So it all kicked off in Myanmar this week, except that it didn’t, because the military regime has managed to bungle the response to Cyclone Nargis. We could get into a long discussion about the whys and wherefores, and there’s some frightening talk about the “right to respond” over-riding sovereignty, but let’s stay focused on [...]...
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It’s the time of year when NetHope like to get together and stare at hardware until it breaks. That’s right, the NetHope Summit 2008 is on again, this time hosted by Cisco - and once again, David Goodman of IRC is blogging from the conference....
Katrin Verclas at MobileActive and Sheila Kinkade (of ShareIdeas.org) have finished Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in Mobile Use by NGOs [pdf]. The report covers a wide range of uses, including public health, advocacy and disaster response, with some interesting case studies (including the recent post-election riots in Kenya). You can read more about...
Well, not yet, but they will [pdf]. Janet Ginsburg explains the development of the idea of the Humanitarian Technology Review, while Bruno Giussani covers the recent TED breakfast, where Eric Rasmussen gave an update on InSTEDD.
Initially the idea of a Humanitarian Technology Review sounds like a good idea - if it’s done right. The first two questions - remember the first two questions, everybody! - are: who is the target audience, and what do you want them to do with the information you’re providing? The briefing paper I linked to above says
The Review’s readers, like the Review itself, span many niches: medical researchers, software developers, policy-makers, funders, doctors, veterinarians, communities trying to prepare for or reeling from disasters - even other media....
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No sooner had I written yesterday’s post about digital security than the New York Times has a piece by Nicholas Kristol on how the Save Darfur campaign website has been under attack recently - from Chinese IP addresses.
As the coalition’s China advocacy campaign has intensified, officials have noticed increasingly sophisticated and subversive attempts to intercept emails and infect computers with malicious programs.
Kristol relies mainly on innuendo to suggest that the Chinese government might be behind the attacks, with very little evidence to support the accusation. From a technology point of view, though, it’s irrelevant who’s responsible - this is a cautionary tale for NGOs and other organisations. We can enjoy the benefits that technology brings - but we also need...
Suppose you are concerned about children in Africa dying from preventable diseases. You want to donate money to a charity that is working to reduce the toll. But there are many charities doing that. How do you choose?The first thing that many people ask about charities is, “How much of my donation is spent on administration?” In the United States, that figure is readily available from Charity Navigator, a Web site that has five million users. But the information is taken from forms that the charities themselves complete and send to the tax authorities. No one checks the forms, and the proportions allocated to administration and program expenses are easily massaged with a little creative accounting. Worse still, that figure, even if accurate, tells you nothing about the charity’s...
“From now on, we will organise activities every 12 March to condemn cyber-censorship throughout the world,” Reporters Without Borders said. “A response of this kind is needed to the growing tendency to crack down on bloggers and to close websites."“Today, the first time this day is being marked, we are giving all Internet users the opportunity to demonstrate in places were protests are not normally possible. We hope many will come and protest in virtual versions of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, Cuba’s Revolution Square or on the streets of Rangoon, in Burma. At least 62 cyber-dissidents are currently imprisoned worldwide, while more than 2,600 websites, blogs or discussions forums were closed or made inaccessible in 2007.”See full...
Ed Granger-Happ is taking a sabbatical from his job as CIO of Save the Children US, and spending the next few months as an executive fellow and the CIO-in-Residence at the Center for Digital Strategies at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. This is great news for Ed, and for the Center as well, since Ed has a track record of innovation that will hopefully encourage some of the Tuck staff and students to get more engaged in our sector. Even better, he’s started blogging as he begins the residency (I have no idea who managed to persuade him to commit to that…) and I hope that he’ll keep posting on a regular basis at his Dartmouth Fellowship blog....
The audacity of the Gates Foundation may have unintended consequences, but things would be worse if UN bureaucracies still dominated the fieldIs it possible—even in theory—for an organisation to work too hard for the benefit of humanity, or to devote too much money to the eradication of a deadly disease? To judge by some of the recent bickering between leading players in the field of global health, there are serious people who in answer to those questions would say, “paradoxically enough, yes.”At the heart of the argument is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has often been called the biggest philanthropic organisation—at least among those whose accounts and internal workings are open to public scrutiny—in the world. Since Mr and Mrs Gates (pictured above) established...
