When Internet giants such as Facebook, Yahoo!, Twitter and Google leave a large carbon footprint, activist stakeholders like Greenpeace are going to notice. Greenpeace has been campaigning on increased energy efficiency in the sector and in 2011 released its report—How dirty is your data?—on the pollution cloud the IT sector was generating.
Microblogging giant Twitter recently announced plans to begin censoring some content in response to restrictions and/or laws in place within individual countries. The six-year-old Internet company has gained prominence as a tool for change in recent years as users employed tweets to reach a global audience during post-election protests in Iran, in the wake of the Haiti earthquake and throughout the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. Some Twitter users and observers have blasted the censoring plans as social suicide, but the company has chosen to publicly address and engage on an issue that has plagued other Internet content related companies.
Despite the recent departure of a main stakeholder from the Kimberley Process—a standard-setting multistakeholder effort to curb the trade in blood diamonds—similar efforts continue to gain traction on the issue of conflict minerals. The European Union is considering action after the U.S. passed legislation to curb the trade, while the private sector and activist stakeholders simultaneously seek ways to sever the connections between mineral trade, warfare and human rights abuses.
But what happens when implementation of legislation and certification schemes at the local levels is stymied by a lack of infrastructure, corruption and political interests? What is to keep multinational corporations from turning to alternative sourcing to avoid the pitfalls of a lack of local capacity? How do these efforts affect local populations and development? And how long do various stakeholders stay engaged in a process when progress is limited?
Almost a decade after the Kimberley Process came into being to curb the trade in diamonds sold to support deadly conflict, stakeholders are still grappling with such questions. Global Witness, which helped drive the creation of the KP, withdrew from the process in December 2011 in frustration over chronic corruption and the continued ability of human rights abusers to bring their product to market through the KP.
As efforts to stem the flow of conflict minerals move towards systemic shifts in the way the trade is managed, the challenges of the KP may seem all too familiar.
Some American companies like Apple, Inc. are looking to stop the sourcing of any minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in order to prevent conflict minerals from reaching its products—the opposite effect U.S. legislators intended with the Dodd-Frank Act. As much as 90 percent of the previous level of DRC exports have ceased as multinationals back away for to avoid running afoul of pending reporting rule associated with the Act. Hewlett-Packard, Inc. has also joined Apple, Inc. in stopping the flow of potential conflict minerals from reaching its products.
The Dodd-Frank Act, which came into being July 2010, requires the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to force companies to report all minerals, such as tin, gold, and tungsten, used in their products—cell phones, computers, GPS systems—and where those minerals come from, even trace amounts, to prove such minerals were derived from a “conflict free” area of the DRC. Legislators hoped this would pressure DRC rebel groups and other combatants that profit from the trade but has shaken up the international mineral markets.
“If you go from compliance on through, this starts to set up not only nightmare scenarios, but also costly scenarios that make it difficult for companies to ensure an adequate supply of raw materials,” Tom Quaadman, Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, said.
AT&T has criticized the Dodd-Frank as too broad and raising concerns the new requirements “could trip up companies who contract with manufacturers and have little, if any, control or knowledge about the origins of minor amounts of minerals that end up in their products.”
The United Nation’s (UN) Group of Experts stated in a report that the situation has helped further entrench corruption and made the situation worse by leaving many DRC exporters “bereft of their main, or only customers, and therefore incomes.”
In late December 2011, a UN report confirmed that the “crackdown” on conflict minerals has pushed “trade deeper into the hands of criminals and smugglers “including former rebel officials who are now in the Congolese army. The report warns, “(It) appears to have increased the need for fraudulent operators to seek or accept military assistance in their mineral smuggling operations” and suggests a rise in the smuggling of conflict minerals into Rwanda because Rwanda’s reported production is much higher than what industry analysts deem realistically possible.
Several groups, companies and attorneys “have urged the SEC to phase in the new rules over time to help make it easier to comply,” as well as “narrow the scope of the rule” so the corporation won’t have to “track trace amounts of minerals.” However, human rights groups oppose a “phase-in” period and state that the “SEC needs to follow the Dodd-Frank mandate and implement the rule without delay.” Since the rule is a legal requirement, the SEC can’t stray from its intent.
Amol Mehra, coordinator of the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable, said, “Businesses should be held accountable for human rights issues, and investors find these concerns to be material in that they, at the end of the day, affect companies’ image and bottom line. All companies need to do…is simply tell us what is in their products.”
The challenges facing efforts to remove conflict minerals from the global supply chains of major multinationals are significant but doing nothing is simply no longer an option—and that is a point that stakeholders from across the spectrum continue to agree upon.
Technology has emerged as an integral element of humanitarian response efforts around the world in recent years—put to use in both emergency situations and in efforts to address chronic issues. Almost gone are the days when aid groups and disaster responders operating in hostile or remote environments had to wait days or weeks for information transfers that could save lives. Not only are ICT tools and the Internet changing how aid organizations and the public respond to crises, but they are also helping the global humanitarian community better predict and pre-plan accelerated response efforts.
