[bestbits] Fwd: [DigAfrica] Internet access, sustainability, and citizen participation: electricity as a prerequisite for democracy?

[Kawsu Sillah]

Colleagues,

I found this article on "Internet access, sustainability, and citizen
participation: electricity as a prerequisite for democracy?" by MICHAEL J.
OGHIA 22 August 2017 very insightful and I recommend for reading.

Regards
Kawsu

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From: *chifu2222 at gmail.com <chifu2222 at gmail.com> [DigAfrica]* <
DigAfrica at yahoogroups.com>
Date: Friday, August 25, 2017
Subject: [DigAfrica] Internet access, sustainability, and citizen
participation: electricity as a prerequisite for democracy?
To: DigAfrica at yahoogroups.com




Internet access, sustainability, and citizen participation: electricity as
a prerequisite for democracy?
MICHAEL J. OGHIA 22 August 2017

Democracy is not innate but learned, and access to information is the
critical link between education and democracy. But access to information is
fundamentally uneven, especially for people in the Global South.

HRI

Electronic waste: 100,000 migrant workers labour in China's Guiyu province
break down imported computers in hundreds of small operations like this
one. Image: baselactionnetwork, CC BY-NC 4.0. Some rights reserved.
At its core, sustainability simply refers to the ability to live
harmoniously within an environment over time. When applied to modern
society, humanity’s long-term survival rests not only on environmental and
ecological harmonization, but also on our social and cultural harmonization
– the ability to collaborate, communicate effectively, resolve conflict
peacefully through legitimate and respected institutions, and participate
in our socio-political processes. As openDemocracy’s series on Human Rights
and the Internet has aptly demonstrated, sustainability is in many ways a
fundamental yet unwritten condition of democracy and public policy. Whether
it be the sustainability of cities and the policy considerations needed to
both maintain them as well as safeguard them for the future, a more
sustainable approach to citizen engagement, the intrinsic link between
environmental sustainability and social justice, or the inherent
relationship between democracy and sustainability, it is difficult if not
impossible to separate the notion of environmental sustainability from its
socially focused counterpart: democratic governance.

Sustainability is in many ways a fundamental yet unwritten condition of
democracy and public policy.
A cornerstone of democracy is education, in part, because an informed
citizenry is vital to the successful formation and functioning of a
government. Democratic citizens are called to exercise their rights and
freedoms, such as voting, in the most informed way, participate in civil
society, hold elected officials accountable, and call for transparent
governance – all of which requires education and training. Since democracy
is not innate but learned, it is no secret that access to information is
the critical link between education and democracy, and tools like the
Internet help facilitate these functions of citizenship. And although
digital citizenship, or the ability to participate in society online,
promotes social inclusion in particular, many are still excluded from
digital citizenship. In fact, access to information via information and
communications technologies (ICTs) is fundamentally uneven, especially in
the Global South.

Even before the launch of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in
2016, connecting the next billion individuals to the Internet – as well as
the billions after that – had become a cornerstone of the internet
governance agenda. Given that the United Nations declared that access to
the Internet is a human right – and in many ways, a modern necessity for
democratic engagement – a key pillar of the UN’s Sustainable Development
Agenda includes providing universal, inclusive, and meaningful access to
the internet, especially for those individuals who are unconnected. As of
late 2016, more than 3.5 billion people were connected to the internet, but
this only represents around 49% of the total global population –
approximately 4 billion people do not have access to the internet. The vast
majority of those individuals who are unconnected reside in developing
economies.

Connecting the unconnected to the internet presents substantial challenges,
however, many of which are barriers to digital inclusion and civil
participation. A 2014 study by the global consulting firm McKinsey &
Company identified four major barriers to internet adoption:

Incentives to go online;

Low incomes and affordability;

User capability; and

Infrastructure.

Yet, in reference to the fourth barrier, challenges to connectivity are not
limited solely to the lack of internet infrastructure; it also relates to
energy infrastructure limitations as well. For instance, the World Bank’s
World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends found that “more
households in developing countries own a mobile phone than have access to
electricity or clean water.” In fact, more than 1.1 billion people around
the world still have no access to electricity – practically a prerequisite
for internet access. The aforementioned World Bank report also found that
in Sub-Saharan Africa, only 14% of people have access to grid electricity –
even though nearly 70% now have access to mobile phones (though not
necessarily an internet connection, especially a high-speed connection).
This infers that some people across the Global South own a mobile phone but
do not necessarily have access to electricity in their homes to charge it.

