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- Convenors:
-
marine AL DAHDAH
(French Institute Pondichery EHESS Paris)
Jean-Benoît Falisse (University of Edinburgh)
Send message to Convenors
- Stream:
- Economy and Development
- Location:
- 50 George Square, G.02
- Sessions:
- Thursday 13 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Africa has seen game-changing projects that discreetly collect digital data, which in turn shape governance practices. The panel critically discusses the policies, processes and practices of digital infrastructure technologies and cultures. How has the 'old' extractivism morphed in the digital age?
Long Abstract:
The growing use of digital technologies has intensified the production and circulation of digital data in Africa. A wide range of data are collected openly, often through digital surveys and increasingly so, discreetly via technologies such as mobile apps, text messages, satellite data, and smart captors. Far from simply following trends established in the West, the Global South, and Africa in particular, has become a place where game-changing projects are experimented, from mobile money to the implementation of national biometric identification systems. Several scholars have already suggested that those practices constitute new forms of quantification, control and surveillance over people's lives. There is no absolute 'raw data', for data is always generated, used and analysed; and this process implies a substantial use of interpretative work. Those practices correspond to new forms of governing, producing value, and shaping subjects. They emphasize the uses of personal data by governments and private companies without the explicit agreement of the users. They also question older paradigms such as social accountability and the participatory governance of the public space and services.
This panel will critically discuss the policies and practices of digital infrastructure technologies and cultures around Africa. Through different case studies, it proposes to deepen and complexify both technocratic and techno-optimistic views on data and social services and understanding of governance that are too narrowly focussed upon traditional centres of power. Ultimately, it seeks to understand the extent to which older modes of relation such as imperialism/extractivism have morphed in the digital age.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 13 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
In the wake of Africa's transition into digital information and communications technologies, this paper uncovers current dialogues of economic and technological co-operation between Africa and Europe, to examine the impact of digitisation and innovation on sustainable economic development in Africa.
Paper long abstract:
The rapid growth of digital technology in socio-economic development across the world cannot be over-emphasized. The last few years have witnessed a rise in appetite for Africa's digital development. This has led to various opportunities with viable potential for implementation of digital information and communication technologies across Africa through international partnerships. Africa's digital transition is basically targeted towards enhancing market interactions and governance to serve as a response to eliminating endemic socio-economic problems. However, with vibrant digital economies come diverse technological innovations that can change the operational structure and processes of the society.
In view of this, this paper uncovers current dialogues of economic and technological co-operation between Africa and Europe, to examine the impact of digitisation and innovation on sustainable economic development in Africa.
The paper focuses on the recent European Union High-Level Forum calling for co-operation between African and Europe and seeks to examine current opportunities and barriers of the varying multidimensional levels of the impact of digital technologies in Africa. The paper contributes to current debates on technology and innovation, focusing on emerging economies such as Africa. The paper seeks to provoke further thoughts on the impact of co-creation between developed and developing economies on digital technologies and the potential issues around balancing the competing interests of innovation and sustainable development in the wake of Africa's transformation to a digitised society.
Paper short abstract:
This paper asks who benefits from ICTs in the Sustainable Development Goals, given their prominence in development efforts in Africa. It examines forms of power and control tied to two characteristics of ICTs in the SDGs: the production of more granular data, and passive methods of data collection.
Paper long abstract:
Digital information and communication technologies are becoming increasingly central in the design, implementation and evaluation of development efforts in Africa, and globally. New communication technologies are often heralded as new tools for realising 'voice' as a political capacity by overcoming cost, time and spatial barriers to communication and information access, despite challenges associated with inequality in their access, use and adaptation. Acknowledging the rising use of ICTs in development on the African continent, specifically within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this article interrogates how ICTs relate to multiple forms of power in development: both the collective power of voice, and the power to rule over others. It focuses on two key characteristics of ICTs that are put forward as beneficial to the SDGs' vision and implementation: the production of increasingly granular data, and passive data collection. It advocates a political framework for questioning ICTs and power in Africa in order to more fully capture the implications of digital data on power and empowerment, drawing on the work of Jodi Dean and Josef Ansorge. It argues that the SDGs' rhetoric and design emphasise the empowerment of individuals but fail to recognise underlying forms of control and power being realised through ICTs. While greater use of ICTs might appear inclusive and open, the extent to which this translates into the empowerment of individuals to live lives they value is questionable.
