How did we get to the point where are ok with the delivery of aid being stopped because a community did not want to give their biometrics to us?
How did we get here?
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From the Blog on Development
When does a humanitarian agency cease to be a humanitarian agency?
When we demand those in need give us with all their information before we give them aid, can we be said to be still upholding the humanitarian principles?
Driven by Fear and Fraud
Collecting data comes with a cost for the agency collecting it and the person from whom it is collected. Does the data have a purpose beyond fear and fraud?
Perspective Matters: Project Management
Perspective matters. How we understand and talk about something, anything depends on the perspective we are experiencing or looking at it.
Never the Intent
As a development and humanitarian community, we have made great strides over the past decade in using digital technologies. We have moved many processes from paper to digital. Collecting data is nothing new for us; now we have more of it and greater, plus quicker...
Rights & Responsibilities
"Those laws and regulations do not apply to us" Please do not talk about having the individual, the customer, the recipient, the beneficiary at the centre of everything you do and then in the next sentence talk about how certain laws do not apply to you because you...
Aid is no longer free
"We would like to digitally register 5 million vulnerable people in South Sudan" reads the request for proposals. It goes on to give the reasons for this - reduce duplicate beneficiaries, improve targeting, reduce fraud, track who receives what and so on. As our aid...
The Dark Arts of Data Tradeoffs
I'm level 5 Google local guide When you review places and add photos to Google maps, Google gives you points to incentivise you to do it more. They have a whole scoring system for this. Once you reach a certain point level, Google will ask you if they can send you...
Digital Literacy Opportunities
As mentioned in a previous post, currently I think about digital literacy having at least three parts: SkillsetsData Protection/Privacy/Security/Consent etc.New Operating models So when two colleagues came to me asking if the idea of having an 'out of the box' offline...