Lack of internet access is especially problematic because it is a key
driver of inequality.
The lack of internet access is especially problematic because it is a key
driver of inequality, which is a principal threat to not just democracy,
but all human rights; hence, the barriers listed above only serve to
exacerbate inequality. As the authors of a paper that examined
sustainability and participation in the digital commons (Franquesa &
Navarro, 2017) emphasized: “it is well established that there is an access
gap between citizens who can afford a digital device and an internet
connection and those who cannot. Citizens unable to access digital tools
are too often confined to the lower or peripheral edge of the society for
economic or geographic reasons, such as living in underserved areas without
access to digital interaction. As a result of this inaccessibility, such
groups are denied full involvement in mainstream economic, political,
cultural, and social activities.” Inequality and digital exclusion hurt
democracy in general as well as democratization efforts in particular
because the access to information along with media & digital literacy as
well as ICT skills are vital to prolonged online participation, the use of
vital e-government services, and civic engagement.

Therefore, regardless of location, connecting another billion people to the
internet will require more than an internet-connected device; such an
endeavor requires significant long-term vision, investment in both
technology and human capacity building, as well as communities committed to
ensuring their access is useful, meaningful, sustainable, and democratic.
For this to occur, however, such communities must be invested in the
process of connectivity – from energy access and network set up and
maintenance, to engagement with local officials and building skills – as
well as leading this process based on their own needs, context, and
developmental challenges.

From sustainable development to sustainable access

Cyber cafe in Venezuela, 2006. Image: Beatrice Murch, CC BY-NC 2.0. Some
rights reserved.
Sustainable development has been a major focus of international public
policy since the 1990s, and identifies three primary objectives for human
development: economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental
sustainability. Only by pursuing these three elements together can the
world achieve “development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

One of the key enablers of sustainable development is the ability to access
information, largely through the proliferation of ICTs. Much of the role of
ICTs in sustainable development has centered on the concept of information
and communications technology for development (ICT4D) in order to catalyze
social and economic changes, fulfill the universal right to information,
and close the digital divide. For instance, the effective use of ICTs
already plays an essential role in helping the world achieve the energy
transformation that is necessary to continue to drive progress. While the
potential gains from technological progress for workers and consumers in
developing countries are large, not everyone stands to benefit
automatically, however, women in particular. Only by improving internet
access, basic literacy, and updating skill and training systems will the
benefits be realized and broadly shared, as well as bridge the gender gap
to Internet access, which is why ICT4D has a prominent role within the
development community.

The literature, however, too often ignores one factor in discussions of
ICTs’ importance and employment: electricity.
Firmly linked to the SDGs as well, ICT4D largely focuses on how ICTs can
address developmental challenges by improving well-being, and aiding in
information management, monitoring weather, climate, agricultural, or other
data sources. ICT4D also plays an important role in facilitating democratic
processes and civic participation, as ICTs are critical to identifying
resources and mapping patterns for better decision-making or public action,
and raising the standard of living by facilitating access to information,
e-government services, e-commerce, and e-health services, among many
others. While such outcomes are well-intended and often positive, a
significant drawback is that ICT4D does not necessarily include either
sustainability as a core component and/or address energy access as a
required prerequisite. In fact, as one study noted: “A growing body of
literature that extols the ability of ICTs to enhance well-being in
developing countries tends to focus on long run institutional and
socio-economic changes as key to driving internet uptake. The literature,
however, too often ignores one factor in discussions of ICTs’ importance
and employment: electricity. Overlooking the centrality of electricity to
any ICT4D initiative has enormous consequences; countless initiatives have
failed to consider the (in)ability to power the technology that is central
to such development efforts.”

Moreover, ICT4D solutions have the potential to harm the environment and
communities by generating electronic waste (e-waste) and greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions even though it is meant to reduce such waste and pollution.
As the Internet Society (ISOC) highlighted: “[The] environmental impacts of
the Internet are crucial to sustainability. The Internet enables
environmentally positive energy savings through improved efficiency,
virtualization of goods and services, and smart systems to manage
productive processes. However, ICTs are also the fastest growing source of
physical waste and greenhouse gas emissions. Their impact will increase as
cloud computing and the internet of things (IoT) become more widespread.”

