Humanitarian Data Futures:
Drivers of Change
CREATED: MAY 2024
Social Drivers
CREATED: MAY 2024
SOCIAL
Trust is in crisis, as visibility of public scandals and proliferation of fake news has led to a trust deficit between the public and legacy institutions. This has created a 'vicious cycle of distrust', destabilising societies and allowing alternate sources of information to thrive.
Trust deficit for traditional institutions
SIGNALS | ‘Trust in the news has fallen by a further 2% in the last year, reversing – in many countries – the gains made at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic. On average, four in ten of our total sample (40%) say they trust most news most of the time.’ - Digital News Report, Reuters Institute 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
SOCIAL
Conflict, violence, human rights violations, persecution, disasters and the adverse effects of climate change are displacing a growing number of people around the world. Forced displacement is rarely a temporary phenomenon, lasting 20 years on average for refugees.
Rise in mass displacement and migration
SIGNALS | ‘There could be up to 216 million internal climate migrants globally by 2050. Hotspots of climate migration may start to emerge as early as 2030, as people leave places that can no longer sustain them and go to areas that offer opportunities.’ �- Groundswell Part 2: Acting on Internal Climate Migration, World Bank 2021
CREATED: MAY 2024
SOCIAL
Social media platforms have accelerated the pace and scale at which mis- and dis-information can spread. At the same time, the widespread accessibility of tools to generate harmful information has increased the creation and dissemination of false narratives. This dynamic can erode trust in humanitarian actors and their intentions, compromising the relationships required for impactful operations.
Rise in mis- and dis-information
SIGNALS | ‘Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, told reporters that social media had played a "determining role" in Myanmar. "It has ... substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissention and conflict, if you will, within the public. Hate speech is certainly of course a part of that.’ Reuters, 2018
CREATED: MAY 2024
SOCIAL
As the penetration of social media networks deepens, there is greater visibility of activist protests - from student encampments in the US to the farmers protests in India, activists and their demands are being heard around the world. Less dominant geopolitical narratives are reaching the mainstream through these efforts.
Increasing visibility of mass protests
SIGNALS | ‘Mass protests increased annually by an average of 11.5 percent from 2009 to 2019 across all regions of the world, with the largest concentration of activity in the Middle East and North Africa and the fastest rate of growth in sub-Saharan Africa.’ Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2020
CREATED: MAY 2024
SOCIAL
Long-term, complex crises are becoming the mainstay of humanitarian efforts. Communities are facing multiple, interconnected and cascading crises, underpinned by climate shocks, conflict, and socioeconomic fragility. These ongoing crises limit the capacity for recovery, deepening the vulnerability to further decline.
Growth in protracted crises
SIGNALS | ’Complex, protracted crises are increasingly the norm with three-quarters of people in need facing at least two risk dimensions of conflict, climate and socioeconomic vulnerability, an increase from 61% in 2021. As a result, a growing majority of people in need (83%) now live in a country experiencing protracted crisis.’ - Global Humanitarian Assistance Report, Development Initiatives 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
SOCIAL
The deep integration of technology into all facets of lives has born greater concern about surveillance. From digital governance tools to surveillance cameras (both public and private), social media platforms to apps, our daily lives are generating more data than ever before. Meaningfully opting out of these surveillance systems is growing increasingly difficult.
Rise in technological surveillance
SIGNALS | The UN’s Human Rights Council in July 2022 adopted a resolution recognising the rise of surveillance in peaceful protests, expressing concerns about technology such as CCTV, aerial surveillance vehicles, facial recognition and international mobile identity catchers (‘stingrays’) being used for “arbitrary and unlawful surveillance” of people engaged in peaceful protests.
CREATED: MAY 2024
Technological Drivers
CREATED: MAY 2024
TECHNOLOGICAL
Satellites are gathering images in greater quantities and at higher resolutions than ever before. As a result, humanitarians are increasingly using satellite data to supplement traditional humanitarian data sources, strengthening their situational understanding. Satellites bring the added benefit of being a transnational technology, able to provide a view without the limitations of access on the ground.
