#CHA23 Panel 2: Digital technologies and accountability in humanitarian action
good morning afternoon evening wherever you are tuning in from in Berlin it's four o'clock in the afternoon we already had one session for for those joining us online and who might have just only joined right now we are on the second panel before we have been talking about power imbalances from a more Global Perspective trying to understand where are we at at the moment when it comes to Equitable Partnerships and as well as Technologies how they can use or can be used to tackle power imbalances in this second panel and unfortunately you'll have to listen to me for the next five minutes because I will give you a bit of a background and an introduction to our panelists before you will hear very interesting practical examples from the different organizations we have on the panel today so we'll be mainly talking about in this panel how digital Technologies can actually be used to strengthen accountability or probably not so it's a quest question mark and we will hope to understand more about it during this session so just a quick reminder for those who have only joined us right now I have to kick off with a few housekeeping rules so for you to remember the session will be recorded so it will be made available externally we have for any questions and comments Andrea Steinke our colleague from the center for humanitarian action will help us with the online comments and questions after the panel discussion and then we all again have a discussion with the audience and some special guests who will challenge the panelists on site it's a one hour panel we hope we'll be on time we'll try our level best but before starting the presentation and the discussion a quick introduction of who's sitting on the on the plateau for today myself for those who have been already around I'm Andrea Düchting from the center for humanitarian action I'm a non-resident fellow have been working on digital accountability and I'm the main focal point on the work stream of data and digitalization with me today on my left we have Barnaby Willitts-King from the GSMA and Barnaby you know that I always keep forgetting the abbreviation of what GSMA stands for by this GS mobile Association as far as I understand but you will hopefully give us more insights about that later on it's a network a membership organization working with mobile operators based in the UK and Barnaby himself is the director of research and policy at the GSMA and probably you know him from his past present experience at the ODI humanitarian policy group where he was mainly working on digitalization and digital inclusion and the digital divide as well to our far left we have Kassem Chaalan hopefully pronouncing it correctly joining us from the Lebanese Red Cross from having flown in from Beirut and he's the director of disaster risk reduction at the Lebanese cross as already mentioned and as if I understand it correctly it's your 20th anniversary with the Red Cross in Lebanon since you joined in 93 joined 1993 so it is almost 29. okay so a lot of experience he joined as an emergency medical technician during those days and since 2012 he has been systematically scaling up disaster risk reduction in Lebanon with the work of the Lebanese Red Cross last but not least we have Valentina shafina who is from the International Rescue committee she's the client responsiveness now I have to look at the board again client responsiveness and client-centered programming so what this is all about we will learn about in a second the Valentina has a lot of experience in working on accountability to affected populations Community engagement and ways and part well increasing strengthening participation of affected populations and humanitarian action so sorry for this long story and now I will give you a bit of a background of why we are sitting here and talking about digital accountability and I have to click myself sorry I forgot that one nope switch it on first of course since we are talking about technology here we go um exactly so why are we here talking about digital Technologies to tackle power imbalances so we're at the center for humanitarian action we conducted uh well we published a paper earlier this year looking at how technology can actually strengthen participation and accountability so some of the key findings which are relevant for the discussion today and which are based on the literature review and discussion with several practitioners working in the humanitarian field um is so to say and well digital transformation is not happening overnight it's a long journey and we will hear about this journey later on and we well we have to take into account that it can be an option it's a viable option but it's not the only one as well so we have as already mentioned in the previous panel we have analog communication tools we have digital communication tools and it's a choice and we need to understand which of the choices are actually preferred by the people we want to communicate with so we also learned that it's not easy so we talked about data protection we talked about privacy we talked about Frameworks we talked about Investments capabilities capacities so we need to find simple answers to operationalize actually a very complex topic into well practical realities and with the very experienced panelists today will provide a couple of examples how this could actually work so the practitioners I have spoken to mainly recommended that for actually having a digital transformation and also talking about accountability and all of us who have been working on accountability know it's a mindset shift it's not happening in a day it's the way we approach we co-create we co-design our response and our way we work to support local communities so we also need a nuanced approach meaning on the one hand we do have all these risks and they are overwhelming and they are very important and we are all afraid that we all know about data we have heard about data protection in various forms and because they are so overwhelming we sometimes so often forget that people have a choice to choose if they want to use the whatsapps the telegrams the tik toks or whatever or if they want to continue talking with us face to face so do we actually know what are these preferred communication channels do we actually know about it at the same time of course we want to do no digital harm and we want to as we learned early on not increasing accountability but not vulnerability and of course that's why we are here which we have been talking about we have so many diverse stakeholders in the in the in the sector and in the ecosystem we have the private sector we have local Red Cross societies we have local organizations we have international organizations INGOs but we also need to listen and involve Those whom we are meant to use this technology for so there's the question of co-designing and co-creating which Juliet was referring to in the previous panel as well and I'm sure we'll learn about it from from Kassem later on with that I will hand over soon to Kassem to give us some insights