Equitable Pathways to Success: Transforming Digital Education and Opportunity Matching

Digital tools are increasingly vital in addressing complex challenges such as youth skill and opportunity gaps and high unemployment in many parts of the Global South. Catalyzed by adaptations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the online interface is now increasingly relevant in education from remote learning and online certifications to job matching. 

These technologies democratize access to educational content, benefiting millions gaining internet access each year in emerging economies. As always, along with the promise they hold, there are a plethora of pitfalls. 

CHALLENGES IN EDUCATION AND OPPORTUNITY MATCHING

Numerous platforms have emerged that aim to address youth training needs, such as digital skills in IT, web development etc. They also provide key staffing for businesses and organisations struggling to identify talent in tight labour markets and to fulfill their CSR goals.

Yoma, an ecosystem of partners including but not limited to UNICEF, Atingi, UMUZI, and RLabs is one such example, connecting youth to opportunities for learning and earning in over 8 countries. The government of South Africa has also developed the SAYouth platform to address these issues and tackle the country’s unemployment crisis. Likewise, in Germany, the ReDI School of Digital Integration upskills youth with a migrant or marginalized background to accelerate integration into the digital economy.

Despite the benefits from these types of programs being globally or nationally accessible, they often struggle to localize to the needs of culturally and socially-diverse users, especially those belonging to marginalized populations.  

Delivering effective and equitable matching with opportunities thus becomes a challenge, as candidates from different countries, with different backgrounds and levels of education are exposed to and compete for the same training or earning opportunities.  

Additionally, not all opportunities can be available to every young person, and in many cases spots for learning or earning opportunities are limited. Selection processes, often ‘funnel’-based, lead to many youth being excluded due to mismatches with predefined criteria or aptitude tests specific to the job or training opportunity.

These selection structures pose two major challenges.

CHALLENGE #1 Due to the nature of the funnel, a large population of youth fail to receive benefits as they are filtered out. In doing so, this also reduces the candidate pool for employers. Each failure to match a candidate to training or opportunities can be seen as a lost chance to deliver impact - we run the risk of excluding the most vulnerable, the population we seek to reach.

CHALLENGE #2: Bias in the filtering process further compounds inequities, as candidates may be funneled out by the selection criteria for factors such as educational attainment, language skills, time availability and internet access. Even though this is a data driven approach to identifying the best candidate, there are underlying risks of bias in the selection process. For example: 

• Educational attainment achieved as a proxy for gender: in many contexts, women are less likely to reach the highest levels of schooling. 

• Time availability as a proxy for gender: women with children will have to spend their time on childcare. As such, women might be less likely to be able to commit to the requisite amount of time for training programs. 

• Language as a proxy for ability: if the selection process for training programs includes language assessments, this can filter out candidates who have a strong ability — for example in STEM subjects — but who do not get through the application process because they misinterpret test questions. 

• Internet access as a proxy for economic status: if a candidate only has limited access to the internet, they may be rejected from a training program, but this might well be as a result of their socio-economic background.

Whilst it is logical that training and career development programs look to identify candidates with a suitable CV for their programmes, it is also important to account for such biases during the selection process. 

Indeed, these challenges are not new, as the development sector has long struggled to find a balance within ICT between innovation and equity/inclusivity. So, how can we best leverage the potential of these innovations in education, without leaving the most vulnerable behind?

Revised Applicant Selection Process. Sankey Diagram

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Transitioning from Funnels to Matching

   • A strategic shift: Moving away from funnel-based selection to matching candidates with suitable opportunities can reduce dropout rates and bias in the narrow selection process.

   • Opportunity for all candidates: Rather than narrow criteria focused on a specific role or type of training, programs could evaluate candidates based on diverse skills and match them to relevant opportunities (ie. mentorship and entrepreneurship training or further skills development activities)

   • The result? A larger percentage of candidates access an opportunity and are matched to those where they can succeed. This approach is structurally designed to broaden access to opportunities for a wider range of candidates with diverse backgrounds and talents.

2. Proactively address bias with a data driven approach

   • Identify and Mitigate the Impact of Bias: A matching approach opens up more paths, considering a richer view of candidates and their context. As such, it reduces the impact of bias in underlying data and data-driven algorithms. 

   • Using Data to Understand Bias: Instead of “weeding out” candidates, aptitude tests could help counteract bias by collecting candidate age, gender, education, location, internet access, education, refugee status etc. The resulting dataset provides an opportunity to better understand the variables and structural biases that determine whether an applicant possesses the relevant skills to pass the test.

   • Exploring algorithms: Using a systems approach and data analysis, programs can develop more complex and useful algorithms that prioritize equity of opportunity for youth.

Ultimately, for programs to be transformative and truly unlock new opportunities for young people, the methodologies they use must place equity at the center. 

HOW WE CAN HELP

Although more complex, the recommended approach offers a suitable opportunity pathway tailored to the needs of each candidate. At Outsight, we build on the range of expertise offered by our network of associates in order to deliver quality results adapted to the specific tasks at hand.

If your organization faces similar challenges, our strategy and facilitation services can help develop equitable data-driven approaches. We excel in systems design, empowering clients to understand and optimize complex systems for improved outcomes. Additionally, our expertise in data management, analysis, and visualization enables better decision-making and supports data-driven innovation in our clients’ products, services and business models.

We believe it is developing the kinds of complex approaches described above – leveraging our associates’ multisectoral and decades-long expertise in systems design, data and education among many others — that maximizes sustainability, effectiveness and impact.

about the authors

Denise Soesilo

Denise is an expert in social innovation particularly in humanitarian and development settings.

Maria Zaharatos

Maria is a consultant specializing in research, program design, partnership development, and organizational systems, who champions co-creation and engagement with stakeholders. Her areas of focus are green education, youth empowerment, and workforce development. She has supported various education-focused programs and organizations, including UNICEF, where she helped develop key partnerships and implementation strategy for Yoma’s scaling across the East and South African region.

If you’d like to discuss working with the Outsight team, please get in touch or follow us on LinkedIn for regular updates.