Growing application of satellites
SIGNALS | In Ukraine, satellite imagery is a central facet of potential war crime documentation. Scott Herman, of Cognitive Space states ‘the ability of satellites to operate at such high resolutions will likely make these images more important for potential war crimes investigations than in any previous conflict.’ - Watching from Space, Satellites Collect Evidence of War Crimes, NBC News, 2022
CREATED: MAY 2024
TECHNOLOGICAL
Deployment of digital tools based on biometrics has risen in recent years, leveraging the 'uniqueness and immutability' of biometric data and its relative reliability in authentication processes. However, the adoption of biometric technology is marred by concerns regarding technical capacity requirements, data security concerns and the complexities of informed consent.
Tension over deployment of biometric technology
SIGNALS | ’Indeed, considering the position of vulnerability and lack of alternatives, one wonders whether consent in such circumstances can ever truly be genuine.’ - Biometric data flows and unintended consequences of counterterrorism, Katja Lindskov Jacobsen, IRRC 2021
CREATED: MAY 2024
TECHNOLOGICAL
Recent years have seen a wave of innovations in digital tools that allow humanitarians to communicate with affected populations, and vice versa. From apps to chatbots, new tools are intermediating the humanitarian relationship, raising questions about how to adopt tools in principled ways that do no harm to affected communities.
Availability of digital tools to interface with affected communities
SIGNALS | There is evidence of mismatches between the intended purpose of chatbots and their actual use, with one interviewee having ‘set up a chatbot to combat COVID-19-related misinformation but saw that many of the recorded interactions were from people seeking food aid, which the organisation wasn’t placed to provide… [another] observed that people used the chatbot as a tool for reporting potentially dangerous or risky situations, something the chatbot wasn’t designed for.’ - Chatbots In Humanitarian Context, IFRC, 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
TECHNOLOGICAL
Discussions around the application of AI in humanitarian action seem inescapable, whether grounded in caution or excitement. Pilot projects are emerging, testing the viability of both internal and external applications. Divergent perspectives have emerged on AI's potential in the sector, with some anticipating sizeable disruption while others remain sceptical of the use cases. Beyond the humanitarian sector, applications are already being deployed.
Piloting of AI in humanitarian action
SIGNALS | [On hallucinations] ‘This isn’t fixable. It’s inherent in the mismatch between the technology and the proposed use cases.’ - Emily Bender, linguistics professor and director of the University of Washington’s Computational Linguistics Laboratory
CREATED: MAY 2024
TECHNOLOGICAL
Recent advancements in deep learning architectures (e.g. transformers) have shown direct correlations between higher output quality and access to computational resources (compute). This has ignited a gold rush to acquire compute, with demand significantly outpacing offer, reducing the playfield to a handful of companies (Amazon, Google, Microsoft). Nvidia is currently the only company in the world capable of producing the required hardware.
Exponential growth in availability of computational resources
SIGNALS | ‘‘The Big Three’ [AWS (31%), Microsoft (25%) and Google (11%) now account for two thirds of the ever-growing cloud market, with the rest of the competition stuck in the low single digits. In Q1 2024, global cloud infrastructure service spending grew $13.5 billion or 21% compared to the first quarter of 2023.’ - Statista, 2024
CREATED: MAY 2024
TECHNOLOGICAL
Novel data sources and methods are increasingly being utilised in humanitarian monitoring and prediction, through satellites, drones, mobile phones etc. They offer powerful ‘proxies’ for what is happening on the ground, complementing traditional humanitarian data sources by leveraging data generated for other applications. However, non-standard data sources have complex integration pathways, including considerations of trustworthiness, data validity and resources needed for impactful use.
Integration of novel data sources for humanitarian response
SIGNALS | In Haiti, Flowminder are providing humanitarian actors with insights on population displacement triggered by gang violence. Their work groups together billions of records from cell towers that route network events to map the approximate locations of network subscribers. This ‘novel data’ process produces reliable dynamic internal migration and population estimates. - WFP Innovation Accelerator 2024
CREATED: MAY 2024
TECHNOLOGICAL
While digital adoption has rapidly improved the data available in certain context, others contexts are lagging. Technological limitations and access constraints are limiting access to timely, reliable data. Greater reliance on data-driven methods in humanitarian response may risk leaving some contexts behind.
