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Article
How 'Big Data' Can Benefit the Public Good
Patrick Svenburg, co-founder of Random Hacks of Kindness, who was one of presenters at "Developers for Development" event at World Bank. “Big Data” –- the billions upon trillions of bytes of digital information that are pumped into cyberspace every nanosecond –- has a single, secular mission: to keep growing. Now, software developers – the not-so-nerdy techies who keep Big Data growing at its feverish rate –- are striving to channel Big Data into the public good. On Monday at the World Bank, developers came together with the development community -- in person and virtually through Skype video -- to figure out how to do that. The entire "Developers for Development" can be seen on B-Span, the World Bank's webcasting service. The afternoon event, which attracted an auditorium-ful of in-person visitors (many of them curious staffers from risk management and ICT at the World Bank) and many more via the live webcast that was offered in English, French, and Spanish, started with developers showing what's already been achieved since the first CrisisCamp about data and the public good was convened in Washington with CrisisCommons-World Bank co-sponsorship in June 2009. The first demo was about the on-the-fly proliferation of CrisisCamps internationally in response to the earthquake that devastated Haiti in February. Schulyer Erle, co-founder, developer, and project steering committee member of OpenLayers, a popular web mapping library, described how Open Street Map's "ad-hocracy" of developer volunteers quickly filled in the blanks of out-of-date and inadequately detailed Haiti maps for emergency responders: "Suddenly it became imperative to improve the open source maps for Haiti. It would have been impossible for virtually anyone to go into Haiti and use their GPS receiver [to establish coordinates] and upload their data....You can see looking at this tiny section of the north end of Port-au-Prince [Erle displays a slide of new street details] how literally the first week after the earthquake the data beta was developed by people literally sitting at their desk or in their living room...scanning the satellite imagery that had been made available by haiticrisismap.org." But how do you wrangle data to do good when you don’t have an earthquake or other catastrophic crisis to focus minds? That was the question for Monday’s participants posed by Michele de Nevers, Senior Manager, Environment Department, World Bank: "Clearly, the potential application [of this crisis-camp approach] in the broader area of environment and climate change seems obvious....I wonder how easy it is to mobilize volunteers when you don't have this tremendous crisis for motivation....It would be great to get people skilled in this area to bring those skills to helping understand changes in temperature and agriculture in Africa or support vulnerability mapping in fragile states. It would be great to be able to connect the people in your community with the people in our community." Big Data can't magically supply answers to tough, every-day challenges in developing countries. But the volunteer technical community of the CrisisCamps can help the World Bank make sense of terabytes of data that would overwhelm even the most gifted staff. It doesn't make sense for the Bank to be the sole interpreter of this information or the sole developer of applications and mash-ups using the data. The Bank is well positioned, however, to make large data sets available and to clearly define problems. It's not our job to tell engineers and others how to solve problems but to be aware that if problems are not clear, they are unlikely to be solved. And so we need to keep convening CrisisCamps, especially when there isn’t a crisis of earthquake magnitude. World Bank Institute's Aleem Walji (third from left) commenting on The Economist magazine cartoon of man using an inverted umbrella to channel part of a torrent of data to start a symbolic garden -- a parable that summed up the discussion on how data can be used for the public good.