Thus, we cannot legitimately discuss internet access without addressing
sustainability. In order to do so, however, a necessary step must be to
shift the discourse from ICT4D to ICT for sustainability (ICT4S), which
integrates sustainability more prominently to better reflect the
aforementioned pillars of sustainable development – especially as it
relates to how ICT4D will evolve in terms of priorities and practice in the
post-World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 10-year review period.
Stakeholders from across the internet ecosystem are already progressing
this transition by focusing on or incorporating sustainability into their
research, advocacy, and policy development processes. These include
organizations and initiatives from the private sector (e.g., the Global
e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI)), governments (e.g., International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) Study Group 5), the technical community
(e.g., ISOC), civil society (e.g., the Association for Progressive
Communications (APC)), and academia, including an entire community of
researchers and academics dedicated to sustainable ICT research. Clearly,
sustainable access is not an entirely new concept per se, but these
stakeholders have underpinned and helped frame it within the sustainable
development and internet governance agendas. Moreover, by more formally
linking ICTs with sustainability, we can more accurately assess how they
impact communities and developmental outcomes, help address urgent, global
threats such as climate change, as well as whether ICT adoption is
sustained over time.

Defining sustainable access
Considering the shortcomings of existing frameworks and the necessity to
improve the multiple components that drive the successful adoption of
internet access, sustainable access refers to the ability for any user to
connect to the internet and then stay connected over time. This term was
formulated during a roundtable workshop that was held during the 2017
European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG), subsequently expanded
on as it relates to its benefits for internet-related businesses, and is
meant to transcend the important yet relatively narrow environmental or
energy components and how they connect to global challenges such as climate
change. Instead – and similar to how sustainable development is meant to
focus on more than just the environment by broadly addressing social,
cultural, and economic considerations as well – sustainable access
encompasses various aspects of the relationship between technology,
society, and the environment, including:

The need for robust and reliable infrastructure, such as fiber optics,
internet exchange points (IXPs), high-speed connectivity, Domain Name
System (DNS) root server mirrors, and dependable electrical power sources;
The kind of energy supplying critical internet infrastructure, cooling
servers, and powering ICTs;
How much power ICTs are consuming, how such power is being generated, and
the energy costs of data generation, storage, and transit;
The sourcing, manufacturing, and recyclability of internet-connected
devices/ICTs, as well as industry-related practices such as planned
obsolesce;
Human-centric needs and skills, such as media & digital literacy and ICT
skills, internationalized domain names (IDNs), easy-to-use and affordable
services, local, relevant, and multilingual content, and community-led
networking (community networks);
Digital pollution, the availability of resources such as radio spectrum,
Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, and Autonomous System (AS) numbers, the
implementation of IP version 6 (IPv6);
And lastly, the ecological impact the digital world is having, such as the
impact of e-waste on both the environment and communities, the
proliferation of “space junk,” such as defunct satellites or other objects
in low-Earth orbit that pose a significant hazard to satellite
infrastructure and telecommunications, and the relationship between climate
change and the internet/ICTs.
Each of these components of sustainable access is meant to address a larger
gap in current practices vis-à-vis development and ICTs – i.e., that
facilitating access to the internet and expanding connectivity in general
must be a seen as a holistic, interconnected process involving multiple
stakeholders. This it is vital this process catalyzes a paradigm shift that
integrates sustainability into its core, from the manufacturing process of
an internet-connected device and building a network, to the skills needed
to successfully participate in the information society and how to
effectively maintain, repair, and recycle ICTs. The logic behind
sustainable access also takes into account the regulatory, legal, and
policy requirements needed to enable real-world action on the ground in
local communities as well as regionally and globally.

Energy sustainability amid data growth

Image: Nicolas Nova, CC BY-NC 2.0. Some rights reserved.
Although rather axiomatic, universal access to affordable, reliable, and
modern energy sources is critical to sustainable development. In fact, “two
of the main problems in the realization of sustainable development are a
comprehensive energy supply and the consequences related to energy use.”
This is not surprising since, energy – electricity in particular – is
crucial to improving the standard of living for people in low- and
middle-income countries, and modern energy services are central to the
economic development of a country and to the welfare of its citizens.