Escalating data divide between humanitarian contexts
SIGNALS | In 2023, the average completeness of countries included in the HDX data grids was 70%. Afghanistan had the highest completeness at 100%, while Venezuela was only 25% complete.’ OCHA Centre for Humanitarian Data, 2024
CREATED: MAY 2024
TECHNOLOGICAL
The internet is becoming more insecure and susceptible to hacking, while the sensitivity and value of data shared online increases. Attackers are launching larger and more complex attacks, making vast quantities of personal data vulnerable to exposure.
Rise of cyber attacks
SIGNALS | ‘In January 2022, servers hosting personal data belonging to more than 515,000 people worldwide were hacked in a sophisticated cyber attack [on ICRC]...The attackers used a very specific set of advanced hacking tools designed for offensive security. These tools are primarily used by advanced persistent threat groups, are not available publicly and therefore out of reach to other actors. The attackers used sophisticated obfuscation techniques to hide and protect their malicious programs. This requires a high level of skills only available to a limited number of actors.’ - ICRC, 2022
CREATED: MAY 2024
Environmental
Drivers
CREATED: MAY 2024
ENVIRONMENTAL
Communities around the world are experiencing the extreme environmental implications of climate catastrophe. As a result, there is increased pressure to adopt climate policies - both to counter the climate crisis through mitigation, and to enable the retrofitting needed for resilience through adaptation.
Increased policy emphasis on climate change
SIGNALS | ‘Although policies adopted so far fail to secure emissions reductions in line with global decarbonisation, their number increased in the past few decades… Analyses show that collectively climate policies led to a net-positive effect and contributed to a reduction of historical emissions.’ - Expanding climate policy adoption improves national mitigation efforts, NPJ, 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
ENVIRONMENTAL
There has been a staggering rise in climate-related disasters over the last decade. At least 12,000 people - 30% more than in 2022 - lost their lives due to floods, wildfires, cyclones, storms, and landslides globally in 2023. The inequity of the climate crisis is clear, with over half of the people killed in 2023 being from low income or lower-middle income countries, and 45% of those killed from countries responsible for less than 0.1% of the world’s emissions (Save the Children, 2023).
Rise in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events
SIGNALS | ‘The cumulative death toll from climate change since 2000 will pass 4 million in 2024. This number is likely a substantial underestimate since it only focuses on climate-related malnutrition, diarrheal disease, malaria, floods, and cardiovascular diseases, whereas climate change is a threat multiplier of many other extreme weather events and public health risks.’ - ‘The health burden of climate change: A call for global scientific action’, PLOC Climate, 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
ENVIRONMENTAL
Water scarcity presents a clear risk to global stability. The combination of the climate crisis and overexploitation of natural resources is rendering some geographies unlivable, necessitating migration.
Growing water scarcity
SIGNALS | About two billion people worldwide don’t have access to safe drinking water today (SDG Report 2022), and roughly half of the world’s population is experiencing severe water scarcity for at least part of the year (IPCC). These numbers are expected to increase, exacerbated by climate change and population growth (WMO).
CREATED: MAY 2024
ENVIRONMENTAL
Across ecosystems, economies and communities the impacts of the climate crisis are being felt more acutely. As the climate crisis impacts the social and environmental determinants of health – clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter - the ability to sustain quality of life globally is under threat.
Degradation of quality of life due to the climate crisis
SIGNALS | ‘If the world fails to invest adequately in adaptation and DRR, by 2050, 200 million people per year will need humanitarian aid to survive due to climate and weather-related disasters. This is nearly double the yearly number over the last decade, and it will cost at least US$29 billion to a humanitarian system that is already struggling to meet more than half its financial needs.’ - Smart Climate Financing for the Hardest Hit People, IFRC 2022
CREATED: MAY 2024
ENVIRONMENTAL
From The Green Climate Fund, the global Adaptation Fund, the Least Developed Countries Fund, climate funds have proliferated across the humanitarian sector, with donors earmarking funds for climate-related activities. However, climate adaptation funding remains deeply insufficient for the countries most at-risk of climate shocks, suggesting current approaches have a long way to go.
