From Davos to New York, data disaggregation takes the world stage

Sarah Lux-Lee

Robert Reich, former US Secretary of Labor, once joked that although he and Shaquille O’Neal have an average height of 6 feet, standing at 5 and 7 feet respectively, the NBA might be wise to consider more than just their average height before deciding to place Reich on the team.

Today, this sentiment is becoming increasingly central in international development. 

The importance of data in driving evidence-based development has been increasingly emphasized in development discussions.  The availability of real-time information in the developing world is growing, and development organizations are harnessing that data to better understand the needs of their constituents, and to devise policy and implementation strategies that best meet the most urgent development goals.

However, Big Data, along with the statistics it generates, often reflects broad, national averages that can paper over the experiences and needs of the most marginalized segments of society.  Just as the average height of 6 feet obscured Reich’s slightness relative to Shaq, so too the broad experience of a nation, as reflected by its aggregated data, can hide from view the needs of society’s most vulnerable groups.

The importance of disaggregating data in order to shine a light on the experience of disadvantaged groups was a common theme at two very different diplomatic events I attended in the past couple of weeks.  The first, held in Davos alongside the World Economic Forum in January, was a strategic discussion on how to engender a people-cantered approach to the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  The second, the UN Economic & Social Council’s Youth Forum held in New York in February, brought together hundreds of young people from around the world to discuss the best ways to engage youth to become active global citizens.  Both discussions identified disaggregated data as essential to ensuring that development practitioners can best address the unique needs of those most in need.

In Davos, the point was eloquently made by Kenneth Roth, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, who noted that “it is rare for people to be heard as individuals; they are usually heard as a collective.”  Instead, Roth calls for a human rights approach to development, requiring development practitioners to refocus on the experience of the individual in order to ensure that those facing social exclusion or discrimination are protected.  The notion was echoed by Susan Myers of the UN Foundation, who identified major attainment gaps that become evident when data is reanalysed through a gender lens.  Myers pointed to the Data2X initiative as a leading effort to disaggregate data to reveal the unique situation of women and girls in developing countries.

Data disaggregation was similarly a focus at the UN ECOSOC Youth Forum in New York, where two days of dynamic discussions emphasized the point that “youth” tends to be regarded as a homogenous monolith, masking the needs of those young people who are especially disadvantaged due to minority status, geographic remoteness, disability, gender, or other distinguishing characteristics.  Youth representatives from around the world agreed that the needs of young people cannot effectively be addressed, nor their meaningful engagement in development obtained, without a better understanding of their heterogeneous characteristics and needs.

Increasingly, development practitioners are questioning the “Big” in “Big Data”, seeking to identify trends within broader datasets to ensure that the diversity of the human experience is properly reflected.  As we pursue a new agenda for development post-2015, data disaggregation will be an integral tool to ensure that no individual is left behind.

Read without seeing: improving access to books for visually impaired persons

Sarah Lux-Lee

On 27 June 2013, the anniversary of Helen Keller's birth, a Diplomatic Conference of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) adopted the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled.  The treaty is intended to ensure that books and other published materials can be made and distributed in formats accessible to people with print disabilities, such as Braille, audio and large print formats.  It does so by obligating its signatories to adopt exceptions to copyright infringement in their domestic laws, to allow accessible copies to be made and distributed within those countries without the need for permission or payment.  It also requires exceptions to enable cross-border circulation of accessible copies of copyright material, in order to reduce the global costs of providing access to copyright works.  Fifty-one countries signed the treaty on 28 June 2013, with several others having followed suit in the months since.  The treaty will enter into force once 20 countries have ratified it.

The treaty is a significant move toward ensuring equality of access to learning materials around the world.  At present, it is estimated that only 5% of the world’s books and published materials are ever published in an accessible format.  In developing countries, where blindness and visual impairment is particularly prevalent, the problem is even more acute, with an estimated 99% of published works never being made available in any accessible format.  The problem is not a technical inability to make the conversions; increasingly, sophisticated technologies are available for the fast and affordable conversion of books and other published materials into Braille, audio and large print versions.  Rather, this “book famine” persists in large part because in many of the world’s content-producing countries the conversion of a published work into an accessible format, and the import or export of such products, would amount to copyright infringement.   

According to a 2006 survey conducted by WIPO, fewer than sixty countries have limitations and exceptions in their domestic copyright laws that enable the creation and distribution of accessible works.  In addition, because of the “territorial” nature of copyright law, the exceptions that do exist in various countries rarely make allowance for the import or export of accessible works, which need to be separately negotiated with rights holders.  The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) does feature a number of exceptions and a statutory licence relating to the creation and distribution of accessible works; in this sense, Australia is a leader in the effort to ensure equal access and opportunity to those suffering print disabilities.  

