Category: Governance

Vaccine Inequality

Raul Zambrano Economics, Governance, Human Development Leave a comment

Already under siege in many quarters, Globalization has now added the seemingly unstoppable spread of the Corona Virus to its already dubious credentials. As expected, not one single country has been spared, rich and poor suddenly standing on the same level playing field – a milestone economic globalization never accomplished despite mainstream media coverage tirelessly reporting otherwise. A treacherous pathogen, Corona’s desperate seek for hosts to ensure its survival also operated as a mole invading human bodies silently, the host remaining oblivious to the ongoing attack while recruiting more hosts unknowingly. Indeed, Corona is an insidious viral multiplier of the Globalization process.

While initial lockdown policies were first deemed autocratic and anti-democratic, most countries

Read More

AI and Development Policies

Raul Zambrano Artificial Intelligence, Governance, Human Development, ICTD Leave a comment

Strongly supported by behemoth tech companies, the “ethical and responsible” AI discourse has managed to almost completely overshadow the relevant conversation on the potential socio-economic impact the resurgent technology might have in developing countries. While such discourse’s subtle agenda, apparently now failing, is essentially aimed at avoiding any government regulation by promoting “AI for good,” research on its economic impact seems minimal in comparison. Research on AI public policies in developing countries I completed with a college at the end of last year (to be published soon, hopefully) showed that most Global South countries are not even thinking about the topic. And the few that have taken steps overemphasize its ethical aspects – some even openly opposing any regulation

Read More

Greater “AI for Good”

Raul Zambrano Artificial Intelligence, Governance, ICTD, Inequality 1 Comment

The proliferation of top, best, fails and prediction posts on almost any topic is now a staple of the annual transition from one year to the next. As the new year starts to see the light of day, we seem to be compelled to take stock of the previous 365.25 days and poke more in-depth into the short past. Regular note-taking, logging and recording are, among others, part of the task. The end of a decade calls for more elaborate efforts given the period. A few attempts are even more ambitious and, for example, recommend the 100 books one must read before dying. A bit over the top, perhaps. One could spend a whole year just trying to catch up with all these posts in any event. A better strategy is to focus on areas of interest or specialization. Books, films, social sciences and technology capture

Read More

Digital Government Governance Models

Raul Zambrano e-governance, Governance, ICTD Leave a comment

Governments should fully understand the scope and reach of the various Digital Government (DG) institutional functions described in my previous post and their proper sequencing before they embark on comprehensive digital transformation processes. The policy units’ actual institutional location leading DG processes should result from the analysis of the various functions, not the starting point. Indeed, countries have deployed a wide variety of institutional arrangements while designing and implementing DG. A one size fits all approach is thus out of the question. Similarly, copying and pasting institutional design from DG lead countries or nations within similar development stages will tend to fail. Context is thus essential.

Equally important here is the distinction between policy design

Read More

Digital Government Revisited – III

Raul Zambrano e-governance, Governance, Human Development, ICTD, Open Government 1 Comment

Institutions matter, more so for the development and implementation of Digital Government (DG), whose core target is public institutions’ transformation. On the one hand, public institutions should have an array of capacities to ensure public investments in digital technologies are effectively managed from beginning to end. In many low-income countries, such capabilities are exiguous or conspicuously absent. On the other, digital technologies are a means to foster public entities’ responsiveness and effectiveness, thus increasing their overall capacity to deliver established legal mandates.  Juggling these two seemingly contradictory propositions in sustained fashion is one of the core challenges governments face when designing and deploying DG, especially in the Global South, where state capacity

Read More

Contentious Politics in the AI Age

Raul Zambrano Artificial Intelligence, Economics, Governance, Human Development, ICTD, Inequality Leave a comment

Initially touted as revolutionary and progressive in the 1990s, the lightening evolution of digital technologies, running on the coattails of continuous innovation, has been accompanied by the rise of both extreme socio-economic inequalities and loud and widespread populism, nationalism and overt racism. Many countries are undergoing de-democratization processes undergirded by very resilient neoliberalism, while claim-making by conservative political actors has gained considerable ground in the always contentious political arena.

The unexpected and devastating pandemic triggered by the accelerated spread of the SARS-COV-2 virus has put into evidence the real constraints of a now aging and highly monopolistic digital sector. While information and communication tools and platforms are indeed

Read More

Innovation in the Public Sector

Raul Zambrano e-governance, Governance, Human Development, ICTD, Inequality, Social Innovation Leave a comment

I. Introduction

For the last 30 years, relentless technological innovation has seemingly conquered most, if not all, corners of the world. While in its early stages, the focus was on infrastructure and social networks, the latest phase has set its eyes on core productive and financial processes that will undoubtedly have profound socio-economic and environmental impact across the board. Rapidly adapting to the emerging global context is the clarion call for most countries if they want to remain relevant and competitive at the global level.

Many developing countries find themselves in a unique situation. For starters, most innovations and technologies hold a foreign passport and thus need to first travel and then be adopted and adapted to the national context. Having local capacities  –

Read More

Carbon Removal Policies for the U.S?

Raul Zambrano Climate Change, Economics, Governance, Innovation Leave a comment

Founded almost 40 years ago with the financial support of the MacArthur Foundation, the World Resources Institute (WRI) is one of the U.S most prominent research organizations working on environmental issues since its inception. The entity centers its efforts on scientific research and development while explicitly ignoring “ideology” or fostering activism. WRI has a wide range of scientific publications that have made outstanding contributions to the field over the years.

Last month, WRI published a paper, the 4th of an ongoing series, identifying the policies and technologies the U.S. will need to adopt to undertake carbon removal at scale. The publication offers four broad options, each discussed in detail, backed by relevant research and data, and linked to clear investment strategies

Read More

Technology and Earth Hacking

Raul Zambrano Climate Change, Governance, Inequality, Innovation Leave a comment

Hacking the Sky

Low, angry gray clouds, seemingly non-stop light rain and damp breathing air were hometown weather traits that most bothered me when I was growing up. Like most other children, I had a fascination with airplanes and could spend hours watching them. Going to the airport was one of the coolest things – nowadays not anymore. Planes, however, almost always managed to beat antagonistic weather. The opposite was my case. Bad weather automatically meant no outdoor play, parents reinforcing such terrible predicament. How could we change this, I started wondering.

My solution was simple. Equip a few small planes with some magical powder and get them to spray the menacing and sempiternal clouds. Viola! I could not understand why adults had not come up with such a brilliant idea.

Read More

A Glance at Carbon Dioxide Emissions Data

Raul Zambrano Climate Change, Economics, Governance, Social Innovation Leave a comment

Lack of data is certainly not one of the issues at the table when discussing energy production and carbon emissions. Well-known sources for the former include the UN Statistics Division, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and British Petroleum (BP).  The latter publishes an annual report while IEA data is behind a paywall. EIA offers open data access to a vast number of resources, including international carbon emissions. The main source for the latter is the Global Cabon Project created in 2001 and operating as an international partnership. The World Bank has carbon emissions data starting in 1960, but updates seemed to have stopped in 2014. The Global Carbon Atlas, initially funded by the BNP Paribas Foundation, is a good secondary source

Read More