Facts and their Discontents: A Research Agenda for Online Disinformation, Race, and Gender

The January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol demonstrated how online disinformation can have severe offline consequences. For some time, the problems and possible impacts on democracy caused by online mis- and dis-information have dominated public policy discussions and thus research about these topics has developed rapidly in the last few years. However, this research generally lacks a focus on the impact of disinformation and misinformation on people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ communities, and other voices that are less prominent in mainstream political discourse in the U.S.Many disinformation campaigns are specifically designed with racist and/or misogynistic content, suggesting that disinformation is a tool used to promote ideologies like white supremacy and patriarchy.In September 2020, CDT brought together an interdisciplinary and international group of experts to share and discuss research on this issue. This report presents some of those ideas and builds upon them to identify key research opportunities, including important unresolved questions around the intersections of online disinformation, race, and gender. This report also makes recommendations for how to tackle the related methodological and technical problems that researchers and others face in addressing these topics. This is important in generating research that will be directly relevant for developing policy solutions to address disinformation.

Sustainable cities through household waste management: an unexplored approach to challenges confronting private solid waste management

Purpose In less than a decade to sustainable development goals (SDGs) there is a threat of household waste emanating from sub-urban sprawl especially in developing countries. Private approaches with government-enabling environments have been proved a successful platform for urban services such as housing provision and telecommunication in developing cities. Still private solid waste management (PSWM) seems different in Nigeria. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the possible perceived hindrances facing PSWM organisations and proffer feasible policies to enhance sustainable clean and healthy cities. Design/methodology/approach Seven communities within Benin City sub-urban environs were adopted as the study area to accomplish the research’s objectives via a phenomenology type of qualitative research design. The study analysed the collated data from the knowledgeable participants via a thematic approach. Findings Lax legislative, absence of institutional framework, inadequate economic motivation, inadequate technical operations, among others, emerged as the encumbrances faced by PSWM firms. Wastes dumped along unethical locations such as streets, roads, uncompleted buildings, culverts and drainage channels, and undeveloped plots emerged as the encumbrance outcomes. Findings show that proffering feasible policy solutions to tackle identified hindrances can promote the achievement of SDGs across semi-urban locations in Nigeria. Research limitations/implications This research is restricted to urban household waste management by PSWM within Nigeria. Also, the study identified the challenges and proffer policy solutions to enhance improved clean environment within the sub-urban and urban cities. Practical implications As part of this study’s implications, results from this research intend to guide government policymakers and PSWM firms to encourage collaboration in designing appropriate strategic and educational programmes for the householders (customers) in sub-cities. It will be achieved via feasible policies that are tailored towards achieving sustainable health and environment-friendly sub-urban locations. Originality/value This paper intends to enhance proper PSWM and create sustainable cities via collaboration. Also, the paper engaged key stakeholders via a qualitative research design to proffer possible solutions to the menace of sub-urban and urban household waste management.

CSO and Media Contributions to the Fight Against Corruption in Ghana’s Extractive Sector: A Political Economy Analysis

Estimates show that Ghana losses approximately 30 percent of domestic revenue to corruption. Although losses due to corruption in Ghana’s extractive sector have not yet been quantified, the sector is plagued with incidents of corruption despite the country's commitment to international conventions, transparency mechanisms and best practices. A concerted efforts by state and non-actors is key to ease this canker. Understanding the role of CSOs and media in exposing corruption, promoting oversight and identifying the enablers and obstacles to their work is key to informing practise in the development space. This study examines the role of CSOs and media in the fight against extractive sector corruption. It identifies political economy factors that enable or hinder them in exposing corruption. Lastly, it identifies practical suggestions for surmounting the identified adverse political and economic factors. The research examines two cases of corruption, based on a desktop review and a survey of 11 state and non-state actors. A direct association between the role of CSOs and media and the level of corruption were established. Coalition building, using legal suits, sustaining advocacy, collaborations between media and CSOs are some enabling political economy factors identified. Inadequate resources to sustain advocacy, excessive duplicity of roles amongst oversight institutions, vested interests in extractive sector, inadequate prosecution of offenders by the legal system, inadequate evidence-based policy solutions by government, inadequate political will, limited access to information; little or no funding for legal action, increasing CSO and media employee turnover rates, are identified as some key political economy factors militating against efforts towards stemming corruption in Ghana’s extractive sector. These findings provide reliable information for CSOs and media in development practice, informs advocacy design, evaluates and improves media and CSO effectiveness in ridding the extractive sector of corruption.