Launching drone (UAS) deliveries for health operations: Five learnings from real-world projects

In recent years, Outsight International’s Drone Team has worked with development organisations and national civil aviation agencies (CAAs) across Africa and Asia to advance health solutions using drone technology.

Health supply chains in many developing countries face important challenges, like insufficient cold storage and road infrastructure and in rural areas, fragmented management, safety concerns or limited availability of trained staff. Furthermore, each medical product has its own characteristics, making it difficult to find a solution that works for all items. For example, vaccines require a reliable cold-chain, and have a fairly predictable demand, while blood or anti-venoms have a much harder to predict demand as sudden peaks of demand may occur in any particular location.

Drones – also referred to as uncrewed aerial systems or UAS – can help address some of these supply challenges by quickly reaching remote locations from well-equipped warehouse facilities. There are many experiences of these uses across the world; drones have been used to deliver emergency medical supplies or tests in Malawi, vaccines have been delivered in Vanuatu, and extensive drone delivery networks for blood and other health products on a regular basis have been operating in Rwanda and Ghana for a few years. However, drones are not a magical solution for all health supply issues in any location. In this post, we share five key learnings emerging from our practice:

1. Understand the challenges of the health supply chain

Prior to developing a drone medical delivery system, it is important to understand what works well and what can improve in the existing supply chain of health items. Drones may be suitable to cover some gaps, but not all. A comprehensive supply chain assessment with a systems-thinking lens will avoid common pitfalls derived from a lack of understanding of the ecosystem in which medical transportation happens.

2. Assess the feasibility of drone deliveries

Even if some identified gaps of the health supply could improve by using drones, they may still not be a feasible solution. Drone suitability also depends on many non-health related factors, such as the drone parts supply chain, technical feasibility, maintenance, workforce available, or community engagement. One of the hardest issues to assess in advance are costs and cost-effectiveness of drone operations with respect to alternative means of transportation.

3. Regulation is a key enabler of drone operations

The regulatory environment is an essential factor to analyze when launching any drone program. However, as health deliveries involve relevant risks and operational complexities, regulatory requirements are more strict than other drone use cases.

In recent years many countries have approved regulations that include provisions on how drones can be operated, what authorizations are needed, what uses are forbidden or what are the requirements to prevent harmful uses. For health operations, some relevant rules to consider typically include limitations on cargo drops, weight limits, operations beyond visual line of sight or transportation of dangerous goods.

On the other hand, some countries do not yet have drone regulations in place. In these cases, some governments have allowed certain ad-hoc drone operations, but the lack of legal certainty is an important barrier for the development of the civil drone ecosystem. As the international drone regulatory ecosystem has been maturing, countries that plan to adopt drone regulations may benefit from comparative expertise including International Civil Aviation Organization model regulations, best practices from other countries in their region, or technical assistance from drone policy experts.

4. Procedures and supporting materials are essential to put legislation into practice

Drone regulations are a basic enabler for health operations, but not enough. National civil aviation agencies need complementary procedures that link abstract regulations with day-to-day practices in order to run drone operations safely, securely, and efficiently. Relevant procedures include drone operator registration, drone registration, type certificate acceptance, airworthiness verification or operations manuals.

5. Capacity building facilitates implementation

Capacity building and training of personnel involved in drone projects is essential for a successful implementation of healthcare drone operations. Limited capacity is a common challenge that often introduces significant delays and higher risks in operations.

To support local capacity, ICAO and drone experts provide technical assistance to civil aviation agencies at the country level. Additionally, initiatives like UNICEF’s African Drone and Data Academy also contribute to the development of local capacity to build, use and maintain drone technology.

The drone team at Outsight International supports NGOs, businesses and governments on their journey to leverage drones. We offer omni comprehensive services from piloting a small scale UAS program to developing a national drone policy, including market research, cargo and supply chain integration, or our own methodology 360 feasibility studies.

Bonus tip: As with any innovations, is it important to incorporate monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) to programming. Emerging technologies and pilot projects often have limited data on their impact so a solid MEL system can provide evidence for decision making and support a case to scale, allowing organisations to maximise their impact, accountability and learning.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Denise Soesilo
Denise is an expert in unmanned aerial system (UAS) use in humanitarian and development settings. She has worked with donor agencies and development organizations, humanitarian and United Nations organisations, advising on the application and implementation of drone technologies. Denise served as the director of flight in the African Drone Forum - Lake Kivu Flying Competitions and implemented numerous other drone operations. Through her work, Denise has enabled the safe operations of nearly a dozen cargo drone companies. In addition, Denise has led the implementation of the European Union Humanitarian Aid innovation grant on drones in humanitarian action. Denise has authored several publications on UAS in development and humanitarian action.

Pablo Busto Caviedes
Pablo specialises in monitoring and evaluation (M&E), policy research, qualitative and quantitative data analysis. His experience includes a diverse range of social and economic development topics such as rural development, agriculture, or social inclusion. He currently primarily works as an Impact Analyst for evaluation studies at another non-profit organisation.

How to deal with Intellectual Property Rights in humanitarian innovation

Outsight International recently supported the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in developing an intellectual property (IP) framework to help staff navigate the complex — and sometimes scary — world of IP. In this post we discuss the common concerns that those unfamiliar with the topic face when understanding their options and choosing an IP strategy.

Why is intellectual property an issue in humanitarian innovation?

Humanitarian innovation refers to the creation, adaptation, and application of new solutions to address challenges faced by individuals and communities affected by crises. These crises can include natural disasters, conflicts, epidemics, and other emergencies.

Over the last decade, humanitarian innovation has led to many new products and services being designed and implemented. These might be hardware, software creations or processes. Unlike the private sector where the end goal is to create profit from these products/services, the the primary goal of humanitarian innovation is to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and impact of humanitarian efforts in providing assistance, protection, and support to those in need.

Although different in their goal, humanitarian innovators usually have to work with IP tools created for the private sector, which can lead to fear and a lack of clarity as to what’s the best approach to reach their goal.

