Run-off election results on the map

In the days between the run-off and NEC’s first announcement, the Liberia Media Center published unofficial rolling results from field journalists covering the polling places. These initial results were the first and only vote counts available to the Liberian public, and were published right away on the elections instance as “LMC run-off vote counts” (just below categories, under “other layers”). The Elections Coordinating Committee, active observers during the first round, sent out another 1,750+ monitors on run-off day who have now returned to iLab and are diligently recording the events that occurred at Liberia’s polling places. These ECC reports from the first round can be found under the category “ECC election day monitoring”). Second round ECC reports will appear on the map once the data operators have received all polling checklists.

ECC polling station reports from the first round

During the last week, the majority of the map’s reports have been about the events surrounding Monday’s CDC rally turned violent, and minor incidents during the run-off and the following day. Some of the incidents reported include: attempted ballot box stealing, the torn down polling station results, tear gas fired by police when a crowd refused to give up ballot boxes, the closure of three major radio stations on charges of hate speech, the burning of a major radio station that is still under investigation, and Thursday’s release of 84 persons arrested during the rally.

Picture from the map of an opposition rally turned violent

Young voters proud to cast their ballots

Since Wednesday, the Ushahidi Liberia team has mostly been mapping news from the local media and international observers such as the Carter Center and ECOWAS. We plan to continue updating these vote counts until the final results are released. However, with recent news that opposition leader Winston Tubman will contest the results and seek legal action to hold another election next month, this election map may not go quiet simply because the last vote is counted.

The 2nd round of voting, scheduled for November 8^th, has two candidates on the ballot: Congress for Democratic Change (CDC)’s Winston Tubman, and the Unity Party’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in October.

Friday, November 4^th

- As of Friday, CDC’s Tubman announced a boycott of the run-off election. Just two days before, Tubman said the CDC would participate in the 2^nd round, despite differing statements from within his party. The US State Department said it was “deeply disappointed” by Mr. Tubman’s decision to boycott the runoff and that Tubman’s accusations of fraud were “unsubstantiated.”

Monday, November 7^th

CDC supporters gather for rally near party's headquarters

- Despite warnings from the international community, Tubman called for a rally on Monday, November 7^th – on the eve of the Nov 8^th run-off. Campaigning ended officially on Nov 6^th, and the CDC did not have the requisite permit from the government to conduct the rally by Monday morning when CDC supporters were amassing in the streets. CDC supporters were told in this flier that the 2^nd round as “a cheating run-off” and encouraged to demonstrate in protest.

CDC supporters meet UN peacekeepers' and National Police's blockade

- “CDCians” gathered near the party’s headquarters on the main street that runs through the capital. By noon, a blockade was formed first by UN Peacekeepers and, behind, the Liberia National Police backed by UN armored vehicles. Within an hour of the crowd’s formation, there was a breach at the edge of the blockade and CDCians who broke free began throwing rocks and glass bottles at the officers. Police responded with tear gas grenades, fired repeatedly into the scattering crowd. The police pushed the main crowd backwards to the party headquarters, continuing the tear gas and soon after firing live ammunition at supporters. Five civilians are confirmed dead, with many others injured. A nearby gas station was looted and destroyed, allegedly because the owner was a Unity Party supporter.

National Police officers move towards retreating CDC demonstrators

-  Shortly after nightfall, the court ordered three radio stations be shut down for inflammatory speech. These stations were said to be operated by CDC supporters.  As for the rally’s deaths, CDC’s vice presidential candidate blamed President Johnson Sirleaf directly for the loss of life. President Johnson Sirleaf vowed an investigation would be conducted.

Tuesday, November 8^th

- Election morning saw reduced numbers at the polls. Many more women than men were voting. In CDC strongholds across the capital, voter turnout was little more than a trickle. When an international election monitor asked a lone male voter why the women largely outnumbered the men in the 2^nd round, he said simply, “They look out for their own”, suggesting women were voting for Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf.

Women voting at nearly empty polling station in Monrovia

- While the turnout appeared to be significantly less than the 1^st round, this election did not include the Senate and House of Representatives, and was between two presidential aspirants rather than October’s 16. It is suspected among observers that the short lines may have been in part because of the streamlined process and not only because voters were concerned about violence.

- Isolated reports of instability came in at the end of the day, including attempted ballot box stealing and more rounds of tear gas fired at citizens trying to prevent the police from removing ballot boxes at close of polls. All in all, a calmer day than expected after the events of Nov 7^th.