The trans-border provisions of the treaty offer the potential for Australia to further enhance its contribution by implementing an additional exception for the import and export of accessible format copies.  This component of the treaty is intended to ensure that the conversion of a published work only needs to occur once, and that the accessible copy can subsequently be made available to those who need it anywhere around the world.  Cross-border circulation of accessible versions of works will enhance access both directly, by increasing the volume of available converted works, and also indirectly by avoiding the costs of unnecessary duplication and freeing resources for the addition of new titles to the global accessible library.  It will have particularly significant implications for blind, visually impaired and print disabled individuals in the developing world.

The adoption of the treaty was a moment of great significance for the beneficiary communities and their advocates, who have worked tirelessly to improve outcomes in this area.  The World Blind Union has expressed hope that the treaty will be an effective step toward the achievement of equality of access, while noting that work in this area is not yet complete:

In plain language, this is a Treaty that should start to remedy the book famine. It provides a crucial legal framework for adoption of national copyright exceptions in countries that lack them. It creates an international import/export regime for the exchange of accessible books across borders. It is necessary for ending the book famine, but it is not sufficient. Countries need to sign, ratify and implement its provisions. Non-profit organizations, libraries, educational institutions and government need to take advantage of these provisions to actually deliver the accessible books people with disabilities need for education, employment and full social inclusion.

Then-Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus QC lauded the agreement as "a landmark copyright treaty, the first of its kind in the history of the multilateral copyright system”. Curiously, despite Australia’s leadership in negotiations and proud reportage of the treaty’s adoption, it was not one of the 51 nations that signed the treaty in June and, at the time of writing, it does not appear to have subsequently signed. Vision Australia and other representative bodies of Australia’s blind, visually impaired and print disabled communities have nevertheless expressed optimism about the future impact of the treaty in Australia and are continuing to work toward signature and ratification.

Image by Diego Molano, made available by Creative Commons licence via Flickr.

A Mobile Phone, Amid the Darkness

David Larish

I just read Amy Spira’s post on this website, “What we lost when we gained the light bulb”, 18 November 2011, in which she detailed the sadness of Nicaraguan townspeople at the prospect of electricity darkening their lives. I want to share a similar experience from my time in Kenya in 2010 but from an altogether different perspective.

I was working at Olmaroroi Primary School, which consisted of a series of sheds haphazardly constructed on dusty, red dirt in Maasai territory in the Rift Valley. The nearest town, Ngong, was a bumpy, 45 minute motorcycle ride away. I stayed with a local family of fourteen, including two wives. They lived in mud brick huts, used a hole in the ground as a toilet and, in the absence of electricity, burned wood for cooking and lit candles when the sun set. There was no running water. The nearest source of it was the communal well at the school, a ten minute walk.

Like Amy, I found myself as far away from technology as I had ever been.

This, in my mind, was a good thing. On my first night, after the older children had finished looking after the cows and goats for the day and after the younger ones had returned home from school, the family gathered in the kitchen, drinking tea, cooking dinner, eating together and then chatting into the night in semi-darkness. I contrasted this with a Western childhood of the Noughties – spending the afternoon on the phone to friends while commentating on the video games I was playing, watching TV during dinner, rushing back to the computer in my bedroom to go on MSN – and I was envious. What I had when I grew up meant that there were a lot of things that I did not have.

The bliss I was experiencing that night was punctured by the shrill beep of a text message which, to my immediate relief, did not sound as if it had come from my phone. In fact, there was confusion as to whose phone it had come from because, as it later emerged, each of the children aged over 13 had one.

My initial thought was that convincing a family who lived without running water or electricity of their need to own multiple mobile phones must have taken some phenomenally effective marketing on the part of the then major Kenyan mobile phone companies, Safaricom and Zain. In fact, these companies had even implemented a system whereby you could buy phone credit and transfer it to loved ones, family or friends (imagine that: ‘happy birthday my brother – here’s enough credit to call me on my birthday’).

I felt that this was a clear instance of these companies exploiting the technologically-starry-eyed family by enticing them to spend the limited money they had on things that they did not need. This view was reinforced when I later became aware that a family member was required every few days to make a trip into Ngong in order to charge a half dozen or so battery-depleted mobile phones at the “electricity shop” that had opportunistically sprung up to service this niche.

I was also concerned that the special traditions held by the family and the atmosphere when the family came together would be eroded by the mobile phone, which I saw as a gateway – both symbolically and practically – to the spectre of other technologies spreading into their lives.