6 March 2010
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Article
Keeping Haiti on My Mind
The snow is finally melting in Washington, D.C. and its surrounding areas. Things seem to be on their way to returning to business as usual. We have just gotten through back-to-back blizzards worse than most seen in a century, evidenced in part by the stunned old-timers and record-setting snowfall levels. That said, what we have recently experienced here is a far cry from the devastation and suffering caused by natural disasters in other parts of the world, such as the recent typhoon in Southeast Asia and earthquake in Haiti. But that’s not the impression one would take away from the local and national news coverage of these snowstorms. Rarely warranted hyperbole has become typical in coverage of natural disasters. Take, for example, what some print and broadcast news outlets named their snowstorm coverage: “Snowmageddon”, “Snowpocalypse”, and “Snowtorius B.I.G.” Jon Stewart, executive producer and host of Comedy Central’s fake news program The Daily Show, poked fun at these ridiculous appellations. And quite rightly, I think. It’s definitely the case that bad weather conditions and their corollary dangers must receive serious coverage, especially at the local level where up-to-date information is vital for safety and security. But to appropriate a word from the website of a very respectable newspaper, there is also such a thing as “Snoverkill.” In stark contrast, it is too often the case that places requiring the most urgent attention and people needing the most help do not receive meaningful and sustained coverage. That’s why I was so happy to see CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta returned to Haiti early this week, during the height of what Jon Stewart aptly called an “unusually large snowstorm” in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Cooper and Gupta breathed new life into what had been quickly fading coverage of recovery efforts in Haiti. Of course, they continue to report on the controversial issue of the ten Americans being held by Haitian authorities. But the bulk of what they've been talking about this week revolves around ongoing recovery efforts, the state of emergency medical care, and, most recently, investigations of endemic corruption that has kept the country poor. This, to me, is a fine example of the media carrying out its agenda setting function (see a previous post by my colleague Anne Arnold). In Cooper’s own words: “We take you into the streets of Port-Au-Prince, because no one should die in silence and no one’s struggle to live should go unnoticed.” In CommGAP’s recent publication entitled Public Sentinel, Douglas Van Belle quantitatively analyzes relationships among media agenda setting, disaster response, and donor aid. In sum, he findings suggest that “every bit of news coverage in donor nations creates a small increase in aid response, and the occasional flood of coverage of a major disaster is likely to generate a massive response” (p. 105). In the same publication, Susan Moeller discusses techniques that can enhance media’s agenda setting role in support of disaster and humanitarian response. First, naming the crisis helps. CNN’s current coverage has been dubbed “Saving Haiti”. Whether the name is appropriate can be argued elsewhere. It’s memorable. Second, “breaking news” can help maintain interest. For example, early this week, a young man who had been dug out of the wreckage alive four weeks after the quake received much attention. It was unclear whether he had been trapped under the rubble since the quake (unlikely, according to Gupta). Whatever the case may be, the images were arresting and good visuals are crucial for continued public interest. According to Moeller, featuring celebrities can have negative or positive effects. Hollywood actors Sean Penn and Angelina Jolie have appeared in this week’s CNN Haiti coverage. My sense is that because they seem to speak with sincerity and credibility, they are helping and not hurting the cause. Moeller captures the spirit and motivation for this blog post: “Even the most calamitous breaking story—a tsunami, a hurricane, an earthquake—quickly devolves into a less dramatic recovery tale of politics, patience, and stamina and so is pushed off the front pages and the top of the news by more recent, and more spectacular, stories” (p. 74). Thank you, CNN, for not letting recovery efforts in Haiti be snowverwhelmed this week. Photo credit: Flickr user ChrisM70
12 February 2010
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Article
How 'Civic Hacking' Answered Haiti Disaster
From the tragedy and wreckage of the Haitian earthquake come amazing lessons about how information technology and social media can bring help and hope to people trapped in catastrophic circumstances. A good place to see how this is happening is the Social Entrepreneurship website. Crisis camps of "civic hacking" throughout the U.S. and abroad are quickly producing base-layer maps that connect Haiti's thousands of orphans with potential adoption families, mobilizing speakers of Creole (photo), and delivering myriad other tech-driven emergency assistance with few layers of action-delaying bureaucracy. The camps were set up by Crisis Commons, an international volunteer network of tech professionals. The first CrisisCamp was actually held well before the Haiti earthquake -- in July 2009, at the World Bank. Participants included a rich cross section of representatives -- public, private, nonprofit -- from the sometimes rivalrous world of development aid. "Us" and "them" suddenly became "we." Civic hacking's Haiti successs stories are producing a flexible template for how emergency assistance can be delivered in other disasters, including those where climate change is at least a secondary cause, like storms and flooding. Civic hacking's lessons will surely be extended to development aid in general, especially in countries with weak capacity. Information technology can deepen and broaden capacity, and fast, as the proliferation of cellphones in Sub-Sahran Africa, South Asia, and other developing regions has been proving for years.
4 February 2010
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Article
On the Move podcast looks at the Haiti earthquake
Georges Collinet, host of the popular On the Move with Georges Collinet podcast, recently recorded a new podcast episode about the Haiti earthquake and its aftermath, taking a look at the situation room at the World Bank and featuring an interview with World Bank Task Team Leader Nicolas Peltier Thiberge who has just recently returned from Haiti. The podcast is currently only available in French, but we're working on getting the English version up soon. You can listen to the French podcast using the embedded player below: Download MP3 For more podcasts by Georges in English and in French, visit his On the Move podcast page, or subscribe in iTunes.
