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The Global “Grand Challenge” of Inclusive Sustainable Development

According to USAID, The Grand Challenges for Development initiative is based on two integral beliefs about international development which include:

 

  • “Science and technology, when applied appropriately, can have transformational effects; and
  • Engaging the world in the quest for solutions is critical to instigating breakthrough progress”

 

In addition, these grand challenges place “global attention and resources on specific, well-defined international development problems, and promote innovative approaches, processes and solutions to solving them.” We understand how USAID describes their approach as engaging with “non-traditional solvers such as businesses, researchers, and scientists around critical development problems in a variety of ways through partnerships, prizes, challenges grant funding, crowdsourcing, and more to identify innovations that work.”

Moreover, USAID places eight Grand Challenges for Development:

  1. Scaling Off-Grid Energy: A Grand Challenge for Development
  2. Combating Zika and Future Threats
  3. Fighting Ebola
  4. Securing Water for Food
  5. Saving Lives at Birth
  6. All Children Reading
  7. Powering Agriculture
  8. Making All Voices Count

The second and eighth areas are both integral in my final project with the Kenyan non-governmental organization Umande Trust. The organization focuses on access to water rights and sanitation while working to improve the livelihoods of community members in the informal settlement of Kibera. Their work highly relies on sustainability and connects well to the work of USAID in terms of “looking for scientific and technological innovations to more effectively use and manage the water required to produce food in developing and emerging countries.” The USAID deems three areas as “critical to reducing water scarcity in the food value chain:”

  1. Water reuse and efficiency
  2. Water capture and storage, and
  3. Salinity

Umande Trust partners with Bankable Frontiers, a strategic international private sector consultancy firm to create The Bio-Center Initiative has currently installed over 52 bio-centers which serve as service points which helped to improve access to affordable sanitation, convert waste into biogas and fertilizer for urban greening along with providing income generation and access to information to community-based enterprises.

The Bio-Center Initiative combines the resources of a civil society agency, Umande Trust, and Bankable Frontiers, a strategic international private sector consultancy firm, to create and improve bio-centers in Nairobi and Kisumu. These 52+ bio-centers serve as multi-purpose service points, designed to improve access to decent and affordable sanitation, convert human waste into clean energy (biogas) and fertilizer for urban greening, and provide income generation and access to information to community-based enterprises.

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Multistakeholder Internet Governance

What is Internet governance and who exactly governs the Internet? These are the issues we grappled with in our class discussion about multistakeholder Internet governance. Internet governance is complex. The Internet is not owned by a single entity; there is no global government in charge of the Internet. Instead, multiple stakeholders govern the Internet through various means including the IGF and ICANN.

As highlighted in class, the concept of Internet governance arose after the first phase of WSIS in Geneva, Switzerland. This introduction of Internet governance allowed for the creation of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). As mentioned on its’ website, the IGF is a “multistakeholder platform that facilitates the discussion of public policy issues pertaining to the Internet.” Further, the IGF “serves to bring people together from various stakeholder groups as equals, in discussions on public policy issues relating to the Internet.”

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) also governs the Internet utilizing a multistakeholder governance framework. According to its’ website, ICANN is a “not-for-profit partnership of people from all over the world keeping the Internet secure, stable, and interoperable.”

Because the Internet has no boundaries, it is my opinion that the multistakeholder approach to Internet governance is highly beneficial. The Internet should not be owned or regulated by one entity, organization, or nation. This would give far too much power to one entity, and would be counterintuitive in the movement toward inclusive sustainable development.

According to “Internet Governance – Why the Multistakeholder Approach Works,” the multistakeholder governance framework is informed by (1) open-ended unleashed innovation, (2) decentralized governance institutions, and (3) open and inclusive processes. I believe that this framework is highly important, especially regarding the inclusiveness and transparency, collective responsibility, and effective decision-making and implementation measures of the multistakeholder governance framework. This framework allows for the participation of the international community in addressing a very critical need – access to the Internet. As access to ICTs increases in bridging the “digital-divide”, Internet governance will continue to be a predominant issue, especially with the addition of new stakeholders.

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ICTs and Inclusive Sustainable Development

Information and communications technology (ICTs) is a broad umbrella term focused on technology including radios, computers, phones, hardware, software etc. ICT’s play an integral role in the movement toward inclusive sustainable development, specifically in tackling the grand challenge of the “digital divide.” ICTs allow for increased accessibility, as well as inclusivity. They are crosscutting and play highly beneficial roles in a multitude of grand challenges, specifically disaster risk management and education, in addition to the digital-divide.