In the summer of 2005, Miles Gilburne and Nina Zolt had long talks over dinner in their Washington home about what to do next. For more than six years, Mr. Gilburne, a former AOL executive, and his wife, Ms. Zolt, a former lawyer, had supported a philanthropy that used books and online tools to enhance skills of inner-city students.Bill Gates of Microsoft and Muhammad Yunus, who won a Nobel for his microfinance venture, have been pioneers in harnessing business means for socially conscious ends. The Gates Foundation treats its grants like venture capital investments.The program, which Ms. Zolt directed, had been moderately successful. Students liked writing online about books and sharing their ideas with Internet pen pals, including adult mentors. Many teachers embraced the project,...
Tom asked me to elaborate on a point about NGO technology choices and (despite the fact that he’s failed to deliver the blog posts he promised, ahem) I think it’s worth putting something out there. I haven’t seen anything written about the issue of NGO technology markets anywhere else, but it seems to be a key issue given the recent development of some key applications and platforms. Basically the problem is this: the humanitarian community (but particularly NGOs) seems to make quite poor choices in terms of software. We then have to live with legacy software and all sorts of compatibility issues, while we lag behind developments such as Web2.0 and tend to deploy the sort of technology that only increases the gap between ourselves and our beneficiaries.
To some extent...
The world has woken up to the environmental challenges facing it and is moving towards a "vibrant sustainable economy," the Worldwatch research group said Wednesday in its "State of the World" report."There are signs that a vibrant sustainable economy is being created, the product of an extraordinary amd unprecedented wave of innovation that is emerging in sectors like NGOs, consumer groups and governments and spreading to the business and finance worlds," Worldwatch president Chris Flavin told reporters.The innovations have come as an answer to the growing threat to the global economy posed by environmental problems such as climate change, Flavin told several dozen reporters gathered in Washington, as the US capital basked in spring-like weather in January."The big question is, is the...
California’s ambitious energy conservation legislation has created an unusual challenge for the state’s utility companies: to get customers to consume less of their product. Laws that reward utilities for meeting energy reduction targets and punish them for missing the goals have led to unusual business tactics. “It’s a strange business,” Roland Risser, the head of customer energy efficiency for Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), told the Wall Street Journal. “You have to do gymnastics to get things moving forward.”To reduce energy demand for lighting, California utilities have spent millions of dollars subsidizing compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). The energy-efficient light bulbs, which can cost several dollars elsewhere, are branded with the utilities’ logos and sell for as...
In State of the World 2008: Innovations for a Sustainable Economy, researchers with the Worldwatch Institute and other leading experts highlight an array of economic innovations that offer new opportunities for long-term prosperity. For example: * In 2006, an estimated $52 billion was invested in wind power, biofuels, and other renewable energy sources, up 33 percent from 2005. Preliminary estimates indicate that the figure soared as high as $66 billion in 2007. * Carbon trading is growing even more explosively, reaching an estimated $30 billion in 2006, nearly triple the amount traded in 2005. * Innovative companies are revolutionizing industrial production while also saving money: for example, chemical giant DuPont cut its greenhouse gas emissions 72 percent below 1991 levels...
After much urging and dire threats, the global economy, much like a stubborn and temperamental toddler, is starting to reluctantly turn towards sustainability, according to the "State of the World 2008" report released by the Worldwatch Institute Wednesday."Innovative green efforts by governments and business are becoming commonplace," said Gary Gardner of Worldwatch, a U.S.-based environmental think tank."While green projects are no longer marginal, they are still a long ways from being mainstream," Gardner, co-director of the report, an annual summary that usually focuses on documenting environmental declines around the world, told IPS.The report describes a host of new economic opportunities that are attracting capital. An estimated 52 billion dollars was invested in renewable energy...
Transparency International award recognises an international anti-bribery leader and a grassroots activistA Vietnamese grassroots anti-corruption activist and a leading legal expert working against international bribery have been chosen as winners of the 2007 Transparency International (TI) Integrity Awards, TI announced today. TI is the global anti-corruption organisation with approximately 100 national chapters worldwide.Sincere retiring in 1984, Le Hien Duc, a Vietnamese school-teacher, has become a resourceful anti-corruption fighter by filing complaints and helping fellow citizens to challenge petty bribing and large-scale graft. Her respect for authority ends where corruption begins. Duc has tracked down high and low-level officials through different means, at home or in the office,...