and experience from the Lebanese cross but we also want to involve the audience and understand are you using actually digital Technologies in your daily work to increase accountability and if yes how are you using it and which Technologies are you using so we would like to ask you to use this short survey so you can access the survey either through the QR the code which is on the screen and online or you can also use the hyperlink which is shared in the chat or using our web page the program conference webpage lineupr when you scroll down to the panel 2 you will have the link to the survey as well we'll get back to the results in a second with this Kassem I would like to hand over to you and ask you I mean we have been talking about well we have raised all these buzzwords of accountability participation engagement and now Having learned that you have been with the Lebanese Red Cross for so long how have you been starting your journey on digital transformation how have you been well using digital Technologies to engage people over to you thank you can I have the pointer please yeah so done with you took the code yeah so through our experience as Lebanese Red Cross will be speaking more about the digitalization and how we are using that on the preparedness and response and even during recovery and and again always we need to ask ourselves why you are using digitalization it is not about digitalization and by itself alone I mean you will not find solution so this is what we really this is what we learn the Lebanese Red Cross we started in Lebanon since 1945. and we really start to focus on digitalization in 2018. but again that really took us through the experience of the games through our position with the government and the acceptance that we have with the local communities so in addition to my role I am the LRC focal person as the DRM at Council of ministry were there where they are taking really all that decision when it comes to the National disaster risk reduction and National Response preparedness because if you are speaking about change only at the level of organization then simply there is no sustainability and it will stay at the level of the organization and that it will end up on doing competition between different organizations and there's always question what is in for me and for us what we are trying to do is what we need to do for the community and we should work with the community in order to maintain sustainability and for us we start like baby steps for us the dream was we just we need to come to show map with points really to understand where our operation is for the search and rescue and then when we really start to invest more on the community preparedness and the government preparedness through the disaster risk reduction we've done one visit to one of the local government or actually Union of municipality where they are really focusing a lot on digitalization and they was funded by big organization and they just asked me look at this map we have all this multi-hazard existing then I asked him can you please take me through the map and simply I was not able to translate this map into action so again it is not really about we as International humanitarian organization this is not how we can support the localization I mean it should come with the community in order to understand that and now if you can see really in these pictures here we start to develop the survey based on the community need in order really to understand the local need based on the multi-hazards that they are facing based on based on the capacities that they are facing and again to help them to do to do like mitigation prevention and response but in order to do that we really make sure that we've done because again here like you know one step back who's our community you are always speaking about Community localization and for us there is multi layers the bottom up and the up button approach that they are fitting to each others so one we really need to consult with the government what is really existing and what they know and what they need and how this data can really feed in and help them then you need to go back again to the local ngos to really understand from them what they need and what is really existing within the international organization and within the government and this is we call it stakeholder mapping stakeholder analysis look at the existing and build on that and for us we took the scenario of 2006 war in Lebanon if the people they knew that it was really big war where most of the road are blocked and there's data required and people they were requesting support again I will jump back again to the Beirut blast in last two years where we see how this data help us again it's really good and bad story for us you will not be able to test this tool unless there's something happen and in Lebanon we are in a response mode every day and we are doing development as we go so we were really able to test and pilot all this so we developed 33 data collection survey on all of the capacity that was that we found out the local NGOs, International ngos, UN and the government need so this is the buy-in and then again why we need this data it's one we need we need to save life it should help us to access this information easier and we need really to establish that platform easy to deal and easy to use how we come up with this data we consult with the community communities are speaking about it and then communities they map it on the paper where it is and then jointly with a community we go down to start to collect this information and we empower the local authorities to keep updating this information I'm not saying life is easy and it's functioning everywhere and again we we again looked at the other part so all this data that we are collecting here it's really pumping here and then we start to speak about the multi-hazards as the communities as they are facing and they just draw it on the map and then our team they go down and they just sketch the hazard and yeah and it's not only about the hazards that they are facing even the impact because we really need to see the impact So based on that and based on the existing capacity can really help us to take the right decision then during beirut blast we found out that this data is really very irrelevant to help us to take decision but then we we need to find way how we can communicate with the community in order to address their need and we start really to to look for a solution so why we came to this idea because we found out people there in the news they are saying no one answering the phone we are not able to to reach them and then we consult with the local ngos and with the international ngos and we came up we work on the CRM system where it's like starting to Do complete comprehensive mechanism I'm not sure about the time it's not moving the clock is running how many meters still have no no okay I will jump faster than so for us and based on this data we we were like better prepared during cholera so during covid-19 we we we established survey on the survey one two three where the community can request a