This is for a number of reasons: firstly, IP is seen as an incomprehensible legal topic; second, the perceived risk of getting anything ‘wrong’ in the legal space is greatly feared; and thirdly, many practitioners in the humanitarian/development space see intellectual property rights as a negative thing, usually employed by the private sector to protect profits over people. We now breakdown these fears and try to allay them.

FEAR #1: IP is too complicated to grasp

To say that IP is not complicated would be unfair — there are indeed a lot of component parts to think about: types of IP protection, extent of IP rights, enforcement in multiple jurisdictions, contract wording, registration processes, etc. Among unacquainted innovators, the questions we often hear are:

• ‘How do we file a patent?’

• ‘Should the organisation own patents at all or should we aim to share the innovation as widely as possible for public good?’

• ‘How can we prevent others from appropriating or misusing an innovation?’

• ‘Is it worth it to spend resources enforcing patent protection in a fragile context?’

• ‘Are open source licences always the best alternative for our software?’

• ‘What is a licence?

• ‘Would all of this be the same if the innovation has been developed in partnerships with the private sector?’

• ‘What if the partner is a university?’

Despite all this confusion, IP can be simplified by thinking about options in straightforward language. At a base level, intellectual property can refer to anything created by the mind. This asset could be incorporated in a tangible creation (such as a newly invented device or a piece of art), but not necessarily (it could also be a process, a design, a trademark, or software). Intellectual Property rights comprise a range of rights over a creation, including economic and moral (being recognised as author).

In simple terms IP rights determine who is entitled to use that creation and under what circumstances. To protect these rights, a wide range of mechanisms are available, which can be roughly grouped into three categories: legal, contractual and informal.

1. First, legal mechanisms (often referred to as formal IP protection) offer the most sophisticated safeguard, but require technical knowledge and are harder to enforce, especially in fragile jurisdictions. Among these legal mechanisms, some require a complicated registration process (e.g., patents or utility models), while others are automatic (e.g., copyright) or easy to use (e.g., copyleft or FOSS licences).

2. Second, contractual mechanisms are agreed rules embedded in partnerships, employment or consulting contracts. Some examples include confidentiality or recruitment freeze clauses.

3. Last, informal mechanisms comprise all other protection mechanisms not emerging from laws or contracts, such as secrecy, protective publication, documentation, division of duties, and many others.

Fear #2: Getting IP ‘wrong’ is high risk

One of the main reasons humanitarians are so fearful of IP is because they believe there is a right and wrong way to deal with it. This is not the case. IP clauses written in contracts are — at their base level — just a fancy-worded version of a decision of ‘who has the right to use a creation and how?’.

In some instances, this decision will be influenced by existing IP rights — for example, when adapting something existing you will be bound by the IP rights of that existing thing, or an employee contract might dictate who owns creations invented during work activities. In instances of ‘true’ invention, there is a decision to be made based on a spectrum from closed to open, which also involves an assessment of risks and trade-off.

To determine what IP approach makes the most sense, innovators should consider not only what goals they are aiming for and what resources they have, but also what risks are involved. A systematic risk assessment must be conducted considering risk for the users of the innovation, risks for the organisation and its members, risk for third parties and risks for the innovation and its sustainability.

For example, disclosed IP may be used by third parties for unintended purposes, negatively affecting vulnerable groups. Organisations should consider the diverse profile of people in terms of gender, age, location, legal status or any other personal circumstances that might put them at harm due to IP disclosure to other parties.

FEAR #3: IP protection serves profit maximisation, not humanitarian goals

Historically, intellectual property rights were developed to protect economic and moral rights of creators, with an understanding that this would also facilitate innovation and fair knowledge sharing. Patents, the most IP protection tools, were designed to control who can access innovations, which is very well suited for the patent owner to exploit the innovation and make profits out of it. However, ethical concerns may arise if access to an essential innovation is limited by economic or legal barriers. In recent years, COVID-19 vaccines reignited this debate, with many government and international organisations advocating for a waiver on patent protection to facilitate vaccine accessibility.

Within this context, it is understandable that IP raises suspicions among many humanitarian staff as a tool tailored for profit maximisation, not humanitarian goals. However, since IP rights can be highly customised, humanitarian actors can use them for their own goals as well.

Overall, humanitarian organisations aim to maximise positive impact for people affected by armed conflict and violence. The most logical assumption is that people would usually be better off benefiting from an innovation, and therefore, in principle humanitarian organisations are likely to lean towards more open access IP approaches than the private sector. Open IP approaches allow collaboration, reuse and a more efficient resource allocation in the sector as a whole.

However, even open approaches involve some kind of IP strategy and management to meet the goals of the humanitarian sector. For example, software creators may want to share their code for reuse in the sector, but they still need to make a thoughtful decision among multiple free or open licences, each with its own characteristics, as well as understand the risks, resources and trade-off associated with it.

There are IP options available to innovators which require little ongoing management. Protective/defensive publication is one such tool. This involves publicly disclosing detailed information about an invention to prevent others from patenting the same idea. While the disclosure may not result in obtaining a patent, it acts as a defensive measure to ensure that others cannot claim exclusive rights to the invention.

Developing an IP framework

To address these concerns and develop a common IP understanding within an organisation, it is recommended that organisations working in the humanitarian innovation space develop a comprehensive IP framework, tailored to the organisational context.

In close contact with internal stakeholders and informed by sectoral best practices, the IP framework serves as a clear guidance for decision making, informed by humanitarian principles, risks, and resources available.

Outsight International can help organisations to this end: having already worked on hundreds of innovation projects aiming to serve the public good and helping organisations create these frameworks. If you’d like to learn more or you think we can help, please get in touch.

About the authors

Louis Potter
Louis has a wide range of experience covering development, health, innovation, technology and research. He has worked on over 100 humanitarian initiatives and helps humanitarian organisations, universities and companies to improve innovation processes and outcomes. Recently, he has been helping actors navigate paths to scale in the humanitarian sector and strategise business models.