Emergence of climate funds
SIGNALS | ‘‘The thirty most climate-vulnerable countries received on average less than one US dollar per capita of climate adaptation funding. In contrast, the amount of funding allocated for less vulnerable countries was over ten US dollars per capita, with most of the funding going to countries with the lowest vulnerability score.’ - Smart Climate Financing for the Hardest Hit People, IFRC 2022
CREATED: MAY 2024
Economic
Drivers
CREATED: MAY 2024
ECONOMIC
As the capacity of the humanitarian sector to forecast climate shocks increases, momentum is building behind mechanisms for pre-emptive financing. While still a relatively small percentage of humanitarian funding, advances in anticipatory funding reflect an appetite to 'get ahead of crises' where possible.
Rise of preemptive financing for humanitarian response
SIGNALS | ‘Pre-arranged financing is growing but remains a very small proportion of international crisis financing. Based on the latest available data, international development financing for PAF has grown steadily over the five-year period 2017–2021, from just USD177.2 million in 2017 to USD1.9 billion in 2021.’ - The State Of Pre-Arranged Financing, Centre for Disaster Protection, 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
ECONOMIC
As a result of globalised trade, supply chains have grown increasingly opaque and complex, with interconnected networks spanning each stage of manufacturing and transportation. This can create vulnerabilities in the system, creating disruptions and shortages. When humanitarian crises occur, they can greatly impact supply chains, generating international attention.
Increasingly fragile and complex supply chains
SIGNALS | ‘The war in Ukraine sent shock waves throughout the global economy, in particular through trade disruptions of food and fertilizers from two of the world’s main breadbaskets, Ukraine and the Russian Federation. This left millions of people in developing and least developed countries at the frontline of a food and price crisis.’ - UN Trade and Development, 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
ECONOMIC
Many developing nations are struggling to get out from under the weight of debt distress – exacerbated by 'limited access to financing, rising borrowing costs, currency devaluations and sluggish growth'. Today, 3.3 billion people live in countries that spend more on interest payments than on education or health.
Rise in the burden of national debt
SIGNALS | ‘Debt payments by the 50 countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis have doubled since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and now stand at their highest level in more than three decades, campaigners have warned. Countries at the highest risk of being affected by global heating were paying 15.5% of government revenues to external creditors – up from less than 8% before Covid-19 and 4% at their lowest recent point in 2010.’ - Debt Justice, 2024
CREATED: MAY 2024
ECONOMIC
Climate shocks, conflict and the pandemic have led to rapidly inflated prices around the world. In many economies, prices remain elevated, creating a 'cost of living' crisis, in which poorer households are disproportionately impacted.
Rise in the cost of living
SIGNALS | ‘Rapid increases in food prices have been one of the main drivers of quickening inflation around the world. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been most affected, with food prices surging by an average of 24 percent in 2020–22, the largest increase since the 2008 global financial crisis.’ IMF, 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
Political Drivers
CREATED: MAY 2024
POLITICAL
In 1995, the E7 was half the size of the G7 in economic terms, but by 2015, the E7 was around the same size as the G7. By 2040, the E7 could be double the size of the G7. This shift in economic power reflects a new geopolitical paradigm, with the balance of power shifting beyond the Global North. For humanitarians, this will introduce a new set of donors and the possibility of a new set of global priorities.
Emergence of new centres of power
SIGNALS | On 1 January 2024, BRICS admitted four new members: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. ‘The significance of the expansion should be seen beyond the purely economic effect, in the form of greater influence for the group and for developing countries as a whole within international organisations such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and the Bretton Woods institutions.’ - Expansion of BRICS: A quest for greater global influence?, European Parliament Briefing, 2024
CREATED: MAY 2024
POLITICAL
Across the global north, official contributions to humanitarian funding are increasingly under pressure, resulting in tough choices for which needs will be left unmet. Only one third of the $56.7 billion required in the Global Humanitarian Overview was received in 2023.
Downward pressure on aid spend
SIGNALS | ‘Funding received, as of 24 November 2023, against the GHO requirements amounts to $19.9 billion. This is 35 per cent, leaving a gap of almost $36.8 billion. Total humanitarian funding, including for the GHO, has reached only $27 billion, significantly less than the $41 billion recorded last year.’ - Response Plans: Results from 2023, Humanitarian Action 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
POLITICAL
Many countries are navigating an increasingly polarised political landscape, where ideological divides are deepening. This political bifurcation has implications for both foreign policy and investment in multilateral agendas. Oscillations between increasingly distinct political ideologies can create an uneven ground for long-term progress.