Paper short abstract:
The paper examines links between Silicon Valley elites, big data/AI, and cash transfers. Firms extract profits via financial technologies that claim to reduce poverty. Legitimized under the discourse of Effective Altruism, these elite interests are advanced under the guise of scientific objectivity.
Paper long abstract:
Critical scholars question the hype surrounding digital technologies and 'big data', critiquing, e.g., the commodified 'data phantoms' assembled from individual medical histories (Ebeling 2016), the rise of 'surveillance capitalism' (Zuboff 2015), and the epistemological implications of big data's overt positivism (Kitchin 2014). However, scholars have failed to fully appreciate the close links between powerful actors in Silicon Valley, big data and AI/machine-learning, financial technologies ('fintech'), and digital technologies for development. This paper addresses this oversight by advancing two arguments. First, it argues that surveillance capitalism is transferred into the sphere of development practice in sub-Saharan Africa through two main channels. On one hand, for-profit ventures develop fintech platforms, which are sold to non-profit cash transfer programs to help them verify identities, track payments and make disbursements. On the other hand, these same fintech products can also be used in for-profit lending ventures, for example, by trawling users' mobile phone data to establish creditworthiness. In both cases, surveillance capitalism is mobilized to extract data and profits from activities that claim to reduce poverty. The mechanisms by which these activities are legitimized form the paper's second argument, namely that Silicon Valley elites have appropriated the Effective Altruism (EA) movement as a technolibertarian moral philosophy that advances global capitalism while asserting scientific objectivity. By funding think tanks, university institutes, and donor-advisory organizations that adhere to EA's narrow definition of 'effectiveness', Silicon Valley elites are able to promote their own interests under the guise of scientifically-proven, common-sense solutions to poverty.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on research with informal traders in Lusaka, Zambia, this paper argues that it is crucial to analytically situate the role of digital technology and data in Africa within the 'platformisation' of the internet which increasingly raises concerns about the continent's growing datafication.
Paper long abstract:
Much hope continues to be vested in the ability of digital technology and data to transform African economies. Digital technology is not only treated as a crucial growth sector in its own right but is also seen as a means to transform the business practices of farmers, small-scale traders and market vendors. Debates on digital data in the African context are often positively framed in relation to '(big) data for development' projects or 'open data' initiatives. Data feature as potential sources of empowerment, bringing about economic efficiency, feeding into processes of policy formulation or enhancing state accountability. However, in focusing attention on the contribution of digital technology and data to economic change, scholars often fail to examine the way in which African internet(s) are changing and the global power relations at play. Given low levels of landline density and few home broadband connections, internet access in many African contexts heavily relies on having a smartphone and being able to access subsidised social media packages. African internet(s) are strongly shaped by mobile phone providers and global social media platforms. Drawing on research with informal traders and vendors in New Soweto Market in Lusaka, Zambia, this paper argues that it is crucial to analytically situate the role of digital technology and data in Africa within the wider context of the 'platformisation' of the global mobile internet which does not only violate net neutrality but also increasingly raises concerns about the continent's datafication and threats to privacy.
Paper short abstract:
The use of administrative data from health systems has changed. There is a transition from administrative extractivism linked to the control of workers, to scientific extractivism, linked to the valorization of this data. How do we characterize these phenomenons, and what to do to mitigate them?
Paper long abstract:
There has been an evolution in the production and use of administrative data from health systems in developing countries. Authors have described how colonial administrative data was aimed at controlling local populations rather than producing relevant knowledge. This practice was in some sense transmitted in Monitoring and Evaluation practices of the Global Health community, where the burden of reporting is often more linked to controlling health workers rather than to producing relevant knowledge.
With the emergence of new data collection and computing practices and capabilities, there is renewed interest in analyzing administrative data for public health and epidemiology purposes. Meanwhile actors with interest and resources for this type of usage are mainly academic actors from the North. As a result, recognition for data collection work rarely go to data producers, and the benefits of the results for the communities from which the data originate is often unclear.