Pablo Busto Caviedes
Pablo is a researcher with a legal background, who specialises in monitoring and evaluation (M&E), policy research, qualitative and quantitative data analysis. His experience includes a diverse range of social and economic development topics such as rural development, agriculture, or social inclusion.

We just started a new energy team: here's why it’s important

Extract, Exploit, Consume, Continue.

We all (mostly) universally accept that our relationship with how we all extract, use, and devour energy is fundamentally flawed and significantly problematic for the future of humanity. No longer are we in a time of hyperbolic language that starts with if, maybes and buts – we have already altered our planetary ecosystem beyond repair. As a result, themes of energy access, sustainability and transition dominate international, national, regional and local humanitarian (and wider international development) programmatic dialogues. Yet, there are significant flaws in the systems we all use to create modern, reliable and sustainable energy systems and services for forcibly displaced groups around the globe.

The specific niche the Outsight Energy Team has chosen to focus on is the integration of the lived experience of marginalized groups into actual humanitarian programmatic objectives, through the creation of socio-technical energy ecosystems. By directly connecting the conceptual and practical, the strategic and programmatic, the technical, social and everyday drivers of energy ecosystems, the Energy Team at Outsight International blends humanitarian and development approaches to provide bespoke energy ecosystem support to organizations and individuals around the globe.

Ultimately, we feel that co-design, participatory research, human centered-design, co-creation, co-design (and the multitude of other names for it) is fundamentally the right pathway to enable marginalized groups to be the protagonists of their own energy futures. Right now, focus groups and surveys seem to be infiltrating into bigger humanitarian energy systems and services but how can we all ensure that this process does not reinforce post-colonial and neo-liberal power structures that are fundamentally extractive? How can we make this process transformative for all involved?

It’s a question that does not currently have an answer - but we are working on it (and helping others work on it too).

So whilst we work on persuading institutions, founded long before we all came into this world, that the fundamental methods that they use need to change, we wanted to start building a community of clients, collaborators and team members from all over the world. Let’s bring together local, regional and global leaders to transform the sector we all inhabit. Let’s challenge ourselves and the way we work. Let’s amplify the voices of people we are trying to support. Let’s break down these power structures and be transformative rather than extractive.

Before this becomes a monologue rather than a quick read and I share our secrets with you about how we are going to create easy to use practitioner toolboxes, develop case studies and systematic evidence that can show you how we add value etc. - I will leave you with this.

Maybe thinking like this makes us at Outsight the disruptors of our sector, the ones who at the end of every meeting says, “yes, but…”. We are pushing for a sector where the voices of the forcibly displaced are embedded in every part of the discussion, and these dictate the strategic priorities to funders; not the other way round. The forcibly displaced need to be given the power to shape their own lives.

If you would like to be a part of this (just like Energypedia and others are) then reach out, send an email, post a letter, or give us a call.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND OUTSIGHT INTERNATIONAL

Dr Ben Robinson — Outsight Energy Team lead:
Ben is an energy expert engaged with critical elements of the energy transition across Asia and Africa in the Humanitarian and wider International Development sectors. He champions innovative and disruptive socio-technological ecosystems to enable the forcibly displaced, and other marginalised communities, to be the protagonists of their own energy futures. See his most recent publications here.

Outsight International
Outsight International provides services to the humanitarian and development sector in an efficient and agile way. Outsight International builds on the range of expertise offered by a network of Associates in order to deliver quality results adapted to the specific tasks at hand. If you’d like to discuss working with the Outsight team, please get in touch or follow us on LinkedIn for regular updates.

Environmental and Social Governance: A guided approach to creating shared value and partnerships to create impact

Introduction to ESG

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance is rapidly becoming a necessary focus for organisations internationally. Increased awareness of the reputational and financial risks associated with negative environmental and social impact has meant increased responsibility on organisations to develop strategies, as well as strengthen their reporting and governance systems. Beyond this, there is ever-growing evidence that companies with good ESG performance improve their financial bottom line in the current social climate, and that socially or environmentally purposed agencies optimise their impact when improving ESG performance.

However there is a disconnect of knowledge between those tasked with developing and implementing ESG strategies and an understanding of how to create true impact through environmental, social and governance strategies. This means that many organisational ESG strategies can be perceived as a marketing exercise, rather than creating genuine value for their stakeholders or for the environment. Considering the increasing directives, standards and regulations around ESG and sustainability performance, this could mean failing to meet ESG obligations sufficiently, which could mean a host of various legal, financial, reputational, social and sustainability risks. 

Common sustainable reporting standards include indicators for environmental, social and governance performance, although these currently focus on managing risks, rather than creating a positive impact. Moreover, these indicators do not cover all of the areas where negative impacts — including reputational damage — could occur. Standards are generally set as a minimum (at the moment for risk management) rather than an optimum (managing risks holistically and moving towards genuine sustainability while creating shared value). It means a missed opportunity: to improve the triple bottom line; increase investment in the organisation; and make a positive social and environmental impact overall. 

Opportunities for genuine impact 

Going beyond simple compliance, we see the huge unrealised potential for organisations to leverage their social, environmental and governance imperatives in a truly transformative manner that creates opportunities, for instance, by:

• Maintaining and strengthening the brand and its reputation where customers will pay more for socially or environmentally sustainable products and services.

• Attracting and retaining talent through consistent messaging that is aligned with company action, and by keeping the workforce engaged.

• Better management of risks as the application of a robust framework leads to proactive management of risks.

• Accurate valuations through better measuring of performance and consistent collection of data.

• Increased efficiency through more strategic use of resources, optimization of supply chain enabled by better data, and improved worker performance due to increased commitment and satisfaction.

• Create new opportunities for partnerships and innovation as the NGO and public sector (development cooperation, international governmental organisations) is actively shifting towards identifying long-term private sector partnerships with companies that are aligned to the sustainable development goals in order to optimise impact. And companies are looking to partner strategically with NGO and public sector agencies that can help them improve their ESG performance, for example, through social programming to combat child labour or other rights violations in the supply chain.