The potential reach of technology is near limitless and can be applied to any issue. Around the world development experts and organizations are using technology to drive initiatives on education, health care and poverty reduction. The information and capacity that these efforts create feeds directly into the humanitarian community’s ability to manage crises.
The United Nations’ World Food Programme is employing electronic vouchers to fight malnutrition in Zimbabwe for HIV-positive patients and their families. The electronic food voucher, introduced by the WFP, and implemented by Zimbabwean authorities and NGOs, identifies malnourished patients and gives them vouchers they can use to purchase food at designated shops. Zimbabwe’s economic woes of the last decade have left many HIV/AIDS patients undergoing antiretroviral treatment unable to feed themselves and their families, and the program has helped around 570,000 Zimbabweans since it began.
WFP is also using technology more broadly, expanding the organization’s 2005 video game Food Force to fight against hunger by teaming up with Konami Digital. Released 30 November 2011, the game’s most recent version can be found on the social networking website Facebook in both English and Japanese.
Global positioning systems (GPS) provide early weather warnings for areas like Nepal to map health facilities and plan disaster response in the event of a major earthquake. Mobile operator Airtel in Bangladesh “has teamed up with the Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods,” as well as three other organizations—Oxfam, CARE, and the Center for Global Change—providing fisherman at sea with the early weather warnings using GPS.
In India, scientists are developing a handheld, battery-powered device that can take a sample of urine, blood, or sputum, process it, and alert a health worker whether a feverish child has malaria, dengue or a bacterial infection. Projects such as these can help eliminate some of the logistical challenges with accessing care for impoverish or rural communities.
Text messaging is being used to raise awareness on human rights issues. The Burkina Faso Red Cross, for example, uses text messages to remind government officials, employers, traditional leaders, business owners and others about rights abuses associated with the “exploitation of domestic workers.”
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Geographic Information System (GIS) software is used to “map artisanal mining sites, transportation routes, and mineral trading points” as part of efforts to reform the mining sector. Security and human rights issues on the ground are also monitored using the software. The DRC has been the center of a global battle against the trade in “conflict minerals”—tin, tantalum, gold and others—that has been used to finance massive human rights abuses and bloody conflict.
A major component of how technology is being adapted for humanitarian purposes efforts is ways in which it can be used to streamline information rapidly and unify the efforts of various organizations and individuals.
When the crisis broke in Libya, humanitarian workers and decision-makers realized they didn’t have real time information regarding the events happening within the country. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) teamed up with the Ushahidi initiative, a project that ultimately set new standards to map crises and aid response plans through the use of social and traditional media information. The effort, which relied on 150 volunteers skilled on crisis mapping to manage data coming from within Libya, resulted in the LibyaCrisisMap.net.
“Given that the UN had virtually no access to the country, we now had situational awareness,” Andrej Verity, information management officer at OCHA in Geneva, said. “And, within 48 hours, we had 100-plus response activities collected and compiled – the same amount of data [that] took about four weeks in the Philippines, two weeks in Haiti, and two weeks in Pakistan to be made available.”
Technology has also changed the way caring members of the public around the world are able to help when disaster strikes. As massive natural disasters struck with little warning in 2010 and 2011, aid groups and people around the world turned to social media and other technological tools to help people in Haiti, Pakistan and Japan find missing relatives, and to identify emergency needs and raise funds for relief efforts. In Kenya, an initiative using mobile phones to facilitate cash transfer services—“Kenyans for Kenya”—raised over US $7 million during a period of drought that affected northern and eastern parts of the country.
Anyone surfing the World Wide Web this Wednesday couldn’t help but notice an unusual amount of black as websites across cyberspace blocked out their banners or went completely dark in protest over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). Some sites participated in the protest for a few hours, while others like Wikipedia for a full 24 hours. The effort brought together stakeholders from a variety of disciplines united in the desire to express concern over Internet freedoms. The effect was almost immediate.
In response to the protests, two of PIPA’s co-sponsors, Florida’s Marco Rubio (R) and Missouri’s Roy Blunt (R) have backed away from supporting the bill. Mr. Rubio posted on Facebook that he and his fellow Senators “heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill [PIPA] could have on access to the Internet.”
While each bill covers specific agendas, both bills focus on online piracy and illegal copies/downloads of film and music, as well as other media and software. If the bills were to pass, they would not only outlaw those sites containing the pirated content, but they would also outlaw any websites that link to information on how to access the outlawed sites.
PIPA, a bill that looked like it would easily pass on January 24, 2012 now may be in trouble due to the protests.
Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia service, and WordPress, a blog service, were two of the many high-profile websites to block their content. Wikipedia’s English-language website left a note, stating: “Imagine a world without free knowledge . . . The US Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.” Google, one of the world’s most popular search engines, placed a black box over its name for the US version of the site, but users could still access the search engine. The search engine also posted on its blog that the bills wouldn’t stop online piracy. Craigslist, an online marketplace, like many others, had a note up asking its visitors to contact representatives in Congress before accessing the main website. According to the US news website Politico, approximately 7,000 sites were blacked out by Wednesday morning.
At the end of the protest—midnight EST—Wikipedia said: “Thank you for protecting Wikipedia.”
