Deadline: 20 May 2020
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has announced a Call for Proposals for the Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) 2020 program.
The aim of the Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) 2020 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. Under certain circumstances, they may accept proposals from lead authors who are not residents in a country they wish to write about, such as proposals from displaced persons, or authors who have strong firsthand experience in a country. Lead authors may also wish to coordinate co-authors for the chapter and those co-authors may not necessarily need to be based in the same country.
How can technology be used for building a sustainable, greener future? What are the ways in which the internet is being used now in your country to protect the environment, change economic modes of exchange and social behaviour, or to adapt to climate change? What works, what doesn’t? What examples in your country help to critically interrogate sustainable development, growth and future economies through the lens of the environment? What concrete responses to the environmental crisis are necessary and possible?
This edition of GISWatch seeks to provide fresh perspectives on these challenges confronting civil society in efforts to build a just and sustainable world.
Theme
Technology, the environment and a sustainable world: Responses from the global South
How to Participate in this Call
- Read the instructions contained in this call, and if you wish to participate, send your proposal before the deadline to GISWatch production coordinator
- Name, organisation, country
- Outline of the issue or topic you will write about. APC needs to know:
- What is the specific context you will be writing about?
- What definition of “sustainable development” will you be using or critiquing in your report?
- What responses to the environmental crisis will you be focusing on in your report? Please be clear on the role of technology in these responses. (200 words)
- Note: In this edition of GISWatch they are specifically interested in concrete responses to the current environmental crisis and the need for real sustainable development. These responses might be technological/technical, or social and cultural changes enabled by technology, or ICT regulatory and governance issues, etc. APC is interested in critiques of these responses. What is viable, what is possible, what is desirable? What are different stakeholders already doing to respond to the environmental crisis and how can civil society build on these? What is missing from current working models of sustainable development in your country? What has to be done differently? If your proposal is accepted, the final report will contain “Action steps” for civil society, which will need to be considered, specific, and actionable by civil society. They have included some potential topics that might be relevant to your country below.
- How will you go about gathering your information or doing your research so that it makes a fresh contribution to the discussion on the environmental crisis and sustainable growth?
- How will you engage other civil society organisations working in this field in your country?
- What are the envisaged policy advocacy implications of your report that you expect to discuss?
- The authors will be selected by end of May. If you are selected you will have up to six weeks to write and submit your final report by 17 July 2020.
Report Writing Process
- If your proposal is selected, the report you write on your chosen topic must be written in English and have a maximum length of 2,300 words. For consistency, the report should be developed using a template that will be provided to authors. APC will provide you with background readings, offer an online session to help orientate you to the topic, and support you during the writing process. A mailing list will be set up where you will be able to share your questions, ideas and resources with other country report authors contributing to this edition.
- Once submitted, your report will be edited by the GISWatch editor, and returned to you for clarifications or to respond to editorial comments. In order to ensure consistency in the quality of reports published, editorial comments are often substantial, so proper time needs to be allocated by the authors to respond to the necessary questions and changes. Once finalised, the report is sent for proofreading. This process will take place from August through September 2020.
- Once the final report has been accepted, organisations will receive a payment in support of writing of USD 700 (seven hundred US dollars).
Potential Report Angles
- Your report should offer concrete examples of responses to the environmental crisis in your country, and make the link between these and sustainable development. Some topics or angles you might want to consider include:
- Sustainable development, the climate crisis and the open data agenda (some data is available, but not accessible to the public; there also appear to be institutional battles over data credibility, which feed into the “climate debate”).
- Thinking through a feminist agenda for the climate emergency and the internet. What transformative potential does the feminist agenda hold for the environment and sustainable development?
- Climate denialism and hate speech online. What implications does this have for a sustainable future?
- What does environmentally sustainable internet access look like? Do you have specific examples in your country?
- E-waste: What needs to happen in your country for the internet to become environmentally sustainable? How does the need to deal with e-waste change economic model of the internet? Are refurbished computers still used in your country?
- ICTs and water sustainability/security.
- The COVID-19 pandemic. Concrete lessons for environmental sustainability and the use of technology.
- Using technology for mitigating and adapting to climate change. Are their important initiatives in your country that need to be shared?
- Green economies and e-resilience. Are their initiatives in your country that are important to talk about? How are they relevant to sustainable development?
- Using technology for dealing with pollution and the depletion of resources, such as marine resources.
- The smart city agenda. Are smart cities always good?
For more information, visit https://www.apc.org/en/news/giswatch-2020-call-proposals-technology-environment-and-sustainable-world-responses-global