oxygen machine and then it's not limited to even we found out that communities that they are not able to use the survey how they can do it they can just simply call the hotline so again there's no one solution fit all it's I mean you need to work really on the multi-function we were better prepared during cholera based on all the lesson learned that we learned from covid where they took decisions and indeed they need to they need to do Mass vaccine as a country level since we have the capacity of the hospitals pharmacies phcs schools Etc we just took this map we added there and we share this information with other organization to help them to understand really what is the need and where is a special need as well to help them to pass the response actually normally I go through this presentation for two hours I'm trying to do it in 10 minutes and and really is a last point where we again doing very engagement with a scientific National Research Center as a country where we engage with scientific body with the DRM at Council of ministry where they are the decision makers and again we used our experience with them and we came up again to this dashboard it's helping for early warning mechanism for the forest fire for today tomorrow and the day after tomorrow simply I will conclude here and I will be around if you have any questions later on in order to do that in order to do the change we need really to come together Community local institution private sector government and scientific body and we should build on existing mechanism and existing structures to maintain the sustainability as we go thank you I forget to mention you have the barcode here where we have the story map all what I just presented you can see it in the next story map exactly thanks a lot Kassem this was super impressive and I took a few and notes for the next panelists to find to complement what you have been talking about you said that we need we have to come together all we have to discuss as a community so that's why we also have uh let me call it I'm not sure if it's actually correct to say that gsma is a private sector representative um Barnaby with us today so but before moving to the question to you Barnaby we would like to understand if you actually use Technologies in your daily work and what kind of tools are you using because for any kind of tools you are using you would need connectivity by mobile operators which Barnaby will be soon talking about so if we can get the results from the survey that would be brilliant just to get an idea if our assumption proved wrong or false so most of you are using it it's a pretty overwhelming kind of feedback and then let's see what kind of tools are you using okay so I guess most of the tools and we have been mainly asking about digital tools of course they all need connectivity and as we were assuming there are not so many colleagues or organizations using chat or voice Bots yet so let's see if we can learn a bit about how this could actually be helpful or maybe too risky to to apply to Barnaby we have now learned that most of the organizations are using digital Technologies in one way or the other for supporting and engaging affected populations so what is the role of the private sector or an organization like gsma to share those experiences over to you hi there thanks very much Andrea and thanks Kassem for that really um I'm going to also talk a bit about Lebanon um but just sort of taking up your point about the use of Technology um 95 of the world is is covered by mobile internet and and over half of the world is actually is actually using it so I mean really interesting results there so much use of technology so it's enormous reach of mobile technology which means it's a uh super important to engage people where they are um this is an increasingly digital and mobile sort of platform for engaging um so mobile operators can strengthen accountability to answer the question simply by providing a platform for affected people for humanitarians and that includes local actors um so the gsma is the global trade Association of the mobile phone industry and we have over 700 mobile network operators as members across the world and the program I'm in the mobile for humanitarian Innovation program is part of the foundation activities which is funded by the UK government um and our aim is to support and expand responsible digital ecosystems in humanitarian crisis and we do this through Innovation grant funding Partnerships connecting with tech industry and humanitarian agencies and we also work with governments to overcome policy and Regulatory barriers and then finally research and learning to to build an Evidence base on how to do this effectively and there'll be some links on the presentation so a lot of what we do effectively is to encourage the industry to do more to support humanitarian crises not through giving money particularly but through appropriate Innovation through responsible Partnerships and um and overcoming some of these legal regulatory barriers so to get a bit more specific there's lots of ways that I think you know we've heard about already and in terms of how agencies use mobile services for accountability there's hotlines different apps two-way engagement as well as the sort of broader things that we heard about in terms of Assessments data collection mapping and so I think the theme of of successful Partnerships is really important because successful mobile operators have a very good understanding of how people use mobile services and how to design something effective for them and and I think where they then co-design something a product with uh with humanitarians and other local organizations um they can together make sure that these are appropriate consistent with humanitarian principles and also adhere to good practice in terms of data protection and which is something that you know mobile industry has to take very seriously um so a specific example of where the gsma has brought together um technology and humanitarian agencies to support accountability and participation is a chat bot for engagement with Syrian refugees in Lebanon it's called a Solace bot so we provided a fund to the NGO a grant to the NGO solidarity and they developed a WhatsApp messaging chat bot for syrians it supports in 300 field sites so it's a very extensive program the they were finding their telephone hotline was often busy people didn't feel like they were actually being listened to so to this point about designing for the how people use the technology um the chatbot used WhatsApp which was a very common platform but it also Incorporated voice recognition and used machine learning because people were very comfortable with leaving voice notes um to to provide feedback so so this was a really interesting example of where actually this was co-designed between an NGO working with a vulnerable Community but with with the technology platforms um just just to sort of point to another area that I think is really useful important um particularly in humanitarian crises is is the use of anonymous platforms and I'm one of these that many of you may