The “Maitland Commission Report” by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) played an integral role in the discovery of the “digital divide.” The report, otherwise known as “the Missing Link,” highlighted the disparity between developed and developing nations in regards to telephone access. The report made an important connection among the availability of telecommunication infrastructure and economic growth, and aimed to fix this disparity among nations. “The Maitland Commission Report” was the first that advocated for the importance of universal and equal access to information and communications technology. The movement toward achieving universal access of ICT’s was continued by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), in a report entitled “Falling through the Net,” The NTIA discovered a significant digital divide among the “haves” and the “have nots” in the United States, in regards to Internet accessibility.

Both the “Maitland Commission Report” and “Falling through the Net” set the stage for the introduction of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The Summit was held in two phases; phase one took place in Geneva and phase two took place in Tunis. Both focused on the effectiveness of ICTs as a means to achieve development. Specifically, the WSIS+10 document highlights the importance of multistakeholder partnerships in the effort toward bridging the ICT gap.

As mentioned earlier, ICT’s play an integral role in the “digital divide.” Although it is hard to imagine our world without the Internet, this imagination is a reality for a large portion of the world. This imagination is even a reality for a considerable portion of the United States. Providing equal and universal access to ICT’s bridges the digital divide. However, this is an increasingly challenging task. As mentioned in WSIS+10, in order to move toward bridging the ICT gap, a multistakeholder approach is necessary. However, providing equal and universal access to ICTs within an inclusive sustainable development context, will be very challenging.

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Multistakeholder Internet Governance and Sustainable Development

Multistakeholder Internet Governance and Sustainable Development by Ines Renique

Privatizing telecommunications— how do you decide who to sell to? Do you pick the highest bidder or pick the one that produces the highest quality, arguable a subject measure? This is a class discussion I wanted to look further into afterwards as it is a curious subject.

I looked into ICANN, which was formerly under the U.S. Department of Commerce and has now taken the responsibility to represent a multitude of global interests to ensure transparent and open Internet across national borders.

The cost of giving up these controlling mechanisms is hard, especially for the U.S., which has previously had significant control due to the Internet’s growth in the U.S. The transfer of powers is criticized by elements in the national security branch of the U.S. government as it weakens the U.S. ability to protect itself against cyber attacks.

Ultimately, the dangers of having a non-profit in control of the Internet has to do with the reliability of having the same priorities, and resources to pursue threats to U.S. national security. The heightened frequency of these threats, as seen throughout the U.S. presidential election is certainly a cause of concern for U.S. politicians, since cyber security will most likely remain a matter of strictly national security in the near future.

The decision, however, is a step towards the right direction regardless of the costs. If the U.S. keeps control of its systems, it would have undermined the development of the ICANN, and made other countries reluctant towards the U.S. ability to cooperate to the make the Internet a truly global playing field.

  

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ICTs and Multistakeholderism

The Internet is increasingly becoming the leading communication and information tool around the world, especially with younger generations. It seems that more and more of my own personal interactions include the line, “Do you have a Facebook?”. Beyond personal interactions, my studies and the studies of my friends all seem to begin with “Googling” the topic at hand. With more and more people, of all ages and backgrounds, depending on the Internet as their primary way to stay connected and informed, it is important that the global community recognizes it as such.

In 2003, the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was held in response to the growing use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Between the first phase and the second phase (in 2005), the concept of Internet governance emerged, which would lead to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Both WSIS and IGF took or have taken (respectively) multistakeholder approaches. Considering that the Internet is a global tool with no real owner and no real global barriers to participation, it is important that multistakeholdersim methods are involved in decisions and discussions regarding the Internet. To clarify, multistakeholderism is basically an approach that involves any or all– if even possible– relevant stakeholders with various backgrounds so as to yield the most inclusive plans possible.

As noted in other blog topics, the inclusion of multiple stakeholders is a great step for international agenda making but remains to be limited due to disproportionate resources between countries, organizations, and stakeholder groups. However, ICTs represent the potential to reduce these differences and barriers to partaking by providing tools that facilitate participation by reducing costs (i.e. travel), reducing physical barriers (for PWDs that may not be able to access the event because of sites with poor design), addressing time differences (by using recordings to allow people in different time zones or with different schedules to see what they missed), and through other means. Some of these tools were seen in action at the recent Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador, where live streaming, recorded sessions, and social media where just some of the various ways the UN tried and mostly succeeded in expanding participation and involvement in the conference.

It is exciting to be in the field of development at this time where ICTs are increasingly advancing and becoming available to more and more segments of the global population, while, concurrently, international decision-making processes are becoming more and more diverse. The recent uses of ICTs to increase participation and expand development processes to previously excluded groups is an exciting step in the right direction towards inclusive and successful development practices.

