Transcript UN Deputy Secretary-General - Institute of Development Studies

Robert Kirkpatrick
GIVAS Project Manager
Executive Office of the Secretary-General
United Nations Headquarters
New York
What is GIVAS?
GIVAS is a global decision support network
created to
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Enable policymakers to take
rapid and effective action to
protect the vulnerable in
response to emerging
complex global crises
1.
Provide evidence for advocacy
to ensure that the plight of
the vulnerable remains the
object of global attention
How has the nature global crises changed?
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Sudden onset
Fast infection rates
Infodemics
Cross-border
Cross-sector
New population groups
Overlapping multiple crises
Complex feedback loops
Why GIVAS?
Recent events have
revealed a wide
information gap
between onset of these
new crises and the
availability of
actionable information
to policymakers.
Questions we cannot yet answer on a global scale
• Who is being affected
by these crises, and
how?
• How are they coping?
• How well are our
current policies
working?
• What faint, early
signals should we be
listening for today?
Why GIVAS now?
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Data is back, data is sexy
Mobile phone revolution
New tools for
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Data collection
Data fusion
Filtering
Analysis
Mapping
Visualization
Alerting
Collaboration
New ways to combine human and
machine intelligence
New approaches to harnessing the power
of collective action.
Emerging global culture of sustainable
grassroots technology innovation
What value will GIVAS add?
• Quick-time and real-time
actionable information
• Cross-sectoral focus
• Collaboration across
disciplines, regions, and
organizations
• Integrate, enhance, and
filter information already
available
• Hub for Southern
Innovation
What is GIVAS not?
• Another data collection technology
• A global crisis early warning or
forecasting system
• Another top-down global indicator
initiative
• A tool to rank countries on some kind
of vulnerability index
• Yet another “one-stop-shop” web portal
What information might it integrate?
• Existing high-quality statistical
data and map-based
visualizations
• Existing sector-specific
surveys, rapid assessments
• Information from existing early
warning systems and M&E
databases
• Satellite imagery and remote
sensing data
• Semi-structured and
unstructured information from
mobile phone reporting
• Event-based information from
text mining of online content
Early ideas for platform capabilities
• Secure, customizable online workspaces for team
collaboration around streams of information
• Users choose what information to integrate, and what
reports to publish
• Users train system to detect and interpret locallyrelevant patterns of interest
• Automated indexing, text mining, mapping, and
alerting
• Social networking for usage incentives and quality
control
• Social metadata such as tagging, clustering, rating
and comments.
• Easy-to-use tools for interactive analysis, mapping
and visualization
Challenges
Data Access
Data Quality
Data Comparability
Data Privacy & Misuse
Inadequate Baseline Data
Context-Specific
Indicators
• Fusing indicator & eventbased information
• Fusing quantitative and
qualitative information
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Operating Principles
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Make sure the vulnerable are
heard.
Build only where we must.
Local needs drive global
innovation.
Focus on real needs of users.
Fail fast, fail often, and learn.
Make it free and open source and
support open standards
If information is power, shared
information is more powerful
still.
Sharing requires trust, and trust
takes time to build.
How do we get there?
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Agile Development
Open Innovation
Phased Approach
Many Partnerships
Early-Adopters
Program
Institutional Arrangement
Oversight:
UN Deputy Secretary-General
Technical:
DSG’s Technical Steering Group
Strategic:
Inter-Agency Advisory Group
Leadership:
Project Manager from outside
Team:
Secondments, contract staff
Administration: UNOPS
Location:
Physically separate from EOSG
Funding:
Voluntary contributions from a
broad range of Member States
Current Partners
• 27+ UN agencies, including UNICEF, UNDP,
The World Bank, WHO, WFP, UNFPA, and
OCHA
• Harvard University, Rutgers University,
Columbia University, IDS
• The Rockefeller Foundation, The UN
Foundation, The Meridian Institute
• The Open Mobile Consortium
Progress to date
• Late April 2009
o Project start
• September 2009
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First Baseline Report to UN General Assembly and G20
Website launch (www.voicesofthevulnerable.net)
Concept film to facilitate outreach
Video testimonies by people impacted by the crisis in Bangladesh, Cape
Verde, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Romania and
Uruguay
• December 2009
o Launch of Rapid Impact and Vulnerability Analysis Fund (RIVAF)
• January 2010
o Selection of 9 proposals for funding
• March 2010
o Hiring of GIVAS Project Manager
RIVAF Round One
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Launched December 2009, proposals
selected January 2010
Support UN agency efforts to collect
and analyze quick-time data
Encourages joint funding approach
1-Year timeframe, preliminary data by
May 15, 2010.
Initial studies on unsafe migration,
crime, maternal health, women’s
empowerment, women’s labor,
disaster impacts, tourism, nutrition,
food security, household coping
strategies, and education
Global, regional, and national
coverage: Jordan, Egypt, Colombia,
Mexico, Ghana, Ethiopia, Malawi,
Zambia, Madagascar, Indonesia, and
Nepal.
Inputs to Analytical Framework
• Outputs from RIVAF studies
• Collaboration with WFP, Columbia University, and
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative to inventory and
evaluate existing early warning systems
• UN University analysis of vulnerability definitions
across communities of practice
• Paper on best practices and lessons learned from
early warning and impact monitoring systems
• Planned survey of existing mobile phone data
collection initiatives
• Planned survey of existing databases (government,
UN, NGO, academe, industry) to assess utility as
baseline data
Milestones: 2010
• April – October
o Series of 4 workshops on requirements, challenges, opportunities, and
platform design: Blue Sky Thinkers, Member States, UN agencies, and
technologists.
• May – December
o Series of Innovation Camps (3 planned for Africa, Asia, and US)
• June
o First RIVAF outputs to be used in 2nd GIVAS Report
o First design prototypes and user scenarios published
• September
o GIVAS Team reaches 10 members (project staff, secondments)
• November
o First live technology demo of GIVAS Platform capabilities
– visualization
– collaborative analysis
– pattern detection
Milestones: 2011
• March
o Limited beta testing of integrated system with Early Adopters
• June
• Aug
o Open public Beta Test (English only)
o Public HTTP/REST APIs to support mash-ups
• September
o Public support for 2 additional official UN languages
• October
o Localization kit for developers
• November
o Mobile GIVAS client (Android? WinMo7? iPhone?)
• December
o Public support for all 6 official UN languages
Email:
Mobile:
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Twitter:
GChat:
Blog:
[email protected]
+1 650.796.5709
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humanitariantech.com
Thank you!