The rapid growth of remote digital sensors has the potential to bring
unprecedented and, in principle, almost unlimited rises in energy consumed
by smart technologies.
Yet, since constant, reliable electricity is needed to power
telecommunications infrastructure, internet access itself will not be
sustainable without a sustainable energy source. Thus, what is notably
absent from the current discussions surrounding energy and the internet is
how the growth and proliferation of ICTs will affect the amount of energy
needed to power them. It is estimated that ICTs account for around 10% of
global electricity use, and are responsible for approximately 2-3% of all
annual GHG emissions. It is clear, however, that data use and generation is
rising exponentially, which has a direct impact on energy. In fact,
researchers from Lancaster University in the U.K. warned that the rapid
growth of remote digital sensors and devices connected to the internet and
the internet of things (IoT) has the potential to bring unprecedented and,
in principle, almost unlimited rises in energy consumed by smart
technologies. Simply consider that current estimates place the growth of
the IoT at a staggering 20.4 billion devices by 2020, which is the
conservative figure – some estimates place it much higher. Moreover,
according to Lancaster University: “The increase in data use has brought
with it an associated rise in energy use, despite improvements in energy
efficiencies. Current estimates suggest the internet accounts for 5% of
global electricity use but is growing faster, at 7% a year, than total
global energy consumption at 3%. Some predictions claim information
technologies could account for as much as 20% of total energy use by 2030.

Additionally, when considering connecting the next billion internet users,
it is equality important to consider the devices they will connect with.
How are these devices going to be manufactured and eventually recycled (or
will they simply be discarded)? Given that the internet and ICTs are using
more and more energy, what kind of energy is going to power the data
centers and other critical internet infrastructure feeding our increasingly
data-hungry habits? How do we satisfy growing energy demand in general, and
mitigate machine-to-machine (M2M), ICT, and data transit energy
consumption, which is rising as well, in particular? And what about other
related aspects of technology, such as the growing amount of natural
resources like purified water needed to manufacture semiconductors, or
whether or not the minerals in internet-connected devices are mined from
conflict zones – only to be shipped back one day to be dumped in a slum?
These are but a few of the myriad questions that are going unanswered, but
ultimately, with more data comes more energy consumption and a greater
impact on the environment. Simply put, we are reaching a point in our
civilizational arc where we can no longer ignore that digital technology
has a significant ecological footprint, which is why sustainability must be
integrated into the core of our infrastructure and ICT development
strategies.

Fortunately, solutions to such challenges already exist, often involving
green, renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, and community-led
initiatives – such as the New Delhi, India-based Digital Empowerment
Foundation’s (DEF) Barefoot College, the Nairobi, Kenya-based BRCK
initiative, the Rwanda-based Mesh Power project, Solar Sister, which
operates in East Africa, the European Federation of Renewable Energy
Cooperatives (REScoop), which also focuses on energy democracy, and a host
of others – or increasing innovation and energy efficiency. Essentially,
different communities from around the world must adopt technology and/or
other solutions, such as policy or regulatory ones, that fit their
individual context and needs while being based on the resources they have
available. For instance, ARMIX, an IXP based in Yerevan, Armenia, reached
out to ISOC seeking ways to help them integrate renewable energy into their
operations – since Armenia has ample sunlight throughout the year – and
also to promote green energy solutions and reduce their electricity costs
and consumption. ISOC eventually donated 18 solar panels that produce more
than 4 kilowatts of power to help them with one of their points of presence
(PoPs). As a result, ARMIX’s electricity costs have dropped by more than
30%, and they are now much less reliant on non-renewable energy sources. In
fact, the panels have been so helpful that ARMIX is now looking for ways to
expand the use of solar to their other two PoPs. Their success is also an
example of the success that can come from the combination of enabling
government policy-making, effective public-private partnerships, and
sustainable planning, since the government began incentivizing solar energy
adoption and a local solar panel company assisted ARMIX in installing them.

Technological interventions are not a panacea for the countless challenges
of the 21st century in and of themselves, nor is the internet the magic
bullet for democracy.
Another key solution is enabling the expansion of community networks. As
one of the most significant vehicles for connectivity, community networks
are at the forefront of connecting the unconnected and a crucial component
of sustainable development. Designed to be community-driven, open, freely
accessible, and neutral, community networks provide public access,
particularly for rural and remote communities, and are, as the Alliance for