be familiar with is is Loop which I think is a really important example of how particularly where you can have it in a mobile enabled way so people can really access a platform to provide Anonymous feedback particularly on sensitive issues this is a way to encourage people to engage to encourage communication but to do it anonymously so the sensitive information um isn't at risk so I guess I'll just close by saying the key theme that that we see in our programming and I'm happy to talk about it more later is is meeting people where they are so many people are digital but we'll come back to where that can be a challenge and how we overcome some of the risks of exclusion thank you thank you Barnaby thanks for this very nice for me helping me to ask my next question to Valentina actually because as you mentioned I mean there's so many people are online nowadays and are connected but we also have people who are not connected and we also learned that it's very context specific and that's why we have also well looking at the International Rescue committee Valentina looking at you you have a client responsiveness approach what does that actually mean and when you think of technology and when you have introduced technology and you work from a client responsiveness perspective how do you approach it and what are your experience when using Technologies to actually strengthen accountability and participation thanks a lot it might be a very yellow slide so maybe let us let us move to the to the next one so uh yeah I think just additional Food For Thought to the to the audience today I will take us a bit step back closer to the concepts of accountability to affected populations we have been talking about it I mean since I started working in the humanitarian sector I feel like Grand bargaining participation Evolution was on the agenda and like since I've been working the progress is not really Advanced and there are now people turn more and more towards technology to basically find new methods solutions to finally be accountable to the populations that we serve um but I will take a step back around what we observed within the organization is around the behavior internal incentives so like yes we have the global commitments yes we all understand and agree then we need to follow them but they're all the time are the priorities risks we all work in crisis settings so how do we actually hold ourselves accountable to those AP commitments but also provide systems methods for a community for effective communication with people to yeah do the same with us so what we have been doing within IRC for quite some time is basically to shift those organizational strategic priorities and incentives among our staff so one of the first steps for us was to not talk about beneficiaries anymore because it's a very disempowering term it doesn't really help anyone it doesn't really help ours with working with the Frontline staff and basically communicating this message that you have to be engaged with the communities you need to listen to their needs you need to prefer communication with them using the methods that they would like to communicate with you and you need to spend time working with the communities and not just write another proposal at your desk um so yeah one of the areas that helped us to like shift this internal incentives to really put this term within our organizational AP framework was around client responsiveness and using terms of clients maybe bringing us more to the perspective of humanitarian agency provides services we supposed to provide services based on the needs and preferences of the clients that we serve in the private sector like the power imbalances or like the power relations are completely different clients decide where they bring their money in our sector unfortunately these powers are not exactly the same so people are supposed to benefit from the services but actually they don't decide what they would like to receive they just get something provided by the agencies also with the trust most likely to the agencies that they of course will provide what is needed but well that's not always the case so I think yeah one of the internal organizational strategy was really to like shift this perspective and you know like sometimes I feel like no I'm going the wrong way I feel like simple things have just communicating it within the organization that it is organizational strategy it is an organizational culture it is applicable for all staff to make sure that clients are in the center doesn't matter where you work if you work in finance in supply chain in programming it was really very helpful and Powerful within an organization to align it with our mission values and you know like I work just like on one sector of client responsiveness part of the small team and we're supposed to influence the shift within the whole organization that operates and I don't know over 30 countries and this is not easy but I would say it really helps to go with this like one organizational voice and among all the priorities that we're working on to put it at the center to make a clear message that you have to do it it's everyone's responsibility it's not only the responsibility of the meal you need to set up a survey it's not the responsibility maybe of a person to set up a WhatsApp Channel and then magical respond to I don't know 500 requests per day this is physically not possible so I think that's where it takes me to the solution with the Technologies so when we open communication channels and of course with like good intentions we do open them with like hotlines SMS I was surprised to see so many responses with social media accounts I would love to hear how people manage data security and privacy with this method but you know like you open the channel and of course people are hungry for information so they call and use it but how do you do data management so I would never work with our teams to open hotline without actually having standard operating procedures roles and responsibilities data management imagine tomorrow you get 500 responses what you will do with that if you get those and you don't get back to people people don't call the line they don't get a response they are dissatisfied they're really annoyed with the support that they're supposed to receive their promise but like nothing is coming out of it so that's really not helpful and this is when technology comes in we have several examples with moreover like low cost solution when you just use open platforms like CommCare ower BI it's for free maybe not power bi but at least CommCare you do case management forms you do data management you do data floors you train your staff and they are responsible to do this work because they see this very yellow sign every day to a workspace that they have to put clients at the center when you open the hotline again using the examples of the private sector you know like customer support from the private sector we're all called the hotlines and I do love chat box but I'm the kind of person that I use the voice but most likely I just wait till the operator answers so yes that's