International Development

Jonathan Taplin on New Federalism, the Left, and Technology's Impact on Government

This is the audio of an interview I conducted a while ago at the beginning of the Opening Governemnt project (now GovLab) with Jonathan Taplin of the USC Annenburg School of Communication, where he is the director of the Annenberg Innovation Center. The interview has some great ideas for our class - particularly regarding expectations of governance in a more connected age.

Collaboration & Crowdsourcing by the ICC...

At this present time the International Criminal Court (ICC) has a serious problem. This problem is growing at a rapid rate and efforts to resolve this issue are not challenging enough to where people can operate and live their lives, as they should. Human rights and rule of law should always be protected. The problem facing the ICC is its lack of prosecutions in countries with high human right violations.

 

I strongly believe the use of crowd mapping to record violations of human rights along with the collaboration of networks system in ways which law experts and the United Nations can engage in earlier on, especially in the regions of conflict can raise the number of successful prosecutions of war criminals and violators of human rights.

 

The ICC took over a century to become the institution it is today. On July 1, 2002 the International Criminal court was established with the official Courts seat in The Hague. Netherlands. The court has the international Jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression but cannot exercise jurisdiction until 2017. Since the foundation of the ICC only one person has been convicted…Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. On March 14, 2012, he was convicted of the war crime of conscripting and enlisting children under the age of 15 and using them to participate actively in crimes against humanity.

 

First solution

There needs to be a sophisticated yet affordable management information system that can adapt to a variety of conflicts and crises. One organization called Ushahidi, which means "testimony" in Swahili, was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout in early 2008. The Ushahidi platform provides excellent opportunities to engage the public and bring awareness to the human rights violations that take place.

Second solution

A second possible solution that provides a greater return on investment is building alliances with law experts in the field. Whether its an international NGO or the UN, alliance with international law experts ensures the information received from crowdsourcing will meet the requirements for use in criminal court. Coupled with the efforts of law agencies and prestigious NGOs, crowd source mapping allows better monitoring of elections and advent crisis management. Although the ICC and UN are different, they both share the common goals of eliminating, preventing and responding to mass atrocities.

 The use of eyewitness reports used by email or text messages is vital, but first relationships must be established in order to build a system that will:

1. Allow law professionals to become actively engaged and used as a filter.
2. Provide expert advice on the best approaches to prevent witnesses from being harmed by enforcing rule of law (privacy & internet security).
3. Provide creditable evidence to increase rates of conviction to local and government officials.

 

Below is a brief video of the Cambodian Genocide that occured between 1975 - 1979. This video intends to illustrate the importance of human rights and why violations are not being accounted for….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF41UXcrzMY

Big Data and Open Data: Tools & Trust

Social media has been on rapid increase for the last few years. Some would say that the government is behind with its efforts to produce a more social approach to democracy and development. Since 2009, social media has taken form in ways, which many didn’t expect. Some would say that the government hasn’t started using the social media platform as a way to bridge relationships how they are supposed. If government and social media had an offspring it would be “Big or Open Data”. Just 3 years ago, hardly anyone knew of this thing call open data and now the term is being used to explain every move of the government; whether its new legislation passed or crime prevention in Chicago, Illinois.

 

During the week of February 27, we discussed The Tools: Big Data and Open Data and how data can help to produce social change.

 

The Use of Big data is about finding connections, connections with the people around you, connections between people’s behavior and their outcomes. Big data allows you to monitor the patterns of mobility and infectious diseases so u can create vaccines that predict the patterns.

 

People now can treat the data as a tool to tract and stop pandemics making the world a healthier place. One question that arises is who owns the data? The government? The public? Yes to both…. The population, u, I, the individual has the final say so on what big data means to the world. Big Data is also a tool were watch patterns predict changes in regulations, and who people will vote for.

 

 March 15th marked the two-year anniversary of the Daraa uprising in Syria. Syria will serve as an example of how the development, diplomacy, and big data can pool resources to share information. 

During DC Social Media Week, government agencies are pushed to see how non-profits use social media to produce more impact with less cost. The U.S. government is in a unique position to catalog what is happening, and according to David Robinson, Harlan Yu, William Zeller, and Edward W. Felten, “Government Data and the Invisible Hand,” Yale Journal of Law & Technology, vol. 11, p. 160, 2009; “If the next Presidential administration really wants to embrace the potential of Internet-enabled government transparency, it should follow a counter-intuitive but ultimately compelling strategy: reduce the federal role in presenting important government information to citizens.

The use of data to inform decisions, monitor trends and predict threats is a no-brainer. Much harder is the establishing of well-resourced systems and groups to carry out the work. At a time when even large Western private companies are struggling to maximize their ROI from big data, it is certainly a challenge to apply it in the international development context when funding, infrastructure and governmental support are not always present.

- C. Outlaw MPA 

 

 

Bangladesh Safety Deal Might Make it Someone Else’s Problem

Major retailers and brands are signing on to a new safety plan for Bangladesh, in a move that has been applauded by labor and consumer groups. H&M, Inditex, PVH (owner of Calvin Klein), Tesco, Tchibo, Primark, and C&A have agreed to sign the deal.