- Unofficial preliminary results will be released by the Liberia Media Center this evening and throughout the week. The National Elections Commission says official preliminaries will be in on November 9^th with most votes counted by the 11^th. All of these results will be posted on the Ushahidi election instance under “other layers” (just below “categories”) on the homepage. The national Elections Coordinating Committee, with more than 1,700 field monitors, will also have detailed reports from each polling station on the Ushahidi instance as information rolls in.

More to come this week about the Ushahidi elections instance and its role during and after the run-off.

Ushahidi Liberia elections instance

UP headquarters in Paynesville burned

In the last week, the Ushahidi elections instance has also been updated with new features.  As of last Friday, the instance has been upgraded with latest version of the Ushahidi platform, version 2.1 (Tunis). One of the most exciting features of 2.1 is the Powerful Reports Filter that allows users to quickly sort through reports according to certain dates and categories, verification, media, location and more.

The new Density Map Plugin

Another new feature on the instance is Ushahidi’s first Density Map plugin by John Etherton. Located on the right side of the homepage, just above the categories, the Density Map option makes it easier to separate reports by geographic region – in this case, by county. All reports that have been associated with a particular county will show up using the Density Map. This feature was requested by UN OCHA as well as other local partners, and serves as a small step towards making the Ushahidi platform a data analysis tool.

ECC data operators at iLab

The Elections Coordinating Committee, based at iLab Liberia during the last week, has been compiling detailed reports from monitors at each of the country’s nearly 4,500 polling places; these are being uploaded to the elections instance and can currently be found under the category, “ECC polling place reports”.  The National Elections Commission (NEC) has released preliminary results during the last week that can now be found as layers on the elections instance (go to “other layers” section under the categories listing).

The Ushahidi Liberia team was curious about who was looking at the elections instance, how they got there, and where in the world they were sitting when they looked at it.  After studying our instance’s Google Analytics, we found that in the last week the map has received 3,533 unique visitors that spend an average of 3 ½ minutes perusing its contents. Interestingly, more than half of this traffic is routed via the Liberian Observer, a national newspaper popular on the ground and online. The majority of the traffic came from the United States (not surprising considering low Internet penetration in Liberia), but what peaked our interest was where in the States: Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, Georgia – states with the large Liberian Diaspora communities.

Elections instance viewers in the US (graphic via Google Analytics)

This was our team’s first indication of the Diaspora’s engagement with the electoral process from abroad (not to say there haven’t been many), and it widened our perspective on the instance’s audience. Perhaps, in a country without much local Internet access, it cannot be simply stated that a tool like Ushahidi is irrelevant. In today’s world, a country’s borders extend far beyond political boundaries, and interactive mapping tools such as the Ushahidi platform start to reveal the interconnected webs that criss-cross our globe.

This evening, the NEC announced that 99.9% of the presidential votes have been collected; with no clear winner, Liberia faces a run-off election on November 8^th.  The first round saw an impressive voter turnout rate of more than 70% (of registered voters), making many hopeful that Liberians will come out in full-force next month. The Ushahidi elections instance will continue to track the electoral process for Liberians at home and abroad, and for all of us who care deeply about the outcome of this country’s first self-run democratic election.

Liberians waiting to vote on election day

A deserted downtown Buchanan

Much of Liberia’s identity remains wrapped up in the war that ended a short seven years ago. One of the more promising efforts to heal war wounds and prevent future conflict is the formation of County Peace Committees (CPC). The committees are composed of trusted leaders in the community – youth and elders, men and women – and exist at the district and county level, each one closely linked to nearby police and courts. The initiative started about two years ago and is supported by the United Nations Mission in Liberia’s (UNMIL) Civil Affairs department and the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Peacebuilding Office. It has taken some time to organize these voluntary committees, but they are now resolving disputes big and small and, this week, were regionally organized to learn early warning incident reporting via the Ushahidi platform.

County Peace Committee members gathered in Ganta

This week’s trainings were held in four different regions of Liberia with 73 CPC focal persons in attendance. When we reached the Ushahidi portion of the training, CPC members were quick to catch on to the utility of the platform. I have found that when I explain how the tool has been used in other settings to report conflict, peacebuilders throughout Liberia immediately relate to the need for more reliable and rapid methods of disseminating information as conflict is breaking out. When I show pictures of the post-election violence in Kenya, or the DRC map populated with SGBV reports, there is a knowing concern on people’s faces that yes, these are familiar situations and no, we do not have all the tools we need to be informed. Even more important, in the context of Liberia, peace committee members are seeking methods to identify instability before actual conflict erupts; they know from experience that a fire spreads quickly once all of the conditions are present to light it.