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Development Theory

Development theory is an exceedingly important aspect of IR theory. Development theory explores what can be defined as development and why the concept of development is important to begin with. Predictably, the answer to the question, What can be defined as development? is not as simple as it may seem. In fact, the concept of development as a whole is often criticized because it seems to paint western society as an ideal should be striven for or as the pinnacle of what can be achieved from a society. According to people who subscribe to such an argument, the very term “developed” and therefore “development” alludes to some fixed point or measure that has been established by western society and ideals. However, beyond the critiques of the study of development as a whole, a complex debate on what constitutes development and how development can be achieved also exists. As with any debate of this magnitude, there are copious amounts of literature pertaining to development theory. This class explored primarily the work of Amartya Sen and the lens through which he perceives and discusses development.

As Amartya Sen explains in his book, “Development as Freedom,” he perceives development as, “… A process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy.” He goes on later to explain in his book that, “Development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or over-activity of repressive states.” In short, Sen perceives development as access to real freedoms that can only exist when tyranny and poverty are eliminated. Sen’s perspectives on development have shaped how other scholars perceive development as well.

Understanding Sen’s definition of development, and the many other perspectives on development are essential to understanding the subject as whole. As is to be expected, perceptions of what development is and how it can be accomplish profoundly shape the approach that the international community takes to addressing the issue of development as a whole. During a time when many new international agreements and goals are emerging pertaining to development, it is more important than ever to fully understand what development means and the various scholarly opinions surrounding the subject. Only then can one formulate their own opinions on what are effective means to achieving development and what types of policies should be implemented.

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Connected We Stand, Divided We Fall

In my home of Doswell, Virginia (most known for being the home of the amusement park, Kings Dominion), I do not have reliable Internet access. I have means of connecting to the Internet, as I have a smart phone and I have a computer, but this ability to connect does not mean my service is reliable. Throughout high school, and during my visits home, I am forced to make the 15 minute drive to the town of Ashland where I use the local university library or take refuge in a Starbuck’s to make use of the free Wi-Fi services. While a 15-minute drive is no huge obstacle and I am fortunate to be able to make this commute, the fact that my home remains so isolated in such a rapidly connecting world has always perplexed myself and my older brother, though has done little to trouble my parents. In contrast to this poor connection was the (mostly) reliable and quick service I had in my apartment in Nairobi.

To many, in both Kenya and the US, this was a startling revelation. However, it echoes the findings of the paper, “Falling through the Net”, which outlines the “digital divide” between rural and urban America. While this particular paper explored the topic in the United States, the “digital divide” is not solely an American construct and can be seen all the way from the bottom at the local level up to the top at the international level. It is an evolving term that corresponds to changes in access to and usage of technologies. To clarify, the digital divide once could have applied to the global population who did or didn’t have mobile phones but now as the majority of the world has these devices, it has adapted to whether or not these devices are smart phones with web-browsing capabilities.

Another report with a more international focus was the “Many voices, One world” paper by the MacBride Commission, published in 1980. This paper, though dated now, established many of the concerns associated with ICTs that still remain today, although mostly in newer forms of technology. The two reports mentioned here laid the groundwork for discussion on ICTs and are largely to thank for the forums and societies on Internet governance today that are still working towards closing the gaps created by ICTs. Since it is hard to know what directions ICTs will go in, it is hard to know for sure what digital divide(s) will look like in the future. However, it is important to continue to have both reflective and proactive discussions on ICTs so that the digital divide is less and less a cause for concern in development practice.

 

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Habitat lll and the New Urban Agenda

Habitat lll, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, took place this year in Quito, Ecuador from October 17-20. The purpose of this conference was essentially to move towards the adoption of the New Urban Agenda, which was derived from the Surabaya Draft of the New Urban Agenda  (which was the outcome of the third session of the Preparatory Committee for the Habitat III Conference in Surabaya, Indonesia 2016). The New Urban Agenda  is one of the various globally adopted frameworks for international development projects, and appears to be more specifically targeted towards the urban population that consists of over half of our world’s population today. The New Urban Agenda delves into core issues such as adequate and sustainable human settlements, democratic development, as well as key emphasis on the importance of establishing global monitoring mechanisms to ensure that development projects and funding are being used productively. Some of the values that are expressed by this framework include emphasis on community engagement and capacity building within new urban developments since it encourages more sustainable development projects, that promote capacity building for future resilience from the bottom up. A bottom-up approach often seems like one of the keys in more successful development projects (as well as long-term solutions) since it helps ensure that local members of affected communities will have a more powerful voice in the decisions that will affect their future living situations.

