Deadline: 22-Nov-21
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has announced a Call for Proposals for the Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) 2021 program under the theme of “COVID-19: Changes to digital rights priorities and strategies.”
This edition of Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) aims to address two key questions:
- How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed or shaped the ways in which civil society organisations do their advocacy work around digital technology-related issues, including digital rights?
- How have digital technology and digital rights advocacy priorities shifted due to the pandemic?
The edition is being published at an intermediate and uncertain time. While new and more virulent strains of the COVID-19 virus evolve and continue to place health systems under duress, vaccine roll-out across the world has proceeded at an uneven pace, with wealthier countries predominantly more vaccine-ready than poorer nations.
Many countries now face the challenge of vaccine hesitancy, driven by a complex cocktail of fear, misinformation, cultural norms, political and ideological rifts, and a distrust of government and the pharmaceutical industry. Politics have been interwoven with responses and reactions to the pandemic from the start, exacerbating already existing fault lines, and in a number of countries used as an excuse to intensify totalitarian measures with negative impacts on human rights.
It focuses on monitoring progress made towards implementing the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) action agenda and other international and national commitments related to information and communications. It also provides analytical overviews of institutions involved in implementation.
GISWatch aims to make governments and international organisations accountable for meeting the commitments they make through contributing to building a strong and sustainable global civil society policy advocacy network.
The purpose of GISWatch is to give a voice to civil society organisations and other social justice actors working primarily in the global South. The focus is on issues and challenges faced in building a people-centred and inclusive information society in those countries, and globally.
By publishing country reports from as many as 60 countries on a particular theme in each edition, it aims to identify common struggles and practical advocacy solutions to those struggles, and to help build solidarity amongst activists across the world.
Theme
- COVID-19: Changes to digital rights priorities and strategies
How to Participate in this Call?
- Read the “Potential framing issues for imaging future challenges for digital rights activists”.
- Read the “Potential starting points for your report”. These might provide background on the issue you would like to discuss.
- Read the instructions for submitting a proposal, and if you wish to participate, send your proposal before the deadline to GISWatch production coordinator Maja Romano and editor Alan Finlay.
Instructions for submitting a proposal
The proposal, which should be written in English, should reach them by 22 November 2021 at the latest, and include the following information (no more than 400 words):
- Name(s), organisation(s), country
- Email address(es) – please include an email address for each co-author
- Outline of the issue or topic you will write about. They need to know:
- Are you going to respond to question a) or b) discussed?
- What specific changes are you going to explore, or do you expect to find?
- How do you think that the COVID-19 pandemic brought about these changes?
- How will you go about collecting evidence to support your analysis? For example, these may be through interviews, collaborative discussions with civil society organisations, or other forms of data collection.
- How will you ensure that your advocacy recommendations for your report will be reflective broadly of civil society perspectives and positions?
Selection of Authors
- The authors will be selected by middle of December. If you are selected you will have to two months to write and submit your report by 14 February 2022.
- Amongst the criteria used for selection are:
- The relevance of the proposal to the GISWatch topic.
- The clarity of the proposal (has it been thought through properly?)
- The uniqueness of the topic and the country: does it raise new and important issues?
- The extent to which the country report author will engage other civil society organisations working in the field.
- How many country report proposals are received for same country (they can’t publish too many reports from the same country).
Please note that the aim of GISWatch is to encourage local participation in rights-based issues. Because of this, for this edition it is critical that lead authors or organisations have residence in the country they are writing about. They also expect lead authors to consult widely with other civil society organisations when writing their report so that their views and perspectives can be reflected in the report.
For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3bVDbZI