how we work and that's how a lot of people and I would say especially looking at the preferences of our clients I'm actually asking how would you like to communicate with us most likely they would like to speak to a real person I mean with the chat box I actually also agree that it's a very good solution when you have ready responses but with the tendency how fast tracking our programming is how many changes we do sometimes like updating our frequently asked questions and responses basically you have to update them maybe every day and this is time and effort so uh yes there should be a real person on the headline and yes it is an investment but there are also Tech solutions that will help us with like I don't know waiting lines there are ticketing systems like jira and zendesk that helps you with that as well so I would say yeah there are solutions technology helps to that for that terms but it's kind of like one piece of the puzzle there is a lot about organizational culture there is a lot about buying and prioritization from your staff who works with clients on the day-to-day basis and yes of course technology can help us with the rest so yeah thanks a lot for your attention so technology can help us with the rest taking you words now um Kassem I'm asking you I mean you said it it was well yesterday you said it's a long journey where we spoke so in the quick few words um what were the main Milestones on this those on this journey to actually co-create have local actors involved and to go digital six years and five minutes [Laughter] you know for us one of the main challenging that we found out you see the operation team working alone and you have the IM and the development team on the other side and that really will achieve nothing because for us the aim the IM team they should develop based on the need of the operation team to feed in the community need and this is for us what we really change we make sure even with all of our stakeholders we run through Workshop we put the IM team together and the operation team together and we've done brainstorming then the operations they start to understand what the system can do and then the development they start to understand more what the operation team they need because at the end we need to accept by starting we need to start baby steps we cannot do everything and we do and and we really need to understand that we will do a lot of mistake at the beginning and then we should to learn from our mistake and this is another point that we are not learning from our mistakes and we are not building on existing uh like you know development take the scenario of covid-19 there's a lot of things happen now when we went back to speak about cholera I mean we like start from from like like scratch that means there's already a lot of things taking taking place so so this is one second there's always question what is in for me and for us again for all of the international organizations the question it should be what is in for the communities and we really should to come together it's not about competition because what we found out that when we run to up to any Workshop everyone trying to introduce what they have instead of listening what is existing at the country and how you can help them to maintain this sustainability and the last point for the partners and donors and back donors it's really very important to focus on the complementarity on doing linkages between the dots and if you fund and if you need to fund any projects our recommendation is really very important to see look at the existing like projects taking place let's to make sure that there's proper mapping and it's very important for the donors to speak with each other it's not only the international organization or the local organization but like you know forcing all of us you know I mean at the end it's like you know one business all of us we should force each others to come together it will not happen overnight then we can save a lot of money we can do a lot of achievement by building on different projects this is a complementary approach thank you so if it's a complementary approach what is the private sector bringing to the table Barnaby I mean we heard about the challenges which uh Valentina was referring to um and probably the private sector or mobile operators you mentioned there are more than 700 stakeholders how can they support the sector and overcoming those challenges um yeah it's a it's a really good question I think actually sort of client responsiveness as as Valentina uses the term is I think is is definitely one of the elements of it um but I just want to say a little bit about this this question of how do we how do we improve people's connections and and avoid exclusion because you know the world is becoming more connected but people in crisis are often the least connected and as we've heard from the previous panel you know being connected comes with its you know new risks that are attached to that so I think the best the best example is where you know mobile companies in in our case actually see it's important to invest in a particular service in a particular area where that's going to allow accessibility to to women or people with disabilities and there are some operators who see this and they see the business case and there's a very good example in in Pakistan Jazz the operator there has got a really you know Progressive approach to to inclusion but it's not true of of every part of the industry so some of the things that we do to encourage that and encourage this sort of mutual learning is is better understanding the challenges so this is you know context specific understanding really understanding the local context um we have a tool actually if I can find the slide again um which is called CoNUA which is the connectivity needs and usage assessment tool and um okay don't worry the colleagues work maybe we can search for it that's all right um anyway this is about understanding where there is connectivity um and it's something we developed with with reach and with the emergency telecoms cluster uh yeah there it is CoNUA thank you um and that's so you can see where there is connectivity and make the case for where you need connectivity so a really good example is from Sudan where um this survey was done it established that actually there wasn't much connectivity in Refugee hosting areas and so actually UNDP ended up funding temporary mobile Towers to actually show The Operators look there are tens of thousands of refugees here really actually desperate to use your services humanitarian agencies who want to do mobile money cash transfers um so it's worth you actually putting your your money in there and so that's actually led to permanent infrastructure so there's a real sort of you know partnership there but also researching the barriers is is critical this is something we spend a lot of time looking at is it about you know can people afford handsets can they afford data can they charge their phones these are all barriers that you know I mean we're all familiar with but even more so in in humanitarian crises are there legal