The concept of community engagement reminds me of a class I previously took on development in India. Often time, when trying to urbanize slum settlements in order to “improve” a city’s aesthetic, project designers often do not take into account the ways in which slum dwellers lives can be heavily disrupted by development projects. For example, existing community social systems are often at risk of being destroyed as layouts for new settlements a lot of times are not designed to take into account the necessity for certain families or worker groups to be kept within close proximity. Additionally, there are various cases in which slum dwellers will not necessarily even want to be moved into “new and improved” establishments, because of the sentimental values that their homes may carry for them. Thus, if the purpose of development projects is to improve the wellbeing of those who are in need, one must take into account the opinions of the locals themselves in order to mitigate any wasteful spending of resources.

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Inclusive Education

Over the years, I have been lucky enough to have grown up in an environment where access to quality  education seems to be a basic commodity that most people have been able to take advantage of (at least until high school) if pursuing an education was the path they chose to follow. Education has often been thought of as one of the keys to economic success as it enables you with the knowledge and skills necessary in order to obtain a job with a sufficient enough salary to live a relatively comfortable life and to be able to support one’s family. Unfortunately, widespread access to quality education for all persons is not always the case for millions of people around the world. Often time, different groups, such as women, pwds, or low-income individuals, are faced with unequal access to education, thus inhibiting them from gaining the the skills and capabilities necessary in order to reach a higher potential of productivity in society (if that is the goal that one seeks to reach). Thus, SDG 4,  to “Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning”, has been one of the goals that the international community has agreed should be stressed upon, in order to promote higher levels of development worldwide.

The Model Policy for Inclusive ICTs in Education for Persons with Disabilities aims to assist UNESCO member states in “promoting the effective use of inclusive ICTs in education for learners with disabilities” (unesco.org). This model is interesting in the way that it aims to increase access to ICTs (which is a goal within itself) for more inclusive education, while also aiming to ensure that these ICTs are accessible by various groups of pwds to make sure that no one group is neglected in their overall access to the means of a quality education. I also believe that this model policy will be more effective in the sense that it also targets “any learners who are vulnerable to exclusion from any sector of education” (unesco.org), which correlates to the idea of “inclusive” education.

Along with aiming for more inclusive education, it is also important to uphold a certain standard of quality of the education. For example, in the article “ Inclusive Education Initiatives for Children with Disabilities: Lessons from the East Asia and Pacific Region”, one of the lessons that is mentioned is that “it is important to maintain a balance between rapid expansion and good quality educational provision” (pg 33). I think often time in development projects, people tend to analyze the importance of numbers more than the actual outcome of a project (in regards to its quality). Thus, it is important for international development actors to keep in mind that while helping more and more children access a facility for education, it is also important to keep track of other quality indicators, such as the quality of a teacher, or the quality of the school facility itself in making sure that every part of the facility is safe, and accessible by all students.

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Intersectionality in Sustainable Development

Intersectionality in sustainable development essentially looks at how “different sets of identities impact access to rights and opportunities” (Intersectionality: A Tool for Gender and Economic Justice 1). For example, a woman of color may face different challenges as opposed to the challenges faced by a white male with a hearing impairment. When looking at the stakeholder groups outlined by the SDGs (Women, Children and Youth, Indigenous Peoples, Non-Governmental Organizations, Local Authorities, Workers, and Trade Unions

Business and Industry, Scientific and Technological Community, Farmers), it would not be uncommon for there to be intersectionalities between the overlapping issues faced by these groups. For example, members of the scientific and technological community who are also women may face similar issues such as in receiving funds for project developments. Thus it is important for the international community to understand that in addressing the inequalities that are faced by certain stakeholder groups, new policies or development projects may also end up benefiting other stakeholder groups whose development problems may intersect. Furthermore, there are other stakeholder groups that are not mentioned above, such as persons with disabilities, whom would also likely experience challenges similar to those faced by the groups outlined by the SDGs. In addressing the challenges of the various stakeholder groups, development goals will be more holistic in their scope and extent of beneficiaries that are targeted.

With education being one of the primary goals targeted by the SDGs, improvement in the quality and access of education for all persons would be beneficial, for example, for persons with disabilities whose education programs may have previously neglected addressing the unique challenges faced by the individual, as well as may also benefit the progressive goal of female empowerment in making education more accessible to females, thus enabling them with more economic and social mobilization capabilities, in turn promoting the greater productivity that many communities are in need of in order to nurture a more inclusive and environment with generally higher quality of living standards.

The realization of intersectionality in sustainable development goals will allow for the global community to plan for projects in a way that is inclusive in addressing all challenges met between various stakeholder groups. Additionally, it is important for policy makers to empower previously neglected stakeholder groups, such as pwds, with a more powerful voice in expressing grievances and the changes they wish to see  in development goals and development plans, in order to address them and increase all member’s of society’s capabilities for success.