Together, they make up a large percentage of total goods sourced from Bangladesh. H&M sources more goods from Bangladesh than any other company, and its support is what spurred other firms to sign on.

The new deal is legally binding and will last five years. It requires independent, public inspections of factories, and obliges Western firms to underwrite safety improvements. At the same time, it compels those firms to stop doing business with any factory that won't bring its facilities up to code. In all, it's the kind of package western consumers have been waiting for since November's Tazreen Fashions fire highlighted the dangerous working conditions in Bangladesh.

That fire, which killed over 100 people, was followed by other fires, deadly labor riots, and, finally, the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex, which killed almost 1000 people and led to the arrests of the building owner, factory owners, and engineers involved.

I'm excited about the new agreement, but I also wonder how it will affect the business landscape around the world. An agreement like this, which empowers unions, requires large capital upgrades, and is legally binding, will, inevitably, add to the cost of working in Bangladesh. Will firms at the bottom of barrel still be able to find profit in the country, as expectations for their behavior shift? What does it mean for a company that makes $5 jeans?

My concern with this new deal isn't necessarily about Bangladesh. Conditions will improve in that country - there will be fewer worker deaths and, if we're lucky, it'll be the first step in Bangladesh's climb up the value chain. I'm worried that the $5 jean maker will abandon Bangladesh entirely.

Maybe it'll change his equation enough that he takes another look at Pakistan, Myanmar, or another low-cost country. The market for clothes hasn't changed. Firms still expect a $5 jean. All this agreement does is increase the odds of that production moving to another country, where there's no labor agreement, no enforcement, and the same cycle of dangerous manufacturing can begin again.

If the world's retailers were serious about safety, they'd take the same deal they've cut for Bangladesh and make it universal - they'd make it part of the language in every single manufacturing contract. This is a half measure, and better than none, but Bangladesh isn't the only game in town, and raising prices there just pushes the problem down the road.

International Students Struggle to Work and Stay Legally in the U.S

I’m an international graduate student in the US, just like million other students who come from different countries to the US to pursue good education. As a major part of any good program, experience alongside studying or summer internships are highly encouraged. However, once these international students graduate, including myself they are faced with the reality of having great education and great experience but unable to stay beyond the 12 months Optional Practical Training (OPT) if provided by their program.

The one option students beside the OPT is being hired, employed and sponsored by an American company/organization. This is extremely costly for organizations and therefore it does not create an incentive for organizations to employ international students. Not only does this create a mismatch between the student’s skills (education and experience) and future employment in other countries it also creates a problem from the hosting country (US) in retaining talents.

There is a need for public policies that ensure students who are educated and have experience in this country are able to find ways to continue working in their fields legally and lessen the legal restrictions on staying in the country. This a national issue that affects a lot of people however it’s not on the agenda of the government or policy makers.

-Maha M. T

End the Age of Cruelty

Jeff Madrick, writing for Harper's Magazine, talks about the steady trend since the Reagan era of punishing the poorest groups of society and rewarding the wealthy, a phenomenon he dubs "The Age of Cruelty." More broadly, the post-1982 period has seen an erosion (disappearance?) of the social contract, and the idea that different groups of society have obligations to each other simply as a result of being citizens of the same country.

 

This idea has hit its apex since 2008, with austerity justifying a rollback of critical social programs. The call from the economists was clear, and underlined the message of the Age of Cruelty perfectly - productive citizens can't afford to subsidize the infirmities of the less productive. To each according to their ability, only.

 

Supporting this message were economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff, who put a figure on exactly how much a government owes its citizens - when government debt reaches 90% of GDP, the government has to stop spending and start cutting. At that magic point, the main obligation of the government shifts from protecting the welfare of its citizens to getting its fiscal house in order.

 

The logic is simple - above 90% of GDP, government debt produces a statistically significant slowdown in growth. Luckily, for those of us who don't like cruelty, Reinhart and Rogoff made a mistake. Some commentators have called it the "excel error heard 'round the world," as it seems R&R transposed a number, misplaced a decimal point, and turned a statistically insignificant 0.2% growth slowdown into a 2.0% growth-pocalypse!

 

This is good news and bad news. For the last 5 years, governments have pursued austerity like a grail. The consequences for growth have been dire, as falling public expenditures have created a negative feedback loop of declining consumption, declining production, lower inventory turnover, and job losses.

 

Particularly in the EU, a fixation on deficit cutting targets eclipsed the government's obligation to maintain social welfare, and an eye on short-term spending limits may have permanently damaged growth prospects in the region by stunting public investment in education and infrastructure.

 

The good news is that people are starting to talk about why so much bad public policy was based on an error-ridden document. What they're finding is that the desire to cut government came first, and the economics were cooked up to justify preexisting notions. It has exposed to real intentions of deficit cutters, who use growth talk to convince people that the road to prosperity should be built on the backs of the most vulnerable.

 

Those emissaries of austerity, who say that the richest societies the world has ever seen cannot afford to tend to their elderly, keep their roads paved, or educate their children, are finally showing their true colors. With a little luck, those greedy frauds will be run out of public life, and we can finally bring the Age of Cruelty to an end.