barriers like refugees not being able to access or register SIM cards and then cultural social particularly language barriers um next week we're actually going to be publishing the the annual mobile gender gap report um and one of the statistics in that annual report is that women are 19 percent less likely than men to use mobile internet in lower middle income countries and that that's actually the Gap is is widening having closed a bit during covid so sort of understanding why that is is is critical and we did some reports um some some some primary field research in three displacement contexts Papua New Guinea Lebanon and South Sudan which was called the digital worlds research and I'm just gonna go back to this the digital worlds of displacement affected communities and this was really understanding how differently people use their phones so in Papua New Guinea there was a big language barrier as well as digital literacy being a huge barrier whereas in Lebanon huge challenge was around scams for um people getting messaged on their phone about resettlement so understanding the different challenges is critical and digital literacy and Trust actually trusting to use the chatbot it was a good example of where actually people don't always trust the chatbot for the reasons that Valentina said so we have also got a mobile internet skills training toolkit um which has been used in in 27 countries just a final thing where I guess a sort of another example of where we've learned across between the private sector and humanitarian agencies is in Rwanda the the mobile operator there has trained their agents on the humanitarian code of conduct when they're actually working with refugees so they understand the particular situation that refugees are in so I guess those are just a few examples of some of the ways in which uh private sector tools working with humanitarian agencies have sort of been tried in particular countries and then actually scaled up and I think the the very practical Partnerships are really the way to to learn combining this sort of client responsiveness with the sort of humanitarian understanding of of the needs of affected people. Thanks Barnaby
before turning to the discussants the last question to you Valentina um so as Barnaby was just saying combining client responsiveness and Technologies or private sector perspectives how is that actually possible and what is your experience on that one um yeah very very good question and I think that's where I will turn more to the work or like one of the enablers that we know is very critical around the work with like partners and Frontline staff so you know we do develop a lot of very fancy tools uh sometimes at the HQ level or through the country program I don't know Tech team that like yes we have the problem we'll tackle it and then with the expectation that you know like in the end of the day people who will be using it on the day-to-day basis are those who work with clients with the affected population on the day-to-day basis so our key priority needs to be that people on the front line stuff feel comfortable using it we make sure that in multiple cases the results of a huge assessment was actually saved just by talking to the Frontline staff who works with the affected communities every day you don't necessarily like humanitarian sector loves assessments right like we have so many of them but um I think we need to reconsider how much information and how much empowerment empowerment we need to give and facilitate with our partners and Frontline staff who knows much better do people use uh mobile phones and what is the access in a way that we all see like when we live in the community we don't need an assessment to see who is using phone or not we basically have this information Frontline staff are usually coming from the communities that we serve so how about talking to them how about making sure that they are eyes and ears of the areas where we work and they can be much more involved in the design of the communication channels design of our programs design of our interventions and they are the one who in the end of the day a face of the organization so I think this is a huge component on the like people puzzle at what I like sometimes refer like is there people processes technology in a way that people that work within the organization they need to value client values the current client perspective client feedback client complaints and really take it very serious and act upon it that builds trust they are the one who represent their organization so people need to trust them even to hold to call the hotline that has your logo or to use the chat box or to answer your survey questions honestly because uh you know like the humanitarian responses usually takes quite several years people are getting surveyed and assessed multiple times while they're leaving the refugee settings and I mean people are smart they know the questions they hear the same people coming over and asking them the same questions and you know like well you can use the system you can turn it around you can answer but you know like it's really sometimes the way that we need to uh use this like personal communication through the Frontline staff and also support it with the technology so just technology again it can help a lot private sector has a lot of experience around the efficiency so we need to learn from them around their finish and see we need to learn from them not to develop and use software for each and every problem there are so many uh existing solutions that we need to use maybe pay for some subscription but you know like it potentially has been tested by the private sector we don't need to test it ourselves yes we need to adapt it through a crisis setting this is understandable but yeah if I see another team who are opening a call for a vendor to develop a platform software that personally makes me like very unhappy because we don't need another platform to be developed we need to build on the experience that private sector is already doing and adapted to the crisis settings but we need to make sure that our Frontline staff is also on board under able capacitated trained when needed to use it in the best way possible so yeah thanks a lot I mean this we can at least I feel it like that there's a bunch of experience and a lot of um examples out there and on the panel as well and I'm already alerting you will be running five minutes late so bear with me um I would like to turn based on what we have learned and all the examples from the different stakeholders in the sector I would like to turn to our discussants and those who have tuned in online we have a special role during our session we have two discussants for this session we have two colleagues represented from the so-called Global south or local Partners or just colleagues who challenge us on the panel to give us a feedback of what they have heard and what they have taken along and maybe raise the question so let me turn to Chilande first who's turning tuning in from I think Nairobi or Kenya at least um great unfortunately Chilande couldn't make it in person