4 February 2010
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Article
Haiti Reconstruction: Update from the field
On-the-Ground Report: Alejandro Cedeno, World Bank Senior Communications Officer As our plane began circling the Port-au-Prince airport waiting for clearance to land, I got a good glimpse of the ground through the parting clouds. From 10,000 feet above the ground, the devastation below was marked by blurry forms and an eerie stillness. In stark contrast with the images seen on cable television it was not an overwhelming sight. The extent of the damage was not evident from the plane, but something was out of place. When we finally landed, after flying in circles for more than 45 minutes, that out-of-sync sensation became more real. All the areas surrounding the airport had become a compound with hundreds of multicolored tents housing not only Haitians that have lost their homes, but also relief workers from various countries and multilateral agencies, such as the United Nations. They were pivotal in the life of Haiti even before the earthquake struck. This makeshift area around the airport—including a government’s emergency administrative office located temporarily in a police station—has become the central nervous system of Haiti after the devastating Jan. 12 seism. Even when fragile, Haiti is energetic and fast-paced, showing the resilience and determination of the Haitian people to rebuild their lives and communities. As I walked about the tents of Brazilian, Jordanian, Chilean and other UN blue helmets, as well as American army soldiers all assisting in the emergency, my mission here acquired new meaning and energy. We have come to help the government and the Haitian people to recover and assess its needs. We are here to listen and reevaluate with the government where the most pressing development needs are. We are here to find out where the additional US$ 100 million emergency grant we offered after the quake should go and how available grants of the current World Bank program in Haiti (approx.US$ 130 million) can support those needs. Reconstruction of schools, school nutrition, roads, disaster risk management, and a wide range of community-driven projects that have successfully helped Haitians in the past are topping discussions with Haitian officials. In agriculture and infrastructure alone, community-driven initiatives have supported 4,032 community-based organizations in rural areas, benefiting around 763,000 people (or 57 percent of the population of the rural communities covered by the program). This is a good example of what we’d like to call reconstruction with a human face—rebuilding lives and communities as opposed to just infrastructure and cities. We will continue to do this to help Haiti get back on its feet. All these tents are just testimony to the tenacity and hope of a people who are now suffering but will rise again.
3 February 2010
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Article
Haiti Reconstruction: Update from the field
On-the-Ground Report: Alejandro Cedeno, World Bank Senior Communications Officer As our plane began circling the Port-au-Prince airport waiting for clearance to land, I got a good glimpse of the ground through the parting clouds. From 10,000 feet above the ground, the devastation below was marked by blurry forms and an eerie stillness. In stark contrast with the images seen on cable television it was not an overwhelming sight. The extent of the damage was not evident from the plane, but something was out of place. When we finally landed, after flying in circles for more than 45 minutes, that out-of-sync sensation became more real. All the areas surrounding the airport had become a compound with hundreds of multicolored tents housing not only Haitians that have lost their homes, but also relief workers from various countries and multilateral agencies, such as the United Nations. They were pivotal in the life of Haiti even before the earthquake struck. This makeshift area around the airport—including a government’s emergency administrative office located temporarily in a police station—has become the central nervous system of Haiti after the devastating Jan. 12 seism. Even when fragile, Haiti is energetic and fast-paced, showing the resilience and determination of the Haitian people to rebuild their lives and communities. As I walked about the tents of Brazilian, Jordanian, Chilean and other UN blue helmets, as well as American army soldiers all assisting in the emergency, my mission here acquired new meaning and energy. We have come to help the government and the Haitian people to recover and assess its needs. We are here to listen and reevaluate with the government where the most pressing development needs are. We are here to find out where the additional US$ 100 million emergency grant we offered after the quake should go and how available grants of the current World Bank program in Haiti (approx.US$ 130 million) can support those needs. Reconstruction of schools, school nutrition, roads, disaster risk management, and a wide range of community-driven projects that have successfully helped Haitians in the past are topping discussions with Haitian officials. In agriculture and infrastructure alone, community-driven initiatives have supported 4,032 community-based organizations in rural areas, benefiting around 763,000 people (or 57 percent of the population of the rural communities covered by the program). This is a good example of what we’d like to call reconstruction with a human face—rebuilding lives and communities as opposed to just infrastructure and cities. We will continue to do this to help Haiti get back on its feet. All these tents are just testimony to the tenacity and hope of a people who are now suffering but will rise again.