World We Want: UN Starts Effort to Crowdsource Next Round of MDGs

The UN has started an effort to crowdsource the world's priorities for the next set of Millennium Development Goals - a clever initiative, but one that could lead to some trouble. The model of the site poses a series of questions ("What is an acceptable social floor for those living in extreme poverty?"), provides a large quantity of resources to contextualize issues, and collates responses from site visitors.

The trends page is very interesting - illustrating the most popular responses or issuses raised by visitors. However, a deeply troubling result is already obvious - of the over 10,000 responses already collected, about 20% are from the US and UK. One of the goals of the MDGs, and of much development work of the 21st century, has been focused on turning away from the developed world for sources of priorities, and refocusing on the opinions of those who development work and aid is supposed to be helping. While asking the online crowd for priorities is certainly an interesting idea - the vast majority of users online who have regular access to the web with a modern interface (in other words, not just a simple mobile phone) is still dominated by the developed world.

However - hope is not lost. The country with the largest number of responses to date is not in Europe, is not the US, and is not even one of the BRICS - it is Zimbabwe. However - even this points to a troubling issue - will the opinion of more active countries in this system inflate their priorities? AIDS is currently the most popularly-mentioned issue on the site - and 14% of Zimbabwe's population lives with HIV or AIDS. While AIDS certainly is a pressing issue to many nations - in much of the developing world (South America, North Africa, and the Middle East), AIDS is less of a priority.

It will be interesting to see how this tool's use is picked up and evolves. While the 2015 development agenda at the UN is still likely to be set in great part by experts, this form of input could potentially be very influential. Considering the counter-intuitive nature of much of our knowledge about many of the development practices of the past, it seems wise that the UN is using this platform to ask about priorities, rather than source solutions. Ultimately, this could be a very exciting example of how to balance the needs of the crowd with the knowledge of experts.

Israeli Military Censor

I have recently heard a lot of demand to reevaluate the role of the Israeli Military Censor. Unlike

other Westrn countries, Israel uses censorship to ensure protection of classified information.  The

Israeli Military Censor role is to watch over the publication of information regarding the military

network, and, more generally, Israel’s security.  The Military Censor has the authority to suppress

information it deems “compromising” from being publicized in the media.

In 1966, the Censor and big media agreed to abide by the orders of the Military Censor, while the

agreed not to misuse its role.  Today many see this agreement as useless as the ability of the Censor

to suppress news stories in the Israeli media is essentially impossible.  The media uses the well-

known phrase “as quoted from foreign news sources," which allows them to publish stories “on

behalf of others.”  Those stories, since they were originally published outside of Israel, are not

subject to any restrictions.

Considering open data, open source, Internet, and the new agenda of governments to better share

information, we need to restructure the role of Israeli Military Censor.

Which non-profit should you donate to?

We live in a world where we yelp everywhere we go before going to read crowd-sourced reviews on various businesses. Although we go online to find movie reviews, restaurant reviews, and even nail salons reviews until recently there was no way we can find reviews on non-profits and charities.

There is a need to develop a “yelp” model for non-profits, where people share their stories and experiences rather than just looking at tax return forms to judge a non-profit. I thought this is a great idea, and after a little bit of research I realized that this website actually exists, and I wanted to share it with you and your communities. GreatNonprofits.com is a developer of tools that allow people to find, review and share information about non-profits.

 This website helps in reviewing services that are provided by the non-profits, but most importantly it’s an attempt to engage young donors. Non-profits should take advantages of technologies such as GreatNonprofits.com  to build on channels of communication with young donors who do not respond effectively with traditional fundraising techniques.

 - Maha M. T

Kickstarter and Knowing Your Audience

The Kickstarter presentation in this week's skillshare illustrated an interesting problem with the platform. Our guest speaker, who was using the platform to launch and socially-minded clothing company, had already developed a product and a base, and had in fact already done a series of sales. Kickstarter was a way for his company to offer a series of (what they called) "pre-order" products, and give their company a quick cash injection.

However, is it really a pre-order if the company has already launched? The guest speaker was by no means the only one to use this tactic - it seems very common in the fashion world. But it seems to me to be contrary to the spirit of the platform. Kickstarter, as I understood it, was designed to give the crowd an opportunity to play venture capitalist. It was a space to source investment - not purchases. Pre-orders were a specific way to incentivize investment - but not the purpose. The clothing world, however, has taken the platform and turned it into a sales rack. Even the most substantial contributors get very little "ownership" out of their investment - after a few minutes of exploring fashion-oriented Kickstarters, it seems like a common trend is to merely offer a custom designed bit of clothing (in all fairness, some do offer to add this custom clothing to their collection - so that's more like it).

It raises some interesting questions about HOW to get investments as a small e-business. Most of the successful projects I've found offer larger funders a real opportunity to impact organizational decision-making... much like a venture capitalist would sit on the board of a tech start up. It seems like the attraction of the opportunity to get in early is a lot more meaingful than "I'll be the first to get Product X" - it's about having the power to influence decision making.

As crowd-funding matures, it will be interesting to see if consumer expectations start to shift to those akin to more traditional investors.