Child Poverty in Rural Areas

Evidence from around the world suggests that children experience poverty as a condition that is damaging to their mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual development. This chapter sheds light on the ways in which poverty impacts rural children and what poverty reduction means in the lives of African children. While children suffer the worst outcomes overall, children in rural areas are significantly more deprived than urban children. The three deprivations which overlap to impact rural children under two years old the most are water, protection (i.e., security), and housing. For these reasons, there are compelling economic, social, and moral grounds that compel us to evaluate child poverty in rural areas in order to understand its severity and urgently find relevant policy solutions.

Visualising policy responses during health emergencies. Learning from the COVID-19 policy trackers

Data visualisations are intimately connected to the emergence of public health as a discipline and policy area. Besides the mapping of cases and deaths, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen an explosion of attempts to track policy responses. They have come from actors sometimes initially unfamiliar with public and global health. In this paper, we analyse seven of the most successful tracker initiatives that have sought to map governments’ reactions to COVID-19 and reflect on our own. When not led by international organisations, the trackers primarily rely on networks of volunteer country expert contributors (who need to be incentivised in the medium term). The vertical crowdsourcing approach means that, despite good intentions, contributors have a relatively limited agency in shaping the trackers. Maps and timelines comparing countries are the most popular visualisations; they suggest that (some) policy solutions can be found abroad and rely on policy taxonomies established by the trackers’ core teams. We contend that such taxonomies, which compete with each other, constitute attempts to frame the complex issue of which policies matter in responding to COVID-19. All the projects are large and complex and often without a well-defined intended audience. We hypothesise that the popularity (in terms of backlinks) of the most successful tracker arises from the fact that it sums up COVID-19 policies in one easily visualisable indicator. We suggest that the trackers are a more helpful emergency policy tool when they provide contextual information, keep policy details or refer to them (rather than only reduce them to categories), and suggest ways to link different elements—including the relationship between health or societal outcomes and policies.

MIGRATION AND CORONACRISIS: CONSEQUENCES, PROSPECTS, DIRECTIONS OF RESPONSE

Labor migration abroad has a significant impact on the socio-economic and demographic development of Ukraine. Therefore, awareness of the consequences of the pandemic for migration processes, taking into account the migration component in developing a strategy for overcoming the crisis is extremely important. The article focuses on finding the key answers to adequately respond to migration challenges. The question is: ‘How does the crisis affect the situation of migrants? How does the crisis affect the intensity and direction of migration flows? How will these changes affect the development of the Ukrainian economy and society?’ There is not enough data on the dynamics of modern international migration. Therefore, the review of the hypothetical migration situation, as well as the development of recommendations for possible policy solutions, are based not only on their analysis, but also on generalizing the effects of previous economic crises on migration processes, identification and extrapolation to modern realities of their essential characteristics. During the crisis, the demand for additional labor from abroad is declining, but this leads not so much to the return of migrants to their homeland, as to a decrease in emigration, but rather to its postponement. Not all countries and not all sectors of the economy are experiencing the crisis in the same way, so there is a flow of migrants from one area of employment to another, from the most affected by the crisis countries to more prosperous. It is not so much the power of migration flows that changes, but their direction and characteristics. The return of migrants to Ukraine has not become widespread, it is only temporary, moreover, if the economic situation in the country will deteriorate, and in the countries of destination economic recovery will be successful, labor migration may intensify. Given the continuing labor migration from Ukraine, the state should significantly intensify its efforts to protect the rights and interests of Ukrainian citizens abroad. It is necessary to ensure access of migrants to medical services, social assistance, unemployment benefits, etc., to intensify the negotiation process with the countries of residence of migrant workers. Particular attention needs to be paid to supporting the repatriation flow, which can help reduce the shortage of workers needed by the economy, to serve a faster way out of the crisis.