Session
Organizer 1: Shilongo Kristophina, Research ICT Africa
Organizer 2: Amrita Nanda , Aapti Institute
Organizer 3: Suha Mohamed, Aapti Institute
Speaker 1: Roland Banya, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 2: Suha Mohamed, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Astha Kapoor, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Shilongo Kristophina, Civil Society, African Group
Amrita Nanda , Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Shilongo Kristophina, Civil Society, African Group
Break-out Group Discussions - Round Tables - 90 Min
1. Drawing from sectoral/industry practices, how can national and global policy regulations and standards support data stewardship strategies that respond to the needs of communities? 2. How useful is the ecosystem mapping (provided by the playbook) in determining the data infrastructures required to support a justice approach to data governance in the Global South? 3. Does the ecosystem mapping adequately respond to the challenges faced by communities in the Global South, specifically in promoting economic rights and protection against the unequal distribution of harms posed by dataficiation?
Connection with previous Messages: The main takeaways from a session hosted by Research ICT Africa titled “WS #266 Data justice: What is to be done?” identified tokenism in multi-stakeholder frameworks as a factor hindering the equal participation of low-to-middle income countries in developing global data and AI governance policies. The session called for global solidarity and platforms for countries to equally contribute to the development of global policies on data and AI governance. This proposed session and the playbooks resulting from the partnership between South Asia and Southern African experts serves as a step to voice our contribution and learn from our existing frameworks.
Targets: Key to our work on data stewardship is exploring how data-driven technologies can beneficially contribute to building sustainable, green, circular economies in the global south. This is also tied to SDG 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification Indigenous communities across the world have been noted for their long-standing histories of preserving and conserving biodiversity. However, technology driven solutions have typically been designed to further aid the corporate capture of land and resources for mineral mining or deforestation. Insights from our case studies in this sector will form the basis of unique plays and recommendations that aim to showcase how indigenous data sovereignty can be realised through policy efforts, partnerships with civil society organisations and opening up funding channels to enable greater capacity at the grassroot level to pilot these efforts. And, SDG 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable In response to the need to build citizen-centric cities that are democratic, inclusive and sustainable there have been a range of data-driven approaches that orient around community participation and accountability. Many well known and referenced case studies of this in action are located in the Global North. While these exemplify interesting possibilities - they may not be adaptable to the unique political, socio-economic, infrastructural capacities and capabilities of countries in the Global South. Our playbook aims to speak to these challenges - particularly relevant in light of the growing rhetoric around smart cities which often does not translate into substantive impact or realisation for communities in the Global South.
Description:
The potential of data, AI and related computational tools to be leveraged across use-cases including halting deforestation, monitoring air pollution in cities and preserving biodiversity has long been established in the move for environmental sustainability and conservation. However, significant concerns emerge in this context, which mirror existing inequities, and also raise a number of new economic, social and political harms. These challenges are layered, relating to the governance or lack thereof, of this data. Without access to accurate climate oriented data, our impact on the planet is only partly visible. With this foundation for misinformation, climate destructive policies continue unabated, threatening the health and wellbeing of our planet and species. Paralelly, is a lacuna on the unique experiences of marginalised communities across the globe, the most vulnerable to climate risks. Given these data realities; scholars, ethicists, human rights experts and technologists have proposed alternative data governance frameworks that push beyond compliance. The paradigm of data stewardship is cognizant not only of emerging potential harms, but foregrounds the potential societal value that may be unlocked if structures around collection and sharing of this data could enable greater agency, control and transparency around its usage and sharing. This builds on an existing body of work around Data justice, which recognizes how historical injustices and the structural inequalities intersect and are reproduced by technical systems. Thus, greater attention must be paid to equitable and responsible data governance approaches that centre communities’ rights and are aligned to environmental justice goals. Countries in the Global South have already reckoned with collective opportunities and related harms that can emerge both from personal and non-personal data. However, a gap exists in conceptualising and translating these data justice oriented approaches on ground. Applications of Indigenous Data Sovereignty, Data stewardship and other commons oriented approaches are showing promise in the context of environmental justice/climate action work. These initiatives will be the starting point for the proposed session, a panel which aims to draw from and build upon the collective findings of organisations and experts in South Asia and Southern Africa, between RIA and Aapti Institute. The project’s objective is to develop a playbook on data stewardship approaches with a focus on environmentalism. This playbook will illustrate the intellectual underpinnings and needs for the sector, analyse use cases and identify policy requirements which can support collective/community-based data governance. While the playbook will specifically focus on environmentalism and sustainability, the underlying objective is that it will provide evidence for adoption into other sectors or systems (such as Urban Governance) where there are limited examples of justice approaches to data governance.
This session will serve as a final consultative platform for the data stewardship playbooks developed by Research ICT Africa and the Aapti Institute. The session is open to all participants at the Internet Governance Forum and aims to provide guidance to practitioners and policymakers developing or supporting the development of data governance frameworks in the Global South. The sharing of perspectives and material during the session will, Help to compile a diverse corpus of empirically backed, actionable insights on data frameworks in the global south, Give further clarity to concepts like data justice, data stewardship and indigenous data sovereignty, Set the stage for these playbooks to be used collectively by practitioners, policymakers and civil society organisations pushing for a just and fair data economy in the global south, and Accrue interest in supporting an upscaling of this project to support the development of data governance frameworks in the region.
Hybrid Format: For a seamless hybrid experience, the moderator/s of this session will play a streamlining role to consciously include both onsite and online participants. Through a round robin format, adequate time will be allotted to each speaker, and this will be combined with breaks for more free flowing discussion and intermittent rounds of questions. Tentatively, the structure of interaction will be as follows: 10-15 minutes: Introduction and summary of the playbook 30 minutes: Opening remarks from speakers 30 minutes: Breakout discussions 10-15: Plenary and wrap up In order to enhance the session experience, all resources needed for the session will be linked to in the session description before the time. The facilitators will also arrange prompt questions for the participants. Zoom will be used to facilitate breakout sessions for offline participants, and Miro/Mural boards/Mentimeter presentations will be used to facilitate a back and forth between all participants (online and offline). This will also make insights and questions easy to share for streaming on the IGF platform.
Usage of IGF Official Tool.