• Increased sustainability through stronger stakeholder engagement and a net positive impact on wider society and the environment

These opportunities can be harnessed by strengthening the following domains:

• Environmental: only monitoring environmental impact to a ‘net zero’ emissions standard. As this means balancing greenhouse gas emissions with greenhouse gas reduction, this does not include any other environmental impacts the organisation may have, such as pollution, biodiversity, natural resources and circular economy. There is a missed opportunity for a positive impact overall.

• Social: many companies have fundraising targets for charities, and engage their staff around fundraising activities for staff engagement. Whilst this is good for both charities and the staff who engage, many organisations (companies, NGOs and public sector) do not turn their eye internally, to their own social impact on staff. Many organisations do not have, for example, a Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) team that reports to executive leadership. In addition, many companies do not have a comprehensive supply chain audit that uncovers issues of exploitation or human rights concerns at the bottom rungs of nested supply chains. There are opportunities for organisations to improve work culture, retention of talent, productivity and efficiency internally and externally, to have stronger stakeholder engagement and support to proactively mitigate risks.

• Governance: many organisations monitor and manage their financial and legal risks, but may not ensure that their board has a strong understanding of issues related to sustainability or ESG. The EU Commission has proposed a new Directive for mandatory human rights and climate change due diligence down the supply chain. If accepted by the EU Parliament, member states will have two years to incorporate into national law. This law would affect around 16,800 companies of larger size (500+ employees) and turnover (EUR 150m), and may require changes to their governance system in relation to improved ESG performance, including board composition, and would require leadership from organisational directors. There is an opportunity (which could soon be a legal requirement in many nations) for organisations to improve their governance towards better ESG performance and positive environmental and social impact.

Many organisations do not have a dedicated ESG team at an operational level. Even though some do, those positioned in these roles may not have the background required, or the mandate from leadership, to develop strategies towards creating positive impact, rather than monitoring risks or collecting reporting data. 

The solution: Impact-focused ESG strategies

ESG performance relates to many different functions of an organisation and will look different from one organisation to another, depending on their value proposition and operations. This means that an ESG strategy must be tailored to an organisation based on many factors including: their risk appetite; a double-materiality assessment of what environmental and social impact they have; and what impact the environment and society may have on them, and how their strategy could tie into their ESG goals.

As implied by the new EU Directive proposal, it is important for ESG capacity to be present at the board level, and for organisational leadership to feel comfortable weaving ESG into their organisational strategy. For this strategy to be implemented, an ESG team may be required. To be effective in achieving the opportunities to build sustainability, this team should be mandated and qualified to: identify ESG gaps; coordinate improvements; and monitor progress. It is helpful for this team to have high visibility from executive leadership (ideally a direct reporting line), as they will be working strategically, across departments, and may need to lead organisational change processes. A strong ESG strategy will normally span across multiple functions including auditing, legal and compliance, HR, operations, programmes and communications.

Considering that improving ESG performance is relatively new to the majority of organisations, there are pioneering organisations and those that will follow. To reduce any competitive disadvantage that comes from investing in improvements (in the short term) it may be useful to incorporate advocacy and communication with trade associations and standard-setting agencies into the organisation’s ESG strategy. This can act as a platform for organisational recognition, as well as encouraging more organisations — with good practice examples and healthy competition — to catalyse the movement. It is already becoming common for trade platforms and associations to recognise or even award organisations based on ESG performance.

Considering the complex conversation around ESG at the moment, it can be hard to work out where to start, and what to do, practically, as an organisation to improve performance and sustainability — especially for organisations without current internal ESG capacity. Outsight offers a distilled, evidence-based, consultative offer to organisations wishing to take the next step.

Our proposal: A holistic approach, at the level you require

Possessing 65+ years of experience in the humanitarian and development space, working on social and environmental issues, Outsight International is extremely well placed to help organisations assess, develop and implement ESG approaches that deliver genuine impact to themselves and the communities they serve.

Our subject matter experts cover all aspects of the ESG process and we offer a comprehensive menu of services: from targeted coaching on specific issues to complete strategy development and implementation. 

For ESG to provide genuine impact, we have developed a five step process which is based on our experience in the sector. We can help organisations follow the complete process or help with the specific activities of each step.

1. Understand ESG: By their nature, environmental, social and governance performance are extremely complex topics which can take years to understand and even longer to master. As a first step to assist organisations, we offer a standalone resource package that can help ESG implementers and key stakeholders get to grips with the topic, appropriate frameworks and critical issues. This can be run as a coaching program with ESG focal points, or as a training toolbox. 

2. Simplify complexity and identify the gaps: ESG strategies need to embrace the complexity of their organisations and distil the most meaningful action. From leadership buy-in to supply chains, the cross-cutting nature of ESG means the process should start by engaging experts and key stakeholders to capture the complexity of real-world choices, dependencies, and tradeoffs in visual system maps that show how the parts fit together. Our system innovation experts help organisations do this in an efficient way, bringing with them years of experience in making sense of complex ecosystems and identifying the key gaps and priority areas to leverage change. 

3. Identify the most appropriate framework: There are a range of ESG frameworks that can be chosen to apply ESG principles to your operations — there may be regulatory requirements also, depending on the sector. We help you identify the best fit for your existing systems and impact goals.  

4. Put in place a reporting system and establish a baseline: With an understanding of your organisation's existing ESG systems and reach, and with an appropriate framework selected, the next step is to put in place the right reporting systems and audit methods to collect baseline data, on which your ESG progress can be tracked. Outsight’s reporting expertise can help set up these systems easily and efficiently. 

5. Create a strategy and roadmap: The final and most important stage of the process is to create an impact-focused ESG strategy and roadmap. This should be built on the foundational work of the previous steps and is the point at which theory is put into practice. Strategies will vary in size depending on the goals and objectives of each organisation. They can (and should) include the following:

   1. Engagement with your stakeholders: Engage stakeholders with discussions and analysis of complex challenges that build on visual maps to co-create desired future states and a shared roadmap to get there. Co-creation enables solutions to be adapted to their specific context but also ensures legitimacy and relevance of strategies so that performance may be meaningfully improved through an efficient process. If stakeholders feel they share ownership of a plan of action, implementation becomes much easier. 