I’m Tom Longley, and for the next few months I’ll be guest blogging here at humanitarian.info. My own background is in law, and I have been working in the human rights sector since 1999. After NGO field work investigating crimes against humanity in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, and then managing Aidworkers.Net for a while, I’m presently consulting for a neat NGO called HURIDOCS.
A key theme of this blog is how international and governmental humanitarian agencies develop and incorporate ICT into their field work. Through his writing, Paul has tracked how they try to balance techno-optimism and the huge potential of new tech tools, with the reality of organisational cultures and relentless working environments. After listening to me rant and rave talk about very similar issues I was facing...
Anti-corruption campaigners condemn lethal link between corruption and human rights abuses at moving ceremony attended by Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson and Graça MachelTransparency International’s Managing Director, Cobus de Swardt today joined a group of former world leaders such as Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson and Graça Machel in a moving ceremony held in Cape Town’s historic former slave quarter to launch the Every Human Has Rights campaign and mark International Human Rights Day. De Swardt’s unmistakable message: “Every human has the right to live in a society free of corruption. And no corrupt society can guarantee human rights.”“Corruption has greased the wheels of exploitation and injustice since time immemorial, and the great human tragedies of recent history –...
Global Corruption Barometer 2007: Political parties and parliaments seen as institutions most compromised by corruption worldwidePoor families are hit hardest by demands for bribes in developed as well as developing countries, according to Transparency international’s Global Corruption Barometer 2007. The public opinion survey, published today ahead of International Anti-Corruption Day on 9 December, also found that citizens in countries across the globe continue to see political parties and parliaments as the institutions most compromised by corruption.The Barometer, which surveys 63,199 respondents in 60 countries, offers a broad spectrum of data on common experiences of corruption, including which institutions most frequently demand bribes, where citizens see the greatest degree of...
After holding out for two weeks, both Canada and Australia finally caved in and agreed at the climate talks in Bali to support a 25-40% emissions reduction target by 2020."It's good to see Australia starting to take a more progressive role on climate change. We had concerns that Australia would play a wrecker role in Bali, but at the very end they did the right thing," said Stephen Campbell, Greenpeace Australia Pacific Campaigns Director.He said the Federal Government will now have to take its emission reduction commitments seriously. It should follow New Zealand's example and call a moratorium on any new coal-fired power stations."We have the right words - now it's time to see the right actions", said Stephen Campbell, Campaigns Director of Greenpeace Australia/Pacific.See full Press...
In a long-awaited proposal, presented today, for curbing global warming pollution from new cars, the European Commission has relegated climate change to the back seat and granted major concessions to the car industry, said Greenpeace."Last week, in Bali, the European Union stood up like a lion for the world's climate - this week the Union's executive arm is going down like a lamb and putting car makers' short-term profits before our common survival," said Franziska Achterberg, Greenpeace's EU transport policy campaigner.The Commission's proposal for a new EU law endorses a short-term target for new cars in 2012 to pump out, on average, no more than 130 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilometer driven. This is a weakening of the EU's original target of 120g CO2/km and the proposal fails...
The climate agreement finalised in Bali today has been stripped of the emission reduction targets that science and humanity demands, Greenpeace said today.In the face of unprecedented and open criticism on the floor of the UN, the US was forced to back down from causing complete collapse of the meeting.Nevertheless, the Bush Administration's underhand tactics have left the Bali Mandate omitting any reference to the crucial cuts required to stop climate change and relegated the science to a footnote."The Bush Administration has unscrupulously taken a monkey wrench to the level of action on climate change that the science demands," said Gerd Leipold, Executive Director of Greenpeace International. "They've relegated the science to a footnote."In a year when the Nobel prize-winning IPCC...
Why are so many charities ineffective?SOCIAL entrepreneurship—the application of business principles and practises to solve social problems—is all the rage. The new sort of philanthropist who sees giving as a social investment wants to support social entrepreneurs in the same way that for-profit investors want to back ordinary (anti-social?) entrepreneurs. Judging by the number of courses in social entrepreneurship now taught at leading business schools, many an MBA student would rather work for a non-governmental organisation (NGO) than a traditional company.Yet even as its popularity soars, sober observers of social entrepreneurship are starting to ask if it lives up to the hype. Where is the social-entrepreneurial equivalent of a for-profit start-up like Google or Microsoft or any...