CPC members in Buchanan learning the Ushahidi platform

During each of this week’s trainings, I introduced the concept behind the Ushahidi platform and then conducted a simulation where members sent in sample SMS describing the kind of issues they often encounter. Together, we looked at the PBO instance’s backend to see messages coming in and evaluated the contents of each message to see if it was “mappable”.  This is usually where I found a gap between participants’ conceptual understanding and their ability to use the necessary technology to send information to the platform.

CPC elders seeing Ushahidi for the first time

A good example came from our session in Buchanan. When we came to the simulation, I asked how many people send one or more texts per week; two of 12 people raised their hands. How about one per month? One person. Judging by the silence of the remaining nine people, I conducted an impromptu intro to texting: how to create a message, change the predictive text setting, delete and insert punctuation and send. Much to my surprise, most participants were riveted – responding to the basic instructions as if learning them for the first time. Afterwards we sent simulation texts, sharing the four phones participants had among them. Those who were the most proficient with texting (two participants) took 15 minutes to send one message.  Those who were new to texting took 20-25 minutes with one-on-one instruction. Here are a couple of text examples from the simulation:

1. “100pm there was fighting number 2 compound in vedier town grand bassa county” (20 minutes, new texter)

2. “There is a growing threat of electoral violence in Liberia, where young people are divided on political lines. Two days ago in the city of Buchanan, there was a brutal fight between groups of young people on the 27 of Sept at about 12.00am” (15 minutes, experienced texter)

To complicate matters, some participants had phones like the one pictured below that had been so completely worn down that some or all of the numbers and letters were gone.

A well-worn phone without numbers or letters

Sometimes it is a mystery unraveling the reasons why certain people in the room can send a message and others cannot.  When I spoke with my colleague conducting a similar training this week, he said several participants sent detailed messages and in a shorter timeframe – 10 minutes. The same was true of our training in Monrovia, where about 60% of the members sent messages in 10 minutes (the rest in 15-20). There seemed to be a positive correlation between participants from larger population centers and their ability to text.  There was also a clear divide between the older participants and the youth; those under 35 were generally more familiar with texting or picked it up more quickly.

CPC members teaching each other how to text

Another trend within the CPCs is that many participants were elders or middle-aged; they started their peacebuilding work at the beginning of the fourteen-year civil war and, while these peacebuilding veterans are now well-equipped to lead CPCs, their age group is less familiar with SMS. And here’s an interesting assumption that many of us might have also made: when the PBO was recruiting CPC focal persons to attend these trainings, they specifically asked for individuals who could read and write, thinking this meant they could also text. If it were simply a matter of learning a new skill, then the trainings could serve to introduce texting; but with hardly any emphasis on critical thinking in Liberia’s education system, it becomes markedly more difficult to transfer such a skill.

Nat Walker of the Peacebuilding Office shows CPC members how to text

But Liberia’s education system is not the only reason why texting might prove difficult for CPC members. It’s a simple truth that only so many leaps can be made at once. When I first started using the Internet as a teenager, I only used email – it didn’t occur to me to do anything else. And while more exposure and familiarity with the Internet has changed the way I use it, there were many other factors at play: I owned my own computer, my Internet connection was fast and reliable, my education and upbringing encouraged me to investigate and play when I didn’t understand a new tool, and my peers were doing the same exploring and experimenting. In the case of many Liberians attending the CPC trainings, the following was true: they shared ownership of one phone with their family or entire community, the phone was left on charge at a local charge shop for long periods, they lived in a place with spotty network coverage, credit is added to the phone sparingly and calls or messages are not made without considering the cost, and participants’ education and access to technology were disrupted by more than a decade of war. The conditions that need to be present to text in Liberia do not necessarily exist simply because someone has access to a phone; if there is one major assumption that many of us in ICT for development are guilty of, it’s this one.

CPC member shows off his "how to text to Ushahidi" card

But here’s the good news. After hours of “texting 101” sessions and practice simulations, I asked each exhausted group of participants if they could now send texts whenever something unsettling happened in their communities. “We can make it!” one elder said emphatically; “I am overwhelmed that I can now text” remarked another man with a big smile, who was already composing his first SMS to his teenage daughter. And since the trainings, many have made it: we have received 20 early-warning texts in the last three days from these participants. This is a reminder of what must be present, perhaps above all else, to learn a new skill: motivation.