As an actor specialized in strengthening health information systems in developing countries, Bluesquare needs to tackle both forms of extractivism: designing data collection schemes that benefit local systems, and ensure that the value of analyzed or transformed data benefits local communities. This paper will describe the forms taken by administrative and scientific extractivism in Health Information Systems as they are perceived by an actor of these systems, and will discuss the technical solutions, daily practices and processes put in place to tackle these challenges. Finally, it will underline open questions in the current state of our reflexions on the subject.
Paper short abstract:
Our paper discusses the datafication of smallholder finance in Kenya. We focus in particular on the embeddedness of financial services into digital platforms that provide farmers with end-to-end services. We argue that the platforms' business model risk entrenching pre-existing inequalities.
Paper long abstract:
Our paper discusses the datafication of smallholder finance in Kenya. We focus in particular on the embeddedness of financial service providers into platforms that provide farmers with end-to-end solutions, from credit scoring to advisory support and input distribution. We argue that, in so doing, digital platforms recalibrate the risk-assessment procedures to underwrite agricultural loans and construct an ideal type of farmer whose financial behaviours can be predicted and credit-worthiness calculated.
Access to credit is a critical challenge for Kenyan small-holder farmers. Financial service providers are often reluctant to lend to smallholders because of a mix of factors, including price volatility of inputs and outputs in domestic and international markets, erratic weather patterns, lack of written records and contracts between producers and buyers and transaction amounts too small to justify investments in rural areas. MFIs and saving groups have only partially addressed their unmet demand, mostly helping borrowers smooth consumption and address unexpected needs.
In recent years, however, a new breed of digital service providers has appeared on the Kenyan market. By using transactional and behavioural data to generate a digital footprint, these Fintechs 'de-risk' smallholder finance and are thus able to provide loans, insurance and other financial services via mobile phone.
Based on a qualitative study of agricultural platforms in Kenya, our paper argues that the growing emphasis placed by financial actors on data analytics for increased predictive power risks compounding pre-existing inequalities rooted in geography, social networks, value chains.
Paper short abstract:
This study examines the adoption and usability of a user-driven ICT user-interface for co-producing weather information in a real-life experiment with smallholder farming communities in Ghana.
Paper long abstract:
The production and delivery of weather information for farming is often characterised by formal scientific sector and poor design of information and the ICT. This has affected the usability of weather information to support decision-making in farming. This study examined a user-driven approach under a polycentric management to design user-interface for co-producing weather information with local weather indicators in a real-life experiment in rainfed farming communities in Ghana. We linked theories of polycentric institutions to the citizen science concept to design innovative participatory framework. Data for the study was generated through 21 semi-structured interviews with farmers, agricultural extension agents, NGOs, lead farmers, and 5 focus group discussions with different farmer based organisations. Several workshops were held to make design choices about local weather indicators, the ICT and user-interface.
Findings from the study indicates that the use of smart mobile phones has several potentials to help disseminate agricultural information to farmers. Yet, there were varied levels of adoption and use among farmers as some farmers were not conversant with the use of smart mobile phones. The involvement of all actors ensure that some value was added to existing knowledge, user-interface, and varying levels of interactions among farmers and expert. The usability of ICT tool depended on the design of an appropriate user-interface, farmers' language, context, culture of risk averse, availability of internet and electricity supply. This study has several implications on adoption of ICT among smallholder farmers, social learning, and the linkages between different knowledge systems.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will explore the development potential and power dynamics underlying new forms of domestic resource mobilization in the Global South which involve mobile phone-based money and financial services through a comparative assessment of developments in Kenya and Zimbabwe.
Paper long abstract:
Mobile phone-based money and financial services have emerged as a significant target of developmental intervention in the Global South. While much of the literature has been organized around the problematics of microfinance and financial inclusion, far less attention has been paid to the ways in which states are deploying these new technologies as vehicles for domestic resource mobilization. This paper will provide a comparative assessment of recent developments in Kenya and Zimbabwe, two countries which have been at the forefront of promoting mobile financial services, albeit under profoundly different circumstances and with strongly divergent objectives. In both countries, mobile money has converged with recent policy shifts towards domestic financing for the government budget and for development. By conceptually situating mobile money and finance within broader theories of money, it will argued that the significance of new forms of digital money lies in the ways in which it is being institutionalized in national payments systems and fiscal structures, as well as integrated into state financial policy and governance, especially as a target of taxation and as a mechanism of financial intermediation.