the enduring and diverse nature of accountability claims.
  • Section 8 makes a series of propositions for discussion…(More)”.