Liberia 2011 election instance

The Liberia 2011 election instance received 239 crowdseeded messages from trusted reporters during the Referendum and the following week before official results were announced. These reporters have received training in how to report to the Ushahidi platform using the free “2011” shortcode; among them are local election monitors, Liberian police officers, international election observers and local journalists. Most of the messages focused on the following: a low voter turnout (only about one-third of the voting population), a printing error on the ballot that confused voters about Proposition 2, the high number of incorrectly marked ballots (approximately 12% counted as invalid), the frustration of NEC workers over long hours without break and some incidents of violence. Overall, there were few violent incidents during and after the Referendum; those reported include one ritualistic killing with political motives, an attack on a political candidate as well as NEC staff counting ballots at night, and a few fights that broke out at polling stations over how to vote on the Referendum’s four propositions.

Sierra Leone's Election Watch and ECC observers

iLab Liberia, the tech lab at Ushahidi Liberia’s office, served as a data entry hub for the Elections Coordinating Committee and Sierra Leoneon observers during the Referendum, and in the days following each partner organization that received messages on the election instance used iLab’s facilities to verify and approve reports for public viewing. It became clear as we assisted partners with their data that polling station geo-coordinates were a must for the election instance. Our team realized this months ago, but were not able to locate a data set with more than the name and county location of each polling station.

ECC Referendum observers entering incident reports into their database

Once in a blue moon, data heroes come along when you need them most – and that was what happened the week after the Referendum when a UN officer who attended iLab’s mapping party offered to share a KMZ file with each polling station’s confirmed latitude and longitude. A dream come true! But we ran into a familiar problem – we only had the coordinates and the stations’ code numbers in this file. After a serendipitous trip to the NEC where I ran into the IT Director on his way out, he showed me the pdf with all the polling stations’ descriptive details – and, even better, it was online! But, as was the case with our KMZ file, a crucial piece of data was missing – the geo-coordinates. After a bit of tweaking and rearranging, our team merged the two data sets and placed them on the election instance.

Polling stations for Liberia's election

What is now displayed on the election instance constitutes the first complete online data set of all 1,780 polling stations and their exact locations. We may soon incorporate these stations into the “categories” section of the instance, but for now you can find them by clicking on the “polling stations” layer located just below categories. Each time you zoom in, it’s necessary to refresh the polling stations layer; when you do, and click on a station, you’ll see the station’s code, name of the building, town, county and total voters registered at that site. Other layers on this map include electoral district boundaries for quickly viewing how many reports and polling stations are located in each district.

One of the Referendum’s four propositions suggested a date change for the presidential election; official results revealed the date would stay the same – October 11th. That leaves a month between this dress rehearsal and the main event. The Ushahidi Liberia team is going to be busy preparing with up-country trips trainings for 200+ new reporters, turning iLab into the Elections Coordinating Committee’s situation room and making sure all systems are go for what is perhaps Liberia’s most anticipated event since its first democratic election 6 years ago.

Wood Camp and Soul Clinic communities outside of Monrovia

James was one of 10 participants who recently completed the Universities 4 Ushahidi training in DC this June.   He returned to Paynesville, a city well-known for crime and corruption, with renewed dedication to address security risks at the community level.  James identified two areas of Paynesville that are hotbeds for criminal gangs: Wood Camp and Soul Clinic.  Youth Crime Watch invited members of these communities to their Paynesville office to discuss the Ushahidi platform.  It had been months since my last visit to the Youth Crime Watch office, and the trip reminded me of how quickly urban Liberia becomes rural.  The back roads had ditches steeper than our vehicle, most houses were made of patched together zinc roofing, and the number of decayed and overgrown houses often outnumbered the occupied dwellings.

Community members discuss security threats they face on a regular basis

When I arrived, twenty residents from Wood Camp and Soul Clinic were sitting in Youth Crime Watch’s office.  We went around the room and introduced ourselves, sharing one or two things we would like to see change in our communities.  It was heartening to see teenagers, men and women as well as elders represented in the crowd.  Some common themes emerged: armed robbery happens so often that many residents are unable to sleep soundly at night, and the criminals – called “rogues” – are highly organized.  Everyone in the community knows exactly where the rogues gather, who leads them, and which gangs are responsible for each crime.  If you are robbed, you can go to one of the ring leaders the next day and ask about your stolen property; he will ask where you live and what time the crime took place, and he will then call on the rogues he assigned to that robbery the day before.  Gang members are given shifts each week just like any job. “I can tell you exactly where the criminals are,” one of the crime watch leaders said.  “But no one wants to face them.”