   2. Identify the right support: Depending on the organisation, Outsight can identify specialist agencies that can help them implement their ESG strategies. There is a range of outsourcing options to support the ESG implementers i.e. human rights in the supply chain, environmental impact, and good governance experts. Partnerships with organisations working in these spaces are essential to moving beyond just the box-ticking exercise that ESG can fall into. 

   3. Strategy formation: Once the right stakeholder and support have been identified, Outsight helps harmonise this with the chosen regulatory and reporting frameworks to create a strategy that can be put into practice. 

   4. Building staff capacity: Outsight can provide supporting instruction on the basics of ESG thinking and support the development of staff to engage on the topic through the use of self-assessment tools and change initiatives. Utilising this approach will enable better top-to-bottom engagement in the topic. 

   5. Communications: It’s important to encourage sustained use of system descriptions and visuals in communications, using these tools to help expand the conversation. Interactive tools, courses, and communications materials can be built for the organisation’s customers and partners, and provide an aligned strategy for understanding and addressing the effects of complex challenges. Many companies and NGOs are striving toward sustainability, beyond simply mitigating ESG risks. Considering these organisations are the pioneers, it can be useful to put pressure on the national Securities and Exchange Committee (SEC), trade associations, relevant Ministries or task-force groups surrounding operations, to recognise good practices and raise standards for other organisations. Outsight can support by mapping the system, communications and strategies for this advocacy as well. 

This approach can be widely applied to diverse challenge areas in climate action and widely shared in different educational, corporate, and community environments.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND OUTSIGHT INTERNATIONAL

Harriet Milsted
Harriet is a Research, M&E and Reporting Consultant specialising in measuring and improving social impact, and with experience in measuring and improving environmental impact and governance systems. She is a member of the ESG Special Interest Group of the Institute of Risk Management where she was invited to speak in their first publicly broadcast panel discussion around the opportunities for improving ESG performance of private companies and NGOs respectively, through strategic partnerships. She coordinated sustainability reporting for Save the Children against the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Grand Bargain and Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) and was also the Accountability representative in the corporate Risk Assurance Network. Recently she was working on an EU Spotlight initiative around improving ESG performance, with UNICEF and Baan Dek Foundation, a Thai NGO, where she facilitated the development of the corporate engagement strategy and tools for the construction sector in Thailand including property developers, contractors and subcontractors at the bottom rungs of the supply chain. She is currently consulting around ESG-related initiatives, including child labour remediation in the supply chain, combatting trafficking in persons and rights violations of migrant workers, and improving organisational sustainability for CSOs.

Outsight International
Beyond the complex systems design and communication strategy which we have outlined above, Outsight International builds teams based on the specific needs of an innovation initiative. Much like a Hollywood movie builds its production teams to match the right talent with a particular movie, Outsight compiles the right expertise to tackle the unique challenges of a particular initiative. In the case of ESG, we are well placed to provide assistance to organisations looking to break down, solve and communicate problems. If you’d like to discuss working with the Outsight team, please get in touch or follow us on LinkedIn for regular updates.

The Complete Picture Project: Uncovering hidden AI bias

Can the diversity of the crowd be properly represented in AI datasets?

How do developers and users ensure that Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms serve all the members of a community equitably and fairly? The Outsight team has a solution…

This is not a small question. According to Forbes, the global AI-driven machine learning market will reach $20.83B in 2024. Low- and middle-income countries have already seen a rapid expansion in applications using this technology. Not surprisingly, the humanitarian and development sectors increasingly make use of machine learning models to reach beneficiaries faster, understanding needs better and make key decisions about the form and execution of life-saving programs.

AI-driven applications range from chatbots that connect individuals affected by disaster to their required resources, to applications that help diagnose bacterial diseases. These increasingly powerful new tools have the potential to dramatically improve aid delivery and life in communities affected by crisis. However, this value is tempered by the reality that biases can easily find their way into even the most diligently engineered applications.

AI models and applications are often built far from the communities where they will eventually be used, and are based on datasets that fail to reflect the actual diversity of these communities. This disconnect can lead to the inclusion of unintentional biases within an AI model, ultimately driving unfair system choices and recommendations that are difficult to detect.

For example, a recruiting application using AI may be designed to encourage new economic job opportunities and evaluate all the candidates applying for jobs. This is a laudable goal, but it can be tainted by biases in the algorithm that unfairly treat factors associated with gender, social background, physical ability, or language. The algorithm can systematically exacerbate existing disadvantages faced by certain groups.

Similar challenges can face large-scale aid programs that attempt to leverage AI. A cash distribution program serving an area hit by disaster or a conflict may use AI to guide cash distribution, check for misuse, and measure performance. If these automated insights favour certain communities, they could end up excluding already marginalised groups and individuals.

The Hiding Places of Bias

Whenever AI is employed in a decision-making system, it is in the interests of technical developers, adopting organisations, and communities to ensure that the algorithms are providing value, while not causing harm due to bias.

Determining whether subtle bias exists within an algorithm is a difficult task — even for experienced data scientists and conscientious AI users. A wide range of factors may contribute to bias within an AI algorithm, some of which are the result of the algorithm’s performance. There is a growing set of tools to help search for algorithmic bias within the logic of an AI application.

Evaluating the ‘wiring’ of an AI tool is important, but it is not the only concern. The sources of bias may inadvertently be embedded in the data set itself. Data bias risks can include:

• Who is included — Bias in choosing who is selected in a data set.

• How data are connected — Failure to recognise connections amongst different data that are important within a community.

• Depth of insight — Failure to capture elements that are uniquely important for members of a community group.

As an example, datasets that are used to train and test AI models often only represent the digital footprint of a community and not its real diversity. As a result applications are developed based on the characteristics of well represented community groups.

A typical, unrepresentative dataset, upon which AI models are often based.

In contrast, a true picture of the community might reveal many more ‘invisible’ members whose needs, resources, and desires are quite different; but that are not represented in the digital footprint.

