Worldwide Information Blogger Luc Schrijvers: WORLD WORLDWIDE Human Rights Watch News Journal Update

maandag 26 juni 2023

WORLD WORLDWIDE Human Rights Watch News Journal Update - THE WEEK IN RIGHTS

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June 16, 2023

Interview: How Flawed Policies Lead to Flawed Technology

Around the world, governments are using automation to help deliver public services like food, housing, and cash assistance to people. But what happens when these poverty-targeted programs are undermined by errors, discriminatory policies, and stereotypes about poverty?.

Many people in Jordan are finding out.

A program developed by the Jordanian government with significant funding from the World Bank – whose role is to reduce poverty in poorer countries through government loans – is depriving people of their right to social security even as they go hungry, fall behind on rent, and take on crippling debt. And it’s all because their hardships don’t fit an algorithm’s rigid model of what poverty should look like.

HRW’s Amy Braunschweiger spoke with Senior Researcher Amos Toh about the flaws in Jordan’s program and the dangers of using automation to solve complex social problems. Read excerpts below.

Tell me about Jordan’s cash transfer program.

It’s a program financed by the World Bank called Takaful, a word similar to “solidarity” in Arabic. Takaful distributes cash transfers to households based on their socio-economic status.

How does the program work?

Jordan’s government first assesses whether applicants meet eligibility criteria. Then the algorithm uses 57 indicators to assess people’s economic vulnerability. But some of these indicators, like whether a family owns a car or how big their household is, are problematic.

In speaking with people, we found that car ownership doesn’t say much about the hardships they’re facing. Some hadn’t used their car for a while because they had no money for petrol. Still others couldn’t afford to do the paperwork to sell their car.

Bigger households are considered more vulnerable, all else being equal. But even household size calculations are problematic and politically charged because they only count Jordanian members. This discriminates against Jordanian women with non-Jordanian spouses, because women can’t pass their citizenship onto spouses or children the way Jordanian men can.

This type of poverty targeting doesn’t work, and it undermines people’s right to social security and other economic and social rights.

How widely are these programs used?

Out of ten countries in the Middle East and North Africa where the World Bank has active projects, eight have received World Bank loans to introduce or upgrade poverty targeting technology.

Did anyone’s story stand out to you?

Aseel, 29, works at a plastics factory. She covers some of her mom’s medical bills and often feeds her brothers and sisters. But she hasn’t qualified for assistance under Jordan’s cash transfer program. She doesn’t know why.

[This] use of technology just obscures [people’s] problems by trying to summarize complex lives with simple and inaccurate indicators. Using it to make decisions as to whether people get support is dangerous.

Read the Full Interview

‘Loss After Loss After Loss’: Dam Destruction in Ukraine

In the early morning of June 6, the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine was destroyed, flooding dozens of towns and villages on both sides of the Dnipro River. In the ensuing days, Tanya, 61, lost everything she had.

Tanya lives on Nizhnyaya Street in Oleshky, a town on the Dnipro’s left bank that Russian forces have occupied since April 2022. Ninety percent of Oleshky was flooded, with some areas practically disappearing underwater.

People told Human Rights Watch that with no official information or public announcements from the occupation authorities, they did not immediately understand the degree of the danger. As a result, many were stranded.

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