Sharing the Ushahidi platform at the Youth Crime Watch Liberia office

When I explained the Ushahidi platform and how it can be used to notify authorities about these incidents, other complications arose. “Security officers have a share in every harassment that is carried out,” said one woman from Wood Camp. The local police often arrive at robbery sites and arrest the criminals, however these rogues are back in the community the next day boasting about their release and looking for anyone who might have reported the incident.  The police are known for brokering deals with the gangs, splitting the proceeds, releasing the perpetrators and charging the victims a fee if they want to retrieve their stolen items.  But even if you pay, one resident complained, “you will walk up and down and you will not get a thing from them.”

Where to start when the crooks and the cops are working together, when the country has turned a blind eye to places like Paynesville, and community watch groups become targets simply for standing up?  One place to begin is with organization.  It is clear that the rogues are organized and well-networked, and the community has to fight with the same weapon of order, starting with new ways of supporting the crime watch groups.  This is where the Ushahidi platform comes in.  The platform be used by the crime watch groups across communities as a catchment for all reports of crime and violence in Paynesville; Youth Crime Watch already has a customized instance for this purpose. Once an archive of testimonies is created, it can be used as evidence of specific events and overall trends that cannot be as easily ignored as Paynesville’s eyewitnesses have been to-date.  But to what end, residents asked, if the local police are the end users of the information and they are benefiting from the current arrangement?  This is where Ushahidi Liberia’s relationships at the national level can play a part – specifically, with high ranking officers in the National Police, the Liberian Armed Violence Observatory (LAVO), Early Warning and Early Response Working Group, and other coalitions and institutions seeking to eradicate security threats and corruption among responders.

Discussing how the Ushahidi platform can be used by local crime watch groups

Wood Camp and Soul Clinic residents were hopeful that their reports might eventually reach these entities, but they were also notably daunted by reporting to the platform via SMS.  Very few residents at the meeting knew how to send texts, and even more challenging was communicating the detail of a crime in this condensed and unfamiliar format.  During a simulation, each member at the meeting sent in a message reporting an event; many of the messages received did not include a specific location or description of the event, such as this message that read “this is the creamer rate for Paynesville” (the crime rate).  But upon asking each reporter to describe what happened, they explained in great detail what took place.  Youth Crime Watch decided it would be best to call each reporter after the message was received and transcribe the details from the call on the final report.

When we distributed business cards with SMS reporting instructions, we asked residents at the meeting to share these freely in their communities; immediately, there was pushback.  Residents were concerned that this number could be used by rogues to send false information, and for this reason we should not open up reporting to all of Wood Camp and Soul Clinic.  Once again, crowdseeding trumps crowdsourcing in Liberia.  But there is no need to push; there are several elements of the Ushahidi platform that are brand new to users in Liberia, and not all of these have to be adopted at once for the tool to be effective, or for that matter to plant the seed of change within communities.

Since this meeting less than a week ago, Youth Crime Watch has heard of several robberies, murders and an attempted suicide in these communities, however none of these incidents were immediately reported via SMS.  As implementers of the Ushahidi platform, our team finds that the most dynamic aspect of this tool remains the unpredictable human element – how human behavior, cultural norms and familiarity with communication technologies can determine whether or not the platform is useful.  In two weeks time, we will be meeting again with the residents of Wood Camp and Soul Clinic to show them how their reports look on the map, and together we will continue to unravel the questions around how tools like the Ushahidi platform can be localized to serve communities like Paynesville.

Just a few short weeks ago, Amnesty International celebrated its 50^th anniversary. Over the course of 50 years, Amnesty International as a brand and a non-governmental organization has become an important actor in the international space—not only as a global grassroots movement agitating for the universal respect of human rights, but as a supplier of credible and accurate information on human rights abuses.

Perpetrators of human rights abuses have little recourse when confronted with Amnesty’s reporting of human rights failings. While other actors in the international sphere may be faulted for having mixed motives, or politically expedient reporting, the rigor of documentation in Amnesty reporting—like many other, younger human rights NGOs—defies the standard methods of denial and minimization perpetrators may pursue. This authority and credibility is strongly protected. Amnesty researchers are always on guard for how perpetrators might attempt to undermine or question research, and as such, take great steps to ensure rigorous verification of their research findings and evidence. The fall-out from botched research might be quite dramatic—see the recent “Gay Girl In Damascus” fiasco—not the least for future victims who will definitely not profit from a damaged reputation of human rights watch dogs.