At the civil society meeting with UN Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, the extent to which the youth climate change movement can impact the UN process became truly apparent.
Representing the international youth delegation, Akhmad Viko of Indonesia asked Mr. de Boer what he thought of the future role of youth in the international climate change negotiations. De Boer’s answer revealed not only an explicit interest in the further inclusion of youth (he answered that there is much more the UN can do to ensure that youth are incorporated in the process) but also an implicit interest in our message and current work.
De Boer went on to discuss the speech delivered by Catherine Gauthier at the UN High-Level event on climate change in September as evidence of the kind of work that youth...
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Concerted efforts needed in rich and poor countries to stem flow of corrupt monies and make justice work for the poorestThe divide in perceived levels of corruption in rich and poor countries remains as sharp as ever, according to the 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released today by Transparency International, the global coalition against corruption. Developed and developing countries must share responsibility for reducing corruption, in tackling both the supply and demand sides.“Despite some gains, corruption remains an enormous drain on resources sorely needed for education, health and infrastructure,” said Huguette Labelle, Chair of Transparency International. “Low scoring countries need to take these results seriously and act now to strengthen accountability in public...
When: 1 December 2007 - 4 December 2007 Through the Symposium on "Ethics in Business – Corporate Culture & Spirituality" (CCS), the International Association for Human Values (IAHV) brings together business, academic and spiritual leaders to initiate a dialogue on new leadership styles that are sustainable and ensure profitability for businesses. It provides a platform for leading minds to share their experiences and expertise on the value of an ethics-based approach to deal with today’s challenges in the global markets. It also examines the impact of this approach on the bottom line.The Symposium on "Ethics in Business – Corporate Culture & Spirituality" is part of the International Business and Leadership Symposium.This is the fourth Symposium on "Ethics in Business – Corporate...
Existence of Convention is a Success but a true Victory against Bribery Requires Full ImplementationAs Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and OECD Secretary General Angel Gurría host officials from across the world to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in Rome today, Transparency International (TI) joins in recognising the importance of this Convention. TI also called for strong measures to ensure that the majority of signatory countries finally start to enforce the Convention, noting that there are 37 signatory governments to the OECD Convention, but substantial compliance has only been achieved by 14 of them.“This has been the most important and groundbreaking international convention aimed at curbing the bribery of foreign government officials by...
Marla Petal at RiskRED emailed me following my recent post on PreventionWeb. RiskRed is concerned with promoting education about disaster risk reduction, but its most interesting project from my perspective is the DRRlibrary, a DRR resource site with a social bookmarking approach, using tags to classify useful websites and documents.
When you visit the DRRlibrary, what you see looks almost identical to del.icio.us, the mother of all social bookmarking sites, with a few extra functions. Searching through the tags is quite simple - as well as being able to sort by date, title or URL of each link, there’s also a tag cloud on the main page and a browser (which works fine but is a little confusing). It’s great to see this approach being used, and I assume that Ian...
El secretario general de Naciones Unidas, Ban Ki-moon, dijo que los efectos del cambio climático son "tan graves y tan generalizados" que requieren una acción "urgente y mundial".Ban Ki-moon presidió la clausura de la 27º sesión plenaria del Panel Intergubernamental de expertos en Cambio Climático (IPCC, en sus siglas en inglés) de Naciones Unidas, reunido desde el pasado lunes en la ciudad española de Valencia.Los delegados acordaron un documento base con medidas concretas para frenar el calentamiento global y que pretende dar forma a las políticas medioambientales durante las próximas décadas. Ver Artículo...
When the Progesar Foundation micro-finance office offered to lend her 4,000 pesos at an interest rate of 6 per cent per month, Nilda Peralta could hardly believe her luck. "It seemed there was a trick because the rate they were charging was so low," says the 57-year-old Argentine shopkeeper. "If I had borrowed from the money lenders I would have had to pay 28 per cent."The money has allowed Ms Peralta to rent a small kiosk in a street just off the main square at Garín, a down-at-heel industrial town about 45 minutes from Buenos Aires. From there she sells everything from biscuits, cigarettes and soft drinks to nappies, sticks of glue and Chinese-made Power Ranger dolls, carefully noting down each transaction in a ragged- looking exercise book.See full Article (paid subscription...