The invisible real picture.

An algorithm that bases its logic on an incomplete or inaccurate picture of a community will be hard pressed to assure it has not inherited biases from the data it used. Similarly, it will be difficult for a potential user of a new AI algorithm to evaluate whether it exhibits bias, if the data used for the test is itself incomplete and fails to accurately reflect the diversity of a community.

The Complete Picture Project: Building Complete Views of Communities

The Complete Picture Project (CPP) addresses the challenge of hidden bias in incomplete data sets by constructing data resources that offer a complete view of the true diversity within a community. These data sets are assembled from multiple sources and may include a wide range of source content. The goal is to provide those working to evaluate AI bias with a known starting point — where representation within the community has been carefully considered within the data.

These data sets are well positioned to support various actors in the AI ecosystem (AI designers, AI developers, data scientists, policy makers, user researchers as well as users of AI systems) who are seeking to test AI bias. These evaluations are particularly important when engaging with communities most impacted by the SDG’s. These communities may have unique traits that differ from those included in more conventional data sources. They are also more likely to have data gaps and distortions due to access to digital technologies.

These independent, broadly diverse, representative test datasets offer developers and other AI testers a data resource for which the form and content are known. These datasets can then applied to AI models and the results inspected for biases that are hidden in the model itself. This ability to test for bias across the whole community would support efforts to detect gender and other group biases at any stage of the AI development lifecycle, from early design and development to long after pre-trained algorithms are already in use.

Scaling the Impact of CPP Data Sets

CPP data sets can provide a valuable resource in support of responsible AI development and use. Intentionally constructed data sets that broadly reflect the true diversity of communities can help advance gender equality and women’s empowerment (SDG 5).

While these datasets are being initially designed to specifically address data scenarios that are relevant to women, children, and communities who are most impacted by the SDGs, the CPP methodology we establish could be easily be extended and scaled to include other applications where parameters of where algorithmic bias is a risk as well.

The definition of bias is ever-evolving. As AI developers and their sponsors build a better understanding of the real world and the biases in it from various dimensions (such as geography, culture, non-binary gender, language, migratory status, ethnicity and race), it will be important to expand the availability of intentionally representative data sets. Building a collaborator network is key to the strategy for broad development and use of CPP data sets. Collaborators are needed to better understand communities, provide and shape data sets, and to apply data to AI algorithms. There are strong network effects among this ecosystem, where AI sponsors, governments, developers and data owners combine to drive and build off each others contributions.

The intent of the CPP team is to capture and distill practices and methodologies so that they can be broadly shared and adopted by others. The availability of individual data sets will vary according to each specific use case, but open data resources would be created when possible.

Overview of the planned CPP approach.

Next steps

The CPP team are keen to connect with organisations who are interested in collaborating on the project. Please feel free to get in touch or contact us on LinkedIn to find out more.

About the Authors and Outsight International

Devangana Khokhar
Devangana Khokhar is an experienced data scientist and strategist with years of experience in building intelligent systems for clients across domains and geographies and has a research background in theoretical computer science, information retrieval, and social network analysis. Her interests include data-driven intelligence, data in the humanitarian sector, and data ethics and responsibilities. In the past, Devangana led the India chapter of DataKind. Devangana frequently consults for nonprofit organisations and social enterprises on the value of data literacy and holds workshops and boot camps on the same. She’s the author of the book titled Gephi Cookbook, a beginner's guide on network sciences. Devangana currently works as Lead Data Scientist with ThoughtWorks.

Dan McClure
Dan McClure specialises in complex systems innovation challenges, and acts as a senior innovation strategist for commercial, non-profit, and governmental organisations. He has authored a number of papers on systems innovation methodologies and is actively engaged with aid sector programs addressing cutting edge issues such as scaling, localisation, and dynamic collaboration building. His work builds on decades of experience as a systems innovation strategist working with global firms in fields spanning technology, finance, retail, media, communications, education, energy, and health.

Lucie Gueuning
Lucie manages the MSF REACH project — researching AI and machine learning in the humanitarian context. More widely, she focuses on digital implementation for the development and humanitarian sector. She believes that digital solutions can be harnessed in order to increase the efficiency of the humanitarian sector and the service provisions for the most vulnerable.

Denise Soesilo
Denise is one of the Co-founders of Outsight and has worked with many humanitarian and UN agencies — advising on the application and implementation of technologies in humanitarian operations.

Outsight International
Outsight International provides services to the humanitarian and development sector in an efficient and agile way. Outsight International builds on the range of expertise offered by a network of Associates in order to deliver quality results adapted to the specific tasks at hand. If you’d like to discuss working with the Outsight team, please get in touch or follow us on LinkedIn for regular updates.

Building an educational sectoral crypto-currency for the development sector

Recently Outsight was asked to help the Italian NGO, Helpcode, in partnership with the Politecnico Milano, scope how crypto-currency might be used to provide better services to beneficiaries in their projects. After some initial research we focused on sectoral currency as a way to multiply the value of donations in the education sector. Louis and Denise, the two founders of Outsight discuss the work…

The non-profit sector has, in recent years, started to take an interest in emerging blockchain and crypto-currency technologies, as these provide the potential process large amounts of transparent transactions at low transaction costs. These qualities — in theory — should enable the financial inclusion of beneficiaries, as the barriers of entry are low. In addition, specialised crypto-currencies can be utilised to multiply the impact of monetary funds when set up as a sectoral currency.

What is sectoral currency and how does it work?

The late Bernard Lietaer was a strong proponent of the radical possibilities of sectoral currencies and monetary systems to solve many challenges of today’s world. These included looking at the way we value resources in a short-termist fashion, to proposing mechanisms to protect the world economy from inflation. Among his many interesting initiatives, is the ‘Saber’ educational currency idea, designed for implementation in his native Brazil.