Bridging Divides and the Empowerment of New Agents

Over the past few years, there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of people with access to digital communications—including internet access and mobile phone service—especially in the Global South. This trend has empowered more people to connect with others, and further to become voracious consumers of information. Importantly for human rights watchdogs and advocates, however, relatively new users of digital tools are using them to communicate their experiences outwardly. Across the globe—and without any organizing or mobilization by NGOs or watchdogs—people confronted with threats to their rights are communicating out those experiences, in effect reasserting agency over their own rights protection. Faced with a deluge of such self-reporting made possible through social networking tools, and platforms such as crowdmap, Amnesty and other grassroots human rights organizations must address the question as to how to integrate these self-reported experiences and testimonies into their traditional methods of research and analysis, especially given the importance of reporting credibility in the ability of advocates to effect policy change.

Amnesty International’s use of crowd sourcing in a campaigning project on Kenya, in which nearly 50,000 people participated

While AI has played a leadership role in the use of new technologies for human rights monitoring—such as the use of geospatial technologies such as satellite imagery, crowd sourcing does not yet count as a standard methodology or data source in the work of human rights watchdogs. However, that might slowly change. Amnesty previously used crowd sourcing the context of activism and mobilization. For example, as part of the launch of its new flagship campaign to fight poverty, the organization created a platform to amplify the voices from Kenyans, who were describing their understanding of “Dignity”.

Saudi Arabia Crowdmap

The Arab Spring, with its massive popular uprisings and use of social media tools to organize, provides further urgency to test and expand the use of crowd sourcing, including gathering human rights related events information. Of all the countries in the Middle East and North Africa Amnesty chose Saudi Arabia to deploy its first crowdmap–a strategic—yet challenging—choice. The country has not received a lot of attention in the wake of the Arab Spring, and remains extremely closed and restricted, with little information outflow. We know, however, human rights violations are widespread and widely underreported. This is largely related to a prevailing culture of secrecy, no matter if in regards to the justice system or the specific conditions of (political) prisoners. Women face widespread discrimination and violence.

Screenshot of Amnesty International’s Crowdmap of Saudi Arabia

Freedom of expression is highly restricted, making Saudi Arabia in fact one of the most repressive governments in regards to freedom of expression online. While many social media sites are accessible and popular, specific content is subject to censorship, which is strictly enforced. For example, in August 2009 the government blocked the Twitter account of two human rights activists and authorities do not hesitate to detain critical bloggers.

However, Saudi online users used online tools successfully for crisis response in the past. During major floods in 2009, Saudis used YouTube to pressure authorities to investigate the inadequate response (check out Freedom House for a detailed overview of online freedom in Saudi Arabia).

Thus, Saudi Arabia was definitely an interesting test case. Another objective was to mainly target Arabic speaking communities, and in geographic areas in which Amnesty does not yet have a strong presence. The idea was to ideally receive reports from within country, using the usual channels (Twitter, SMS, email, online reports). While there was obviously interest to track any potential or emerging protests similar to other countries in the region, a look at the various categories on the crowdmap shows very clearly the strong focus on specific violations of human rights. The 12 categories included torture or other ill-treatment, deaths in custody or cruel or inhuman punishment (such as flogging), which are reflective of Amnesty’s long standing human rights concerns in the country.

Moderate Response

The project was initially planned for one month only (Mid April to Mid May). However, especially because of the recent developments and attention on the driving ban for women in Saudi Arabia, the test phase was extended for another month until mid of June. The response was moderate, with several hundred visitors to the site who contributed 54 reports in almost all categories over a two months period. The majority of the visitors came from the United States, followed by users from Saudi Arabia. However, what is interesting to note is that the majority of the reports were in Arabic, indicating that the limited but targeted outreach payed off. Additionally, the project gathered significant interest within Amnesty International, so that we are optimistic that we will see an increased use of crowd sourcing for advocacy and campaigning in the future, to complement Amnesty’s rigorous research methodologies. (Justified?) Skepticism definitely remains—you might notice that all reports on the Saudi Arabia crowdmap are clearly marked “unverified”.

Technology Is Bringing Us Closer – In All Aspects

Amnesty International is not simply a human rights NGO. It is a network of millions of people who have pledged in action and deed to the notion that all people must enjoy the rights established in the Universal Declaration. That is, Amnesty International is a crowd. And though technology has taken us far from the cafes, university classrooms, and community centers that had traditionally been the meeting place of those who would seek to defend the right of others they had never met, usually thousands of miles away—the technology is bringing us closer to the core of the Amnesty mission: to defend a global movement to ensure that all people—regardless of their circumstance or position—are empowered as agents to secure their rights, freedom, and dignity.