she is representing the Warande Advisory Center so as a very bunch of very experience a lot and Chilande we are looking forward to hearing from you what you have or what you would just like to want to share with the panel with us over to you thank you thank you Andrea and um it's like Valentina had what was going on in my head when she made her last comments and made me throw away all my other bullet points um but especially really appreciating the role that you know what you're calling the front line workers I'm assuming these are some of the your local um country colleagues have to play in trying to get some of these things up and running and some of this acceptance of the tools that we are trying to put out there are going much faster so thank you for those comments and thank you for the comments that everybody has put out their casimits I appreciate that you especially the acknowledgment that it's a journey that you're making it's been six years and a few hours I suspect uh you will multiply that um before we get to where we want to get to but thank you for that um on this question um around how we're using digital uh Technologies to reinforce accountability in humanitarian action one of the things when I was just smiling and even as I was listening to all of you speak I kept going back to I think technology is fantastic but from where I'm seated I always always have to go back to that this technology is either being developed or being administered by human beings um and and when you think about it from an accountability perspective sometimes it's not just about the technology but the human behind some of these technologies that makes it either difficult or very easy for this to open up the doors that we want to open uh when you're thinking about accountability in a humanitarian action certainly from the Civil Society organizations that I've been working with um in sub-Saharan Africa um quite a lot there's a lot of prerequisites to ensuring that we do see and feel that accountability across the board what tends to happen is that we get we try to use technology to get information to mine information we design Technologies to collect information for us to make decisions for us to understand for us to therefore come back with Solutions and I'm liking the temple that has been set by the panelists which basically moves away from being extractive because that's how technology tends to be introduced to some of our communities and actually starting to look at how do we actually begin to have participation how do we actually begin to have meaningful participation in this sector so that we can actually get sustainable um you know effective and Sustainable Solutions to the challenges that we all face so some of the things um that I want to to keep to keep challenging us those of us who are coming up with Technologies those of us who are thinking about using Technologies is how are we using this technology to enforce what we call Dynamic accountability accountability across the whole spectrum of the stakeholders that are involved in humanitarian actions it's not just about getting information from the community to the other side how do we ensure that this technology also helps us the other way around how are we as those of us who are administering this Tech um being accountable when we take in this information and when we analyze it how what else what happens then how do we then go back to the community in a way that is Meaningful in such a way that they then get encouraged to keep participating or interacting with some of these Technologies uh I'm not surprised that social media was top of the list of how we engage with our our clients because it allows us to be interactive it's much better than for example a Survey Monkey where I type in and I send it to you and then I have to wait for the executive summary of a document uh to tell me what the issues were so just as an example um I think what we want to do is use more and more technology in this action that is that encourages interaction that the feedback loop looked is continuous that we are getting information we are feeding it this way and this information is also being fed back on the other way so what I would um because I know we don't have much time um what I want to put out there as as things for us to consider as we use more of this technology uh in humanitarian action is what are we doing how are we using technology to ensure that we are working in a way that is easy for others to see what we are doing even for those of us so that we we open up the space between the two let's use technology in a way that actually creates that eases that interaction I know what you're doing and I know most importantly I know why you're doing that I know why you're bringing this technology so I was very appreciative of the narrative that I had where um especially I think it was you Barnaby that talked about spending some time to explain the why of a certain tool the second thing I'll say is then how do we then use this in ways that are appropriate to all our different communities um to help us listen and help us to be open to constructive criticism that comes so that we can learn together so that we can make decisions together we can address them together so that Solutions are not only being set by one side I think technology is not being utilized enough to actually have co-creation of decisions and solutions the challenges that we've faced how are we ensuring that there's multiple stakeholders that are playing an active role across the whole chain of humanitarian actions that we're trying to take um how we then creating building relationships along with this technology that we are putting out there so that we don't just become very transactional it doesn't just become a scientific um Affair that is you know a scientific process of um of you know utilizing this Tech and lastly what I'll say is therefore let us reflect a little bit on on therefore the changes that we need to make uh with how we utilize what technology we're using how we utilize it and then they saw what after that to make this a meaningful stakeholder engagement that encourages um you know encourages credibility across the SEC all the different stakeholders that encourages Clarity that respect that maintains respect across the board and most importantly that encourages trust uh across the whole um engagement of the key stakeholders now I could say so much more but I just want to put those out there for now because I was told I have about three minutes I'll be back next time if I came I would say some more but thank you so much Chilande it was actually I guess six minutes but that's fair enough um quickly turning to you Maira Vanesa we have a second discussion to give her some feedback before turning to the questions and then we'll combine everything to wrap up in a very probably kind of speed dialing speak reacting way of trying to take the time but first to you Vanesa thanks for joining us from Caritas Colombia and we are happy to listen to you what your reactions are to what I've been just discussed thanks hello hello everyone my name is