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Hollywood’s key supporter of SOPA, “branded the protests as ‘irresponsible’ and a ’stunt’” on Wednesday. While no one protesting is pro-piracy, as some supporters of the bills have claimed, they are pro-freedom of speech, and when proposed bills such as SOPA and PIPA have the potential to infringe on that freedom, American citizens are going to speak up.
Technology has helped small and medium-sized businesses increase their productivity by 10 percent, and the U.S. Internet’s contribution to the GDP is larger than energy, agriculture, communication, mining, and utilities combined. Unfettered access to the Internet for hundreds of millions of Americans remains a vital asset to the world community and U.S. economic growth and job creation.
SOPA and PIPA, in enacted, could hinder the economic possibilities.
WordPress’ co-founder, Matt Mullenweg summed the whole situation up by saying, “The authors of the legislation don’t seem to really understand how the internet works.”
If they did, they could see the potential disaster and consequences of such legislation on America’s Internet freedoms.
Supporters of SOPA and PIPA describe the protests as an “abuse of power.”
“It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information,” Chris Dodd, former Connecticut Democratic Senator and now Chairman and CEO of the MPAA, said. Perhaps Mr. Dodd didn’t check that some of the websites protesting were still accessible. Mr. Dodd also claimed that the high-profile websites’ actions were “yet another gimmick.” The US Chamber of Commerce agrees, adding that any “claims against the legislation had been overstated.”
But the bills are out there for everyone to read, and quite a few have done just that, as well as analyzed and broken down the language.
Chris Heald, a writer for Mashable.com, is one of many who has studied the bills and explained them in an article posted on Wednesday.
“Implementing censorship protocols and giving the keys to the government is a scary, scary thing, and SOPA should be opposed simply based on this provision alone,” Mr. Heald said, referencing China’s Internet censorship and Iran’s Internet firewalls. “Any site that allows users to post content is ‘primarily designed for the purpose of offering services in a manner that enables copyright violation.’ The site doesn’t have to be clearly designed for the purpose of copyright violation; it only has to provide functionality that can be used to enable copyright violation.
“This means that YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Gmail, Dropbox and millions of other sites would be ‘Internet sites . . . dedicated to theft of U.S. property,’ under SOPA’s definition. Simply providing a feature that would make it possible for someone to commit copyright infringement or circumvention is enough to get your entire site branded as an infringing site.”
There are three major supporters of SOPA—the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And it looks as though “Hollywood has outspent Silicon Valley by about tenfold on lobbyists in the last two years.” In total, SOPA has the support of more than 400 businesses. But Wednesday’s blackout protests and the numerous calls to representatives and Senators, which caused many servers to crash, may result in further significant changes to that list.
GoDaddy had to pull their support of the bills because customers protested, and in two days, pulled over 37,000 domain names from the site, transferring them elsewhere.
Spain recently approved similar legislation, creating a government body with the power “to force Internet service providers to block sites” within ten days. Though Spain’s legislation is also supported by the media industries, it is also facing stiff criticism from Netizens.
Congress may still approve both SOPA and PIPA, but President Barack Obama has expressed concerns and may veto them. In a statement issued at the weekend, the White House’s official response was, “While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet.”
Posted by Senior Director, Juliette Terzieff:
While China’s labor conditions have remained a mainstay of activist stakeholders’ campaigns and been featured in the international media for years—notably following allegations in 2004-05 about labor practices in manufacturing plants producing products sold in Wal-Mart stores, and reigniting after 10 Foxconn employees committed suicide in May 2010 at Foxconn’s Shenzhen plant—some recent stakeholder assessments have found a slow pace of improvement.
Global Witness recently made a difficult decision to withdraw from its official observatory position of the Kimberley Process (KP) over concerns the scheme was serving “an accomplice to diamond laundering“—a process by which dirty diamonds are mixed with clean ones en route to international markets. The withdrawal of a key stakeholder from an international process to curb the trade in products used to fund deadly conflict raises concerns not only for the integrity of the multistakeholder process that has driven the KP’s evolution, but for efforts on other supply chain issues such as the trade in conflict minerals.
South Korea, a long-standing competitor in the electronics and automobile industries with companies like LG, Samsung, and Hyundai, has entered the renewable energy market with the same vigor that catapulted it to competition status in the above industries beginning almost five decades ago.
The battle against censored Internet content is heating up heading into 2012 with the U.S. Congress set to vote on a measure opponents worry would adversely affect the climate of innovation and free expression that helps drive the Internet, and related entrepreneurship and development around the world. From Internet users and private sector players protesting the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) to Michael Posner’s speech entreating multinational corporations (MNCs) to stand up and protect free speech and the World Wide Web, stakeholders are lining up to oppose the changes.
Mobile telephone applications are now being used in myriad ways by the humanitarian community to progress development goals and overcome some of the traditional challenges that have hampered aid efforts in the past. From delivering information about HIV/AIDS patient care to predicting weather patterns to aid farmers, the use of text messaging via mobile telephone has had a widespread impact on the world’s population. The United Nations’ World Food Programme is looking to broaden the link between ICT and humanitarian efforts to include the general public and raise awareness.
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