Growing political polarisation
SIGNALS | In the US, ‘Democrats and Republicans are farther apart ideologically today than at any time in the past 50 years… Both parties have moved further away from the ideological center since the early 1970s. Democrats on average have become somewhat more liberal, while Republicans on average have become much more conservative.’ - Pew Research Center, 2022
CREATED: MAY 2024
POLITICAL
Conflicts across the world have 'resurged and intensified', creating unprecedented levels of human suffering. Across contexts including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPT), the Sahel and Sudan, conflicts are growing in intensity, resulting in waves of displacement and impacting livelihoods.
Intensification of conflicts
SIGNALS | ’In 2023 alone, the eruption of widespread conflict in Sudan and hostilities between Israel and Gaza caused a dramatic spike in civilian deaths. In five weeks alone, the number of civilians killed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory was equivalent to almost 60 per cent of the total global number of civilians killed in 2022, which was itself already the deadliest year since the Rwandan genocide in 1994’ - OCHA Global Humanitarian Overview, 2024
CREATED: MAY 2024
POLITICAL
As conflicts escalate worldwide, the number of forcibly displaced people has surged - with the number of people displaced by war and violence worldwide reaching over 114 million by September 2023. In the face of this rising need, many nations are growing reluctant to host refugees at scale. Economic downturns, political shifts and growing anti-immigration sentiments are only fuelling this reticence.
Growing reticence to host refugees
SIGNALS | ‘A trend of increasingly restrictive policies and measures targeting refugees has gathered pace among low- and middle-income refugee-hosting states as a response to limited international solidarity and a shrinking funding landscape. The Turkish government has adopted a policy that leans broadly towards the provision of temporary protection for Syrians and their repatriation, [while] Pakistan has significantly restricted the protection regime for incoming Afghans, refusing to recognise them as refugees.’ - Why Refugee-Hosting Countries Need More Support, ICMPD, 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
Regulatory & Legal Drivers
CREATED: MAY 2024
REGULATORY AND LEGAL
Technology is developing at such a pace that legislators are struggling to keep pace. Across social media, platform apps, and AI startups, regulators have found themselves in a 'cat-and-mouse game', with lengthy regulatory processes falling behind the pace of innovation.
Technological advances outpacing regulation
SIGNALS | ‘Lawmakers and regulators in Brussels, in Washington and elsewhere are losing a battle to regulate A.I. and are racing to catch up, as concerns grow that the powerful technology will automate away jobs, turbocharge the spread of disinformation and eventually develop its own kind of intelligence.’ New York Times, 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
REGULATORY AND LEGAL
Following reporting on data privacy breaches and mass surveillance by state actors and big tech companies, citizens around the world have become more vocal about the protection of their data rights. This shift in societal norms and expectations around personal data has been matched by the increased regulation of personal data and digital technologies.
Increased demand for data privacy
SIGNALS | ‘Both the proliferation of technological advances in collecting, processing, and sharing personal data and increased data flows across national borders have produced a surge of new global privacy regulations.’ - Electronic Information Privacy Center, 2021
CREATED: MAY 2024
REGULATORY AND LEGAL
A growing number of humanitarian organisations now have data policies. Data management in humanitarian response is also increasingly regulated by national and regional legislation. Data protection policies and legislation help safeguard people’s rights related to their data, including during crises. At the same time, overlapping and sometimes contradictory rules add complexity when humanitarians need to share data in order to inform the response.
Increase in data protection policies and regulations in crisis contexts
SIGNALS | 137 out of 194 countries have put in place legislation to secure the protection of data and privacy. In Africa and Asia, 61 and 57% of countries have adopted such legislations, respectively. The share in the least developed countries is 48%. - UNCTAD, 2024
CREATED: MAY 2024
REGULATORY AND LEGAL
Requests for access to beneficiary data are becoming more commonplace. More donors are citing the need for counter-terrorism screening as a rationale for access to the beneficiary data from funded projects, while host-governments are requesting the sharing of personal data collected by humanitarian organisations due to security concerns. This places pressure on humanitarian actors to navigate these demands while adhering to the humanitarian principles.