One night towards the end of my stay, I (subtly) raised these issues with those members of the family who were old enough not to have received a mobile phone when they had reached puberty. As they pointed out, I had failed to see the benefits the mobile phone had brought to the togetherness of the family. The family was now able to stay in touch with family members who had moved away for school or work. It was easier for the family to make arrangements for everyone to be in the one place. By keeping in contact with past volunteers who had returned home, the family would reminisce together.

I still have mixed feelings about the impact of the mobile phone on the family, but I now see it in a more balanced light than I first did. In hindsight, it was difficult for me to dissociate my anxiety about having too much technology in my life from my views. I now think that the mobile phone is far less of a threat to the family’s connection and values than the computer, iPod or television – which are a while away yet.

But if I want to know if any of their attitudes have changed, I’ll just ask them next time I Skype their mobiles.


Image by Charles Crosbie, made available by Creative Commons licence via Flickr.

What we lost when we gained the light bulb

Amy Spira

In 2009, I found myself as far away from technology as I had ever been. I got off a rickety, disused school bus and watched it speed away through a cloud of dust, leaving me alone on a dirt road in the parched Nicaraguan countryside. It was the hottest afternoon of my life. After a short hike, I arrived at a small township, where I had arranged to lodge with a local family in order to immerse myself in the life of Nicaraguan subsistence farmers. In the heat of the day, the farmers took refuge in the meagre slivers of shade cast by the midday sun. I settled into the clay-floored hut which I was to share with my host family and then joined the farmers outside.

Within minutes, and despite the heavy heat, I was itching for activity. Something to watch. Or listen to. Some news from the outside world. A conversation, maybe, but I'd need to call someone because the townsfolk were, by that stage, sleeping off their morning's work. I sat in the thick silence. And then I noticed it. A sound unlike any other - the complete absence of white noise.

In this particular town, there was no electricity.

No lights, no televisions, no computers, no nothing.

A few days later, two American travellers arrived, as I had, dusty and tired in the midday sun. One of the first things we discussed was how we could help the town to obtain enough electricity to support at least a single light bulb for each family home. The town was so remote and the infrastructure so poor that connection to the grid was unlikely. So we met with the townspeople to discuss their thoughts on installing solar panels. Our plan was to fundraise in Australia and the United States to fund the installation of panels on each family's land.

What shocked me was the sadness with which many of the townspeople greeted our proposal. Far from being excited about the prospect of electric light, my friend, Alvaro, who was 26 years old, educated and progressive in almost every other way, sighed sadly and said, "I knew this day would come. We can't avoid it forever."

There is nothing surprising about a person who uses a typewriter or who reads by candlelight for the ambience. Similarly, no matter your views on the issues, resisting stem cell research or avoiding modern medicines are actions grounded on identifiable, if controversial, drivers. But what of a person who will not use a telephone? Or a light bulb?

This kind of resistance to technology is often attributed to irrationality, technophobia or a staunch adherence to tradition. Those opposed to industrialisation and new technologies are often compared to the Luddites, who lobbied against the technological advances of the Industrial revolution, often by destroying the machines which they considered to be destructive of social norms. The term Luddite usually carries a negative connotation, implying backwardness or primitivism. Perhaps this is because of the destructive methods the Luddites used when resisting change. Or perhaps it is because, in the industrialised world, technology is so intrinsic to "success" that, by reverse implication, a person who cannot or will not master a new technology is often perceived as incompetent, unambitious, or primitive.

What I failed to see in my enthusiasm for technology was what Alvaro's community stood to lose if it gained a light bulb. Alvaro was not blind to the benefits of electric light, but he saw what was precious in the dark of night. Over the weeks that I spent in the town, I came to see it too – the joy of visiting neighbours' homes when the moon was bright, and the debates that raged in the darkness of the family home on nights when there was only a crescent (or less) in the sky, making it too dark to leave. The town lived by the rhythm of the moon. Alvaro was right to lament the advent of an age in which there was always enough light to go out at night, or to sit alone and read.

A few nights ago, I came home from work and switched on the television. After an hour of mindless watching, I began wondering about the little town in Nicaragua. For all their concerns, the townspeople eventually capitulated to the electrical age and requested that we raise funds to bring them electric light. Solar panels were installed in 2010.

I wanted to ask Alvaro whether he was happy with the outcome – or whether electricity had changed life in the ways that he had feared.

But I may have to wait to find out – the townspeople don’t have telephones. Nor do they want them.

And who could blame them?

Image by IvanClow, made available by Creative Commons licence via Flickr.