Syria Tracker is a crowdsourced effort developed by individuals concerned about the harm inflicted upon civilians in Syria. Reporters are reporting crimes in Syria either via direct web entry, by sending reports via email to syriatracker@gmail.com, or by tagging their tweets with #basharcrimes. Additionally, recently we’ve adopted Speak2Tweet service; developed by Google in light of the recent events in Egypt, to accept calls from Syria where callers can dial either +16 50 4194 196 or +39 06 62207 294 or +44 20 3318 4514 and leave a voice message that automatically gets posted to twitter with hashtag #Syria.

Since its launch on April, 23, 2011, Syria Tracker has been able to log 824 aggregate or individual reports documenting > 1,000 individuals killed since mid March 2011.  These reports are being verified by a group of volunteers from the Stand By Taskforce and the Ushahidi team which cross-validate information against other sources or posts and provide technical and program assistance to help us achieve our mission.

To-date Syria Tracker has been visited by 1,384 absolute unique visitors contributing to 6,435 page views with an average of ~3 pages per visit and 71.60% new visits.

Accounting for these events – current and past – is important for future humanitarian and legal action.

Voix des Kivus

A crowd-seeding system in Eastern Congo that uses cell phones to obtain high-quality, verifiable, and real-time information about events that take place in hard-to-reach areas. This pilot project is led by Peter van der Windt and Macartan Humphreys from the Center for the Study of Development Strategies at Columbia University.

The pilot

Atrocities in hard-to-reach areas – for example many areas in Eastern Congo – often go unnoticed because of the lack of accessibility, both due to poor infrastructure and to the simple fact that fighting makes it too dangerous to get close. The inability of international organizations and humanitarian NGOs to collect information under these conditions hampers the provision of assistance in a timely and effective manner.

There is fast growing recognition of the role that technology can play in addressing these problems. But a real challenge faced by many approaches is the difficulty of getting data that is not just real time, but representative. Columbia University (with support from USAID) began the Voix des Kivus pilot project in summer 2009 to assess the technical feasibility of a decentralized, representative, SMS-based information system in the region and to assess the utility of the program to participating communities and potential users. Presently (beginning 2011) the program is operating in a random sample of 18 villages from four territories of the war-torn province of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Phoneholders and the goal

It works like this. In each village participating in Voix des Kivus there are three cell phone holders: one representing the traditional leadership, one representing women’s groups, and one elected by the community. Holders are trained extensively on how to send messages to the system. They are provided with a phone, monthly credit, and a codesheet that lists possible events that can take place in the village. Sending messages to the system is free but it is also voluntary – while users do not have to pay for each message they do not get any financial rewards for sending content to the system.

For participating communities Voix des Kivus provides a system for creating histories, archiving testimonies, and communicating with the rest of the world about events that affect their daily lives. For researchers and practitioners working in the region the information gathered forms an important resource to learn more about the situation on the ground in hard-to-access areas.

Technology and the data

The technology for Voix des Kivus is cheap to set up and simple to use. Built on the freely available FrontlineSMS software, the system allows holders to send numeric or full text posts from almost any cell phone. On the receiving side a standard cell phone linked to a laptop linked to the internet comprise the necessary equipment. With other freely available software (R and LaTeX – our code is available upon request), messages received are automatically filtered, coded for content, cleaned to remove duplicates, and merged into a database. Graphs and tables are automatically generated which can then be automatically mounted into bulletins spanning any period of interest and with different levels of sensitivity. Translations of non-coded text messages (often from Swahili into French and English) are undertaken manually.

Over the last 18 months phone holders have sent thousands of pre-coded and text messages ranging from reports of attacks and abductions to reports of crop diseases and floodings. The constant flow of data from our phone holders is kept in a database and captured in weekly bulletins. Each Monday a bulletin is produced and disseminated that presents events that took place in the preceding week. These bulletins are shared with organizations that have received clearance from Voix des Kivus and its phone holders. The latter includes several development organizations based in Bukavu, DR Congo who can use the data to evaluate the situation on the ground throughout the region.

The figure gives the cumulative number of messages sent per phone holder since the summer of 2009. Phone holders show no sign of reporting fatigue (the slope of the lines do not decrease). As you can see, Voix des Kivus expanded from June 2010 onwards.