Rise in requests for beneficiary data
SIGNALS | ‘(...) donors may request data to screen individuals considered for assistance for possible links with groups they consider to be terrorist entities. Two humanitarian organizations reported that they had refused requests from donors to provide data related to individual crisis-affected people to enable such screening.’ GPPi, 2020
CREATED: MAY 2024
REGULATORY AND LEGAL
Recent conflicts have highlighted a concerning rise in violations of international humanitarian law. In multiple contexts, the imperative to protect civilians and other noncombatants from the hazards of armed conflict has been blatantly disregarded. These incidents underscore the urgent need for international action to ensure respect for international humanitarian law.
Declining respect for international humanitarian law
SIGNALS | ‘From Gaza to Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the International Committee of the Red Cross witnesses a global failure to protect civilians in armed conflict.’ Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross
CREATED: MAY 2024
Humanitarian Drivers
CREATED: MAY 2024
HUMANITARIAN
Humanitarian crises worldwide are growing in both number and severity, with UNHCR reporting the highest level of emergencies in a decade in 2023. As new crises emerge, and existing crises deepen, humanitarian organisations struggle to meet due to limited resources and funding gaps.
Crises significantly outpacing capacity to respond
SIGNALS | ‘It is estimated that humanitarian needs could increase from the current 108 million people in need of assistance to as many as 150 million people by 2030, and 200 million by 2050. The cost of aid provision is likewise projected to increase by something between 70 and 470%, depending on the way in which present funding levels are calculated.’ - The Cost of Doing Nothing: The Humanitarian Price of Climate Change and How It Can Be Avoided, IFRC, 2019
CREATED: MAY 2024
HUMANITARIAN
The use of cash and voucher assistance in humanitarian response has grown rapidly in recent years, as an efficient and flexible modality of assistance that offers agency to recipients. As a percentage of overall international humanitarian assistance, CVA remains relatively small, accounting for 21% of international humanitarian assistance, an increase of 7% since 2017.
Growing use of cash and voucher assistance
SIGNALS | ‘In 2022, $7.9 billion was transferred as cash or vouchers to crisis-affected people – a 41 % increase from the year before.’ �- The State of the World's Cash 2023, CALP, 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
HUMANITARIAN
The private sector is playing a growing role in humanitarian response, facilitating the deployment of new tools, technologies and digital infrastructures. Where some controversial partnerships have received public scrutiny, as seen with WFP and Palantir, most continue without note. In search for reassurance as to how the data humanitarians collect and store will be used by corporate partners, some in the sector are calling for ‘common standards for applying the humanitarian principles to corporate relations as it relates to digital technology’.
Increased role of private sector in humanitarian response
SIGNALS | Relationships with corporations impact virtually every area of humanitarian aid today, from refugee camps to headquarters. Microsoft’s AI for Good pilots and provides core AI services for various humanitarian purposes, including partnering with OpenStreetMap to map vulnerable areas.’ - Nathaniel Raymond, New Humanitarian, 2024
CREATED: MAY 2024
HUMANITARIAN
Authorities, including governments and non-state armed groups, are increasingly utilising data and technological infrastructure as a means to exert control over humanitarian operations. Through measures such as restrictions on the use of technologies or blocking internet access, some authorities are introducing further complexities to the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
Digital restrictions on humanitarian operations
SIGNALS | ‘In February 2024, an internet blackout, believed to have been triggered by the RSF’s takeover of internet service providers’ (ISP) data centers in Khartoum on February 2, plunged the entire country into darkness. This created additional challenges in what was already a critically dangerous situation, complicating ongoing efforts to provide emergency assistance and humanitarian aid… The blackout persisted for nearly 10 days.’ - The Sudan conflict: how internet shutdowns deepen a humanitarian crisis, Access Now, 2024
CREATED: MAY 2024
HUMANITARIAN
Humanitarian access is increasingly under threat, as conflicts intensify and state and non-state actors intentionally deny entry. Widespread destruction of logistical infrastructure, denials for or delays in granting access for humanitarian convoys, and the targeting of aid workers impact the ability of humanitarian organisations to support those in need.
