Kategorie: Research and policy advice

New project “digitainable” at the Innovation-Campus Bonn (ICB)

Digitalization is an important driver for change in many areas of our lives and there is intense debate about whether it has a positive or negative impact on sustainable development. Often such considerations remain general. The main objective of the project digitainable is to go beyond this and to examine in detail the impact of digitalization on sustainable development.

The most comprehensive formulation of our current understanding of sustainability is the 2030 Agenda, which was adopted by the UN Member States in September 2015. With its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specified by 169 targets and more than 200 indicators, it comprehensively captures the sustainability landscape, including different areas such as improving health, eradicating poverty, gender equality and climate change. To come close to achieving these goals within the planned timeframe, a breakthrough in terms of speed and degree of progress is necessary. It is often assumed that digitalization and artificial intelligence (D&AI) can be used to significantly increase progress towards the SDGs. However, it is still unclear where and how D&AI can help to control and monitor the complex interrelationships of the broadly defined SDGs and their indicators, and where it could even hamper progress, for example through the high consumption of energy if it is generated from fossil sources. Digitainable aims to uncover the complex relationships between the indicators of SDGs and to understand the impact of D&AI on the progress towards the SDGs, both from a technical-scientific and a social-scientific perspective.

Methodological approach of the project

In the project, the influence of D&AI on the Agenda 2030 indicators is examined individually. A particular challenge is that D&AI are not explicitly addressed either in the SDGs themselves or in the targets and indicators. Therefore, the interrelationships are mostly indirect. The project is therefore divided into the following two phases:

Phase 1: The project will identify the impact of D&AI at the indicator level, both at the level of individual indicators and their linkages. It will attempt to describe a Theory of Change for each indicator.

Phase 2: It is known that there are numerous synergies and tradeoffs between the different indicators. The project will examine possible effects of D&AI on these relationships and will try to identify options where D&AI can enhance synergies and mitigate tradeoffs. In particular, it will also examine how to incorporate the issue of D&AI into a future („post-2030“) agenda.

Project team and collaboration

Dr. Mahsa Motlagh (social sciences)

Dr. Shivam Gupta (technical and natural sciences)

The project will rely on cooperation with partners within and outside the Bonn Alliance for Sustainability Research for a wide range of issues.

Community Building – digitainable Thinkathon

We want to bring together people who deal with these important tasks and issues! On 28April 2020, we will host a digitainable Thinkathon in Bonn (in English). The online application process opens on 29 January 2020.

To intensify the cooperation between BICC (Bonn International Center for Conversion), the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, University of Applied Sciences (H-BRS), the Institute for Environment and Human Security of the United Nations University (UNU-EHS) and the University of Bonn including the Center for Development Research (ZEF), on November 15, 2017 these institutions founded the Bonn Alliance for Sustainability Research in Bonn in the context of the UN Climate Change Conference.

The regional research network aims to further strengthen research in the field of sustainable development and global change. It helps to interlink and expand the interdisciplinary competence in this field in Bonn. Furthermore, the Bonn Alliance aims at jointly establishing the Innovation Campus Bonn (ICB).

Junior researchers start their field research in Jordan, Botswana and Ethiopia

Three research teams from the Postgraduate Training Programme at the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) will start their field research in partner countries in the Global South these days. In the upcoming weeks, the research teams will address key challenges of the 21st century: digitalisation, migration and the global agenda for sustainability.

Please find below the reports of the teams on their preparations and their upcoming research stay:

DIE’s Research Team Jordan is ready for take-off

The integrated implementation of the 2030 Agenda with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires the mobilization of synergies and the mitigation of trade-offs between economic, social and ecological dimensions of sustainable development. This can be a particular challenge when it comes to the governance of natural resources. In many rural-urban settings, trade-offs can be observed between SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) and SDG 15 (life on land). Particularly in water-scarce countries, the question arises as to how water use among different sectors can be governed in line with the 2030 Agenda principles.

Five junior researchers  of the Institute’s Postgraduate Training Programme – Lukas Behrenbeck, Thomas Bollwein, Mirjana Koeder, Daniel Oberhauser and Ronja Schamberger – led by Dr. Ines Dombrowsky, Programme Chair Environmental Governance and Transformation to Sustainability, and Ramona Haegele, Researcher at DIE, will study this question. The research project will be implemented in close cooperation with two Jordanian partner institutes – the Inter-Islamic Network on Water Resources Development and Management (INWRDAM) and the West Asia-North Africa (WANA) Institute.

From early February to late April, the team will conduct research in Jordan, one of the world’s most water scarce countries. One geographical area, where agricultural, domestic and environmental users compete for shrinking groundwater resources, is al-Azraq in Eastern Jordan. The team seeks to analyse in how far the core principles of the 2030 Agenda are reflected in groundwater governance. On this basis, they will identify entry points how to improve natural resource governance in the light of the 2030 Agenda. The findings will be presented in Amman in April and in Bonn at the end of May.

Stay tuned and follow the Research Team on Twitter: @GovnexTeam!

Research team of the Postgraduate Training Programme heads towards Botswana to conduct their research project

After several months in Bonn, during which we put our heads together intensively to get our research project off the ground, the cold winter’s everyday life is coming to an end. On 26 January, we started our eleven-week research trip to Botswana together with our team leader Sebastian Ziaja. The goal of our research trip is to find out whether the use of e-government systems affects the political attitudes of citizens. Since the implementation of electronic services is becoming a global phenomenon, we consider this research project to be highly relevant.

In the first two weeks of January we received a visit from our partner Professor Sebudubudu, Dean of the University of Botswana in Gaborone, who supported us in a great manner. It was great fun to work together with him on our inception report. At the same time, we kept an eye on the work-life balance, went on a joint hike to the Drachenfels in the Siebengebirge and presented culinary highlights from the Rhineland.

After a short phase of acclimatisation to the Botswanan temperatures, we will prepare and conduct a survey and two experiments. These will be used to investigate whether there are connections between the use of e-government systems and political attitudes. The survey will be conducted in the form of a questionnaire with the help of students from the University of Botswana with 2,000 inhabitants in the capital. In parallel, we will conduct two experiments, one regarding the renewal of driving licences and the other on the submission of tax returns.

In addition to the quantitative data collected, we will be interviewing experts in the field of digitalisation and democracy.

On our twitter channel @EgovBotsTeam, we will keep you updated on our progress and experiences. Follow our journey!

Sale sentle (Goodbye on Setswana).

The third research team will be researching the municipalities as actors in the context of international aid for displaced populations in the Somali region of Ethiopia. The project is being carried out together with the Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University and the Institute of Migration and Displacement Studies at Jigjiga University. Among other things, the research team will interview more than two thousand refugees and residents of the host communities.

You may follow the results and experiences of the different groups on social media in the next few weeks. You can find the research teams on Twitter at

@EgovBotsTeam

@GovnexTeam

@ethiopia_2020

In cooperation with the World Bank, Christoph Strupat, researcher in programme „Transformation of Economic and Social Systems“ at DIE, examined the effects of nationwide health insurance in Ghana. The authors show that there were not only savings in individual health expenditures, but that health insurance also makes a significant contribution to reducing child labour and thus increase class attendance of children in schools. High medical costs after sickness, child labour and educational poverty are closely linked in many developing countries: Lack of education and health care is one of the main causes of material impoverishment. And without education, poverty is often transmitted from one generation to the next. National insurances enable an additional „social benefit“ over and above the direct insurance benefit and can reduce child labour and prevent the inheritance of poverty. It is therefore worth taking this enormous gain into account when implementing health insurance schemes.