Maira Vanesa Mendoza working for Caritas Colombia and a focal point for together a project um first um one second my notes connecting with Julie's ideas in the previous panel and with Kassem in this panel is very important that donors listen more the needs and difficult difficulties at the local level um I think that many donors um establishing requirements but it's difficult to find Qualified staff in in different different locals place okay but um the local organization don't have access to resources in in many times and in conclusion the general generation of capacity capacities and a condition at the local level is very important and I have a question to Kassem um what solution do you suggest in remote areas without internet for example amazonas in Colombia's case for example thanks thanks a lot Vanesa um we will pick up that question in our wrap-up session so bear with us that we I think we have so much to learn about and we have mentioned earlier and it's a complex topic and I think there's a lot to discuss but we also want to hear of course from you and if there had been any questions from the from the chat and looking at Andrea's face I imagine it has been quite active yes I have two questions and two comments for our panelists or for our um whole audience here the first question is from Abdul Khan who asks what are the measures already taken regarding digital downward accountability toward the affected population slash in Refugee settings um there's another question from a German organization which I think goes to the IRC and the Red Cross does your organization partner with tech companies from the private sector to learn especially from customer relations management for example and if so do you see value in that kind of conversation um then there are a couple of comments the first one who thinks that this conference is really important and interesting but uh it would appreciate he would appreciate or would also uh make the conference better if we would think about ways to include include french-speaking uh audience as well so this is something that we as CHA would take with us and and try to be better next time and I guess there is a digital solution for this one as well and the last comment from the chat goes to Kassem from who says excellent presentation very much enriching and valuable and I think this is something that we should also um present to you thank you thanks a lot the quick run for those who want to raise an on-site question I hope you're not too tired to ask questions quickly we will pick up two three two or three more questions and then we'll wrap up in the follow-up session the mics are in front please enter quickly introduce yourself for the people colleagues online to know who is speaking and thank you for turning them in English it's working yeah oh I'm uh I'm Patrick hamadi I work at humedica here in Germany uh in the Alps I'm a policy advisor there my question is I think I've listened to all of you and I stand in full agreement to you in fact we ought to clap you but they have one burning question that is on my mind one we realize technology is not necessarily developing at the same Pace everywhere throughout for example many of the countries in sub-Saharan almost almost many people have tele telephones that's not an issue I was the other day in a desert in Sudan and I saw somebody at Sudanese on a in a camel with the Chargers cell phone charger I mean a solar charger and so the issue of funds and communication is not a problem but the issue is what type what skill and all that so the tools you're developing are they accessible to all these different levels of Technology of of uh of gadgetaries that are available in the different settings because if that is not being taken care of then somebody would complain about technology apartheid within the humanitarian setting that's the question that I had by me thank you thanks a lot so people are not yet fully asleep so give us five more minutes to answer those questions um let me turn to you first born and be there was a question maybe we can pick on the on the last one and what has been already done um actually in terms of digital accountability and what kind of skills I actually needed to make those tools which are available at the moment accessible to those who might not have the right or sufficient digital literacy data literacy capabilities so what is your key message which you want to take us home yeah I mean I I think to sort of emphasize what I was saying earlier I think this question of understanding what the barriers are whether it's it's a technology question um in terms of actually Mobile isn't the answer as we heard from from Vanesa you know you may not actually have connectivity you can't rely on it um or you have a you know a very simple phone so I think designing for the appropriate technology or no technology is really important um and then understanding where the people you know are not actually able to access those Services they don't have uh literacy it's in the wrong language it's not in French um so there's so many so many barriers and it sounds obvious but actually I think so many programs you see don't have the resources don't have the time particularly in a crisis to to understand what those barriers are but I think my final message is really you know there's a building evidence base and it's something that we're really Keen to build as evidence-based of where are some of the challenges but where are some of the solutions because there are there are solutions out there thanks a lot Barnaby, Valentina there was a question on the tech Partnerships um what is your experience and what is the added value working with the technology or I.T Tech sector and what is your key message which you want people to take home uh yeah I think um in our case uh we do have several instances of like learning more and using jira's and zendesk that are like private softwares and yes a lot of customer support services use them uh but it definitely is something that uh in each context uh needs to be identified for the area where we work uh what is unfortunately the situation that private sector doesn't come across is a lot around the coordination between mobile operators so it seems to be such a like easy fix to set up like a one single short hotline number in in Germany in Berlin but when you start doing it in Colombia in Kabul uh or in Amman even it seems to be such a complicated process that if people who haven't worked on this before and just rushing into these problems makes a lot of mistakes in the beginning and then it becomes a very expensive thing to fix something in the process or just basically delete and start from the beginning so I would say looking at the local providers First coordinating with where possible like International platforms because once you deliver develop it in one context most likely with the much cheaper and faster Pace you can apply it in another context and basically instead of developing something very country specific you can take care your pilot your example from Latin America and
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