Crowseeding vs crowdsourcing

An important question for a system like this is whether the messages received can be trusted. Here we find the true value of crowdseeding. In most crowdsourcing approaches anyone can send information directly to the system. Crowdseeding works in a more restricted way with phone holders that are pre-selected, and only they can send in information. Crowdseeding has three main advantages for data quality: 1. The data is received from a representative set of areas; 2. All senders are known to the system and are in a  long term relationship with the Voix des Kivus program; 3. Because more than one holder is selected in each village “internal validation” is also possible. The system can also be used for sending information to holders and for engaging in more interactive forms of data collection. There are also disadvantages of this approach relative to crowdsourcing, the most obvious is that because of their relation with the program there may be concerns about the security of holders.

What we learned from the pilot

We have learned a lot from the pilot. The technical and social capacity is there right now. Interest in participating areas has been very great as witnessed by the steady stream of messaging. Technical barriers were also not as great as expected; solar technology can be used to power phones in the most remote areas and cell phone coverage is much greater than some maps suggest. Data quality appears good with fairly high levels of internal validation. Two questions though are still unanswered. First although we encountered no security concerns we do not know how safe the system would be for holders if it operated on a larger scale. Second, we don’t know whether this information will get seriously used. At the scale in which we have been operating many organizations expressed great interest in the concept and the data; but we do not know of any serious reactions from international actors to the messages coming in, including real time reports of attacks and abuses. Phone holders have continued to engage with the system despite the poverty of reactions, but we cannot expect that to continue forever.

Continuation?

After operating for more than  a year and a half as a pilot in Eastern Congo, the Voix des Kivus experience suggests that obtaining verifiable, high-quality data in real-time from these hard-to-reach areas is not only possible, but needs much less expense and oversight than previously thought. Our pilot is now coming to an end and Columbia is bowing out from Voix des Kivus. The big question we face now is whether and how to continue the system after the pilot, whether this should be run by a domestic group or an international group, whether this should continue as an open resource or as a resource tied to the operations of organizations that can respond. Please post your thoughts here.

For more information see: http://cu-csds.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Voix-des-Kivus-Leaflet.pdf and www.cu-csds.org

Unlike the many maps of the #Jan25 protests in neighboring Egypt there is but this one map for the #Jan30 protests taking place in the Sudan and Khartoum in particular. The map was requested by Sudanese colleagues in Khartoum who in their own words wanted a public map for the world to see what is happening in their own country.

Some 70 individual reports have been mapped thus far. These capture a range of incidents including the following:

• Police use gas bombs against medical students [View Report]
• Peaceful gatherings and demonstrations [View1 View2]
• Sudanese security harassing foreign journalists [View1 View2]
• Picture of police beating protesters on Palace Street [View]
• Videos of protest in Khartoum [View]

While all eyes of the media are on Egypt, few are sharing the developments in the Sudan. This makes the Sudan map even more important. As Philip Howard has found in his comprehensive new study on “The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam,” the presence of a comparatively active online civil society appears to be one of the key ingredients for democratic transition. Compared to the online civil society in Egypt, the one in the Sudan is far smaller. But activists in Khartoum have reached out to digital activists outside the country for support. And this joint effort has  resulted in more than just a map.

Sudanese contacts have been sharing relevant information via email  and Skype throughout the day, some of which is mapped, and some which is included in the News section of the map. In addition, digital activists have provided training on Twitter and have set up a Flickr account for the Sudanese activists (at their request). See this DigiActive guide on how to use Twitter for activism, also available in Arabic (PDF).

The group has also been trying hard to set up a local FrontlineSMS number for activists to text their reports directly to the map. The first phone they tried didn’t work, so they’re looking to use a GSM modem in the coming days. (Update: an international number has been set up). Once a number is set up, the activists want to share it widely, including the 16,000+ members of the Jan30 Facebook group. Local activists hope this will help them overcome some of the coordination challenges that cropped up today when there was confusion over where and when the demonstrations were meant to take place. This resulted in smaller dispersed protests instead of mass action. You can read more on first hand accounts of this in the News section which includes an email written by Sudanese activist about what they saw today.

Despite the constraints in organization, activists still took to the streets but did face higher risks by being in smaller more dispersed groups. I’m hoping they’ll be able to regroup and plan their future protests in such a way that there is less confusion. The activists do have a full copy of the mass action strategy guide used by Egyptian protesters this week. This may serve them well if they can circulate it widely in the country.