2 February 2010
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Article
A Situation Room for Haiti Damage Assessment and Reconstruction
In a situation room at the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC, Google, Microsoft, McKinsey, ImageCAT, EERI, and RIT are working with multilateral organizations and NGOs to coordinate the Haiti reconstruction efforts. From the feature story: An inconspicuous room in the World Bank’s Latin American & Caribbean division has become the eyes and ears of the soon-to-be-launched reconstruction operation of Haiti following the devastating January 12 earthquake. Armed with top of the line, high-tech equipment to assess damage on the ground and with a great deal of enthusiasm and good will from colleagues from around the world, the small team manning this improvised "situation room" collects data and images of the flattened buildings in Port-au-Prince that are then processed and passed on to an army of experts getting ready to go to Haiti in a few weeks to start the arduous assessment and reconstruction process. The operation bridges cutting-edge technology with international development expertise to help with assessment and planning: Operation coordinator Galen Evans explains that the images they’re collecting are breaking new ground in aerial damage assessment as image precision is well above the satellite imagery standard of 60 centimeters of resolution. The photos being taken are 15 centimeters of resolution which means that experts would be able to figure out the position of objects as small as 15 centimeters in size (20 inches). Read the full story for more information about the situation room and the groundbreaking technology being used in the reconstruction efforts. A few more photos from the situation room are below.
29 January 2010
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Article
From Aceh to Haiti - Recovery is possible
Joachim von Amsberg, the World Bank's country director for Indonesia, published an interesting op-ed in today’s Washington Post: Out of Aceh's experience, hope for rebuilding Haiti. Despite the many differences between these two conflict-affected countries, he draws lessons from post-tsunami Aceh for a possible recovery in Haiti. “Local and national leadership count," he writes, "and empowering people is key. In Aceh, strong top-down leadership was complemented by the empowerment of the people and communities. Victims became development workers. Aid recipients and former combatants became community facilitators. Displaced families became workers who rebuilt their houses. By channeling a large share of reconstruction funds directly to communities, the people of Aceh's problems were transformed as they became part of the solution. Their hard work meant that houses were built faster, at a lower cost, and better met the needs of the people.” Photo © 'Paul Jeffrey' >> Read full text
29 January 2010
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Article
The Haiti Earthquake: How microfinance is helping
Over on the CGAP site, a great overview on the importance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in reconstruction and recovery after a natural disaster: “MFIs are not, and nor should they be, asked to be relief organizations,” says CGAP Deputy CEO Alexia Latortue. “But this does not mean business as usual. Financial services will be crucial to helping clients recover and rebuild. Financial services aren’t just a “nice-to-have” in this situation. Valuable services like accessing savings and transfers from families abroad can be a vital lifeline, and for some families the ability to access cash may mean the difference between life and death.” Read the whole feature over on the CGAP site for a look at the role financial services play in recovery efforts. (Photo from the CGAP Microfinance Flickr photostream.)
28 January 2010
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Article
A Factsheet on Haiti
We have been receiving a lot of requests for data and facts on Haiti, not only on migration and remittances, but also on the real economy. Here is some data we have downloaded from publicly available sources. Haiti Factsheet * Poverty headcount in 2001 (latest available year). Source: World Development Indicators (WDI); Global Development Finance (GDF), OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), IMF International Financial Statistics (IFS), IMF Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) review Aug 2009. Haiti - Migration and Remittances * 22% of physicians trained in the country Source: Migration and Remittances Factbook 2008; Ratha and Shaw (2007); Docquier and Marfouk (2006); Doquier and Bhargava (2006); UN Population Division (UNPD) (Cross-posted from the People Move blog)
28 January 2010
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Article
A Factsheet on Haiti
We have been receiving a lot of requests for data and facts on Haiti, not only on migration and remittances, but also on the real economy. Here is some data we have downloaded from publicly available sources. Haiti Factsheet * Poverty headcount in 2001 (latest available year). Source: World Development Indicators (WDI); Global Development Finance (GDF), OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), IMF International Financial Statistics (IFS), IMF Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) review Aug 2009. Haiti - Migration and Remittances * 22% of physicians trained in the country Source: Migration and Remittances Factbook 2008; Ratha and Shaw (2007); Docquier and Marfouk (2006); Doquier and Bhargava (2006); UN Population Division (UNPD)
27 January 2010
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Article
Bank expert: Pakistan earthquake-response programs could help Haiti
World Bank disaster expert Christoph Pusch says Haiti may be able to learn from the earthquake-recovery efforts in Pakistan after a 2005 earthquake. Those efforts included livelihood support in the form of cash grants to the most vulnerable people, special support for the disabled, a home-owner driven rural housing reconstruction program, and satellite-based disaster assessment methods. Pusch talks about some of the possibilities in the short clip below. The Pakistan earthquake killed more than 73,000 people, destroyed and damaged around 600,000 homes, and left over 3 million without shelter. International donors, including the World Bank, pledged US$6.5 billion in mostly low-interest loans.
27 January 2010
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