Deteriorating humanitarian access
SIGNALS | The UN documented 3,931 verified instances of denial of humanitarian access in 2022 - mostly by Government forces - with the highest figures verified in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Yemen, Afghanistan and Mali. ‘[The forthcoming 2024 report shows] we are on target to witness a shocking increase [in the denial of access globally” - Virginia Gamba, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict
CREATED: MAY 2024
Values Drivers
CREATED: MAY 2024
VALUES
As technology systems become more complex, there are calls for greater legibility of how systems operate and make decisions. This demand is gaining momentum as the complexity of deep learning algorithms creates a ‘black box’ problem, where the output rationale is obscured. As algorithms are trusted to input into more significant decisions, transparency is critical.
Increased opacity of tech systems
SIGNALS | Algorithms reflect the bias of the data they are trained on. When deployed, this can result in the reinforcement of structural inequalities, such as racism and sexism. Due to the lack of diversity of training datasets, ‘numerous studies have found that facial recognition algorithms, such as those used in surveillance… often perform poorly with darker-skinned and female faces.’ - Datacamp, 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
VALUES
As decolonising movements have gained traction, many institutions are reckoning with what it means to counter the structural racism and power imbalances inherent in legacy systems. Across academia, development, politics and other domains, there is growing discussion of what it would take to fully divest from colonial legacies and structures.
Momentum behind decolonisation
SIGNALS | ‘Decolonising development, humanitarian aid and peacebuilding – the movement to address and dismantle racist and discriminatory structures and norms that are hidden in plain sight in the aid system – is emerging as an urgent, vital and long overdue discussion which adds greater weight to the existing calls to transform the system.’ - Time to Decolonise Aid, Peace Direct, 2021
CREATED: MAY 2024
VALUES
The desire for a humanitarian system that is as 'local as possible, and only as international as necessary' was solidified in the pledges surrounding the Grand Bargain in 2016. Calls for more locally-led humanitarian response continue, while meaningfully disrupting the norms and structures of traditional humanitarian approaches has proved a challenge.
Continued calls for localisation
SIGNALS | ‘Local NGOs are stuck in a catch-22. They can't improve their systems without funding, and they can't get funding without improved systems… The onus here is on intermediary organisations, but donors must also look at local organisations in the same way they do international organisations, recognising the need for both to be supported with overheads for administrative costs and systems building. Only with this investment can we level the playing field.’ - Emmanuel Atam, Executive Director at FACT Foundation, 2023
CREATED: MAY 2024
VALUES
As crises around the world continue to worsen, and the brutal realities of conflict are shared in real-time around the world through social media, the efficacy of multilateralism as a mechanism for peace, security and cooperation are being brought into question - 'geopolitical tensions and lack of trust that poison every area of international cooperation’.
Scepticism around the viability of the multilateral project
SIGNALS | ‘Let’s have no illusions. We are in rough seas. A winter of global discontent is on the horizon. A cost-of-living crisis is raging. Trust is crumbling. Inequalities are exploding. Our planet is burning. People are hurting - with the most vulnerable suffering the most. The United Nations Charter and the ideals it represents are in jeopardy. We have a duty to act. And yet we are gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction. The international community is not ready or willing to tackle the big dramatic challenges of our age.’ - Secretary General António Guterres’ opening remarks to the General Assembly, 2022
CREATED: MAY 2024
VALUES
The last decade has seen the internet increasingly dominated by big tech oligopolies. This has resulted in unprecedented power and influence, built on a foundation of unparalleled access to citizen data. In the face of mounting scandals, the scale of this power is being critiqued, with calls for increased regulation, transparency, and accountability.
Vocal backlash against major tech companies
SIGNALS | ‘A group of current and former employees at prominent artificial intelligence companies issued an open letter… that warned of a lack of safety oversight within the industry and called for increased protections for whistleblowers… Eleven current and former OpenAI workers signed the letter, along with two current or former Google DeepMind employees – one of whom previously worked at Anthropic.’ - The Guardian, 2024
CREATED: MAY 2024