The educational currency is designed to set in motion “a substantial “learning multiplier” so that a given amount of money can facilitate substantially more learning for a greater number of students. The currency would fuel this learning multiplier without creating any new financial pressure on the economy. What this means in practice is that a tangible resource (in this case, a university scholarship) is given to younger students, rather than those who will use it. As the resource — turned into tokens — enters the educational system at a younger age, it is then possible to build a transaction chain between students of different ages until the tokens reach the older students who can cash them in with the university. The transactions that take place along the chain can be adapted to the needs of the system. In this case, the aim is for older students to provide mentoring services to younger students.

Students in the system hold an electronic wallet containing tokens. When a mentoring session takes place, the younger student will then ‘pay’ the older student with the tokens, which over time pass up the chain, age-group by age-group, until they reach the university students by the deadline of that year’s currency validity. Importantly, a demurrage fee (it loses its value after a set period) is attached to the currency in order to keep it in circulation. This prevents students from holding onto the tokens for their own profit later on as 100 tokens this year will become 50 tokens next year if not used. We have illustrated this chain below.

An overview of the educational sectoral currency system in the hypothetical DRC context.

In this example, a token could pass through five transaction points before being cashed in. Thus, a single scholarship for one student is having a positive impact on five other students who would otherwise not receive any direct benefit. This multiplying effect is the true genius of the sectoral currency approach and can be adapted to help many sectors, such as environment or care.

About the context

The Helpcode project location of Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo was used as a hypothetical location for the use of sectoral cryptocurrencies in support of ongoing programmes with the broader aim to reduce poverty through improved access to education. At the current stage of the research, the location provided the use case for the exploration and prototyping. There are currently no plans for direct implementation.

Bukavu is a city of about 800,000 inhabitants in the east of the DRC on the southernmost shores of Lake Kivu. Bukavu is a commercial and industrial center in the region and is known for the production of coffee, tea, tobacco and strawberries). Bukavu is host to four universities and at least four higher learning institutes including a teacher training college, a scientific research institute and an Institute of medical technology.

Helpcode has a small presence in Bukavu mostly through financially supporting school children. Funds are administered to the Foundation Foyer Ek’Abana, who then disburses the funds to about 1,600 beneficiaries — all of them children — to support the costs of attending schools.

Additional projects are planned to provide a mobile medical unit to serve about 1,500 street children throughout the city with basic medical services, alongside programs to reunite these children with their families and to provide economic support, as well as supporting return to school and connecting to job opportunities. Many children living on the streets are orphaned. Many do not have identities, though some support exists now to issue birth certificates and IDs. Unconditional cash transfers alongside the current support may be an option to older children, but these children do not typically have smartphones.

In this context, sectoral currency could offer the added benefit of increasing value for every dollar invested by providing the system to school age children who could then exchange credits for mentoring or services from older children who will use them for scholarships. The value of the system would be underpinned by Helpcode by making an agreement to exchange the local currency for an agreed cash value at the end of each school year. As the currency moves up the chain towards the final use at university, each owner can receive something in exchange for the currency that is of value to the older students — i.e. mentoring, care services, food. The value of each dollar of the currency effectively increases each time it changes hands moving up the chain.

The prototype

Following the system proposal, Politecnico Milano produced a prototype built using the Ethereum platform. The prototype offers the following features:

• Registration as a student

• Peer-to-peer transactions for mentoring sessions using QR codes.

• Picture proof for mentoring sessions.

• Demurrage of currency for each school year.

• Cash-in at university.

At an early prototype stage, this is how the app looks.

The welcome page of the app.

The wallet page of the app. Here you can select the type of service and whether to send or receive tokens.

The transaction history page of the app. Where students can view their transactions.

The transactions themselves are made using a QR codes. The mentoree scans a QR code on the mentor’s phone once a session is complete to send credits to them.

The mentor’s receiving page.

The mentoree’s sending credits page. This would turn on the camera to scan the QR code.

Other important considerations

As a novel and relatively complex concept, it is important to consider the potential pros and cons of pursuing this idea in a development context.

Pros:

• Sectoral currency has been trialed in Japan.

• Some progress on humanitarian local currencies with ICRC.

• Increases the value of scholarships beyond just recipients.

• Existing demurrage crypto-currency example.

Cons:

• Need to ensure access to suitable end devices for trading with the currency.

• Risk of unforeseen variables — what if the currency becomes tradable for illicit services?

• Risk of monetizing transactions that should otherwise be freely shared (casual homework support, advice)

We also listed some remaining questions and concerns that need to be addressed before pursuing implementation further.

• Does this process require a critical mass of users to be effective?

• How much adult guidance is required in this process for oversight and guidance?

• What constitutes a valid mentoring session to initiate a transaction?

• Do all children need their own smartphone or can a third party on the ground manage the transaction while younger children deal with hard tokens / paper wallets only?

• What basic conditions need to be met for a sectoral currency to be successful?

Next steps

Together with Helpcode and Politecnico Milano, Outsight is pursuing the further development of the educational sectoral currency platform. We aim to engage with end users from a UX and service design perspective in order to ensure we can address the outstanding questions and make the tool more specific for its context of use. If you’re interested in using sectoral currency or want to discuss the topic with us, please feel free to get in touch.

ABOUT the authors AND OUTSIGHT INTERNATIONAL

Denise Soesilo
Denise is one of the Co-founders of Outsight and has worked with the World Bank and other development, humanitarian and UN agencies — advising on the application and implementation of space-based systems and other technologies in humanitarian operations.

Louis Potter
Louis is one of the Co-founders of Outsight. He has a wide range of experience covering development, health, innovation, technology and research. Having worked in the field, he is well acquainted with the practical realities of delivering impact. In recent years, he has been helping organisations to improve innovation processes and outcomes. He is an experienced facilitator and has been closely involved in efforts to improve collaborations between the nonprofit, academic and commercial sectors. He is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, and received his MSc in Global Health from the Karolinska Institute, Sweden.

Outsight International
Outsight International provides services to the humanitarian and development sector in an efficient and agile way. Outsight International builds on the range of expertise offered by a network of Associates in order to deliver quality results adapted to the specific tasks at hand. If you’d like to discuss working with the Outsight team, please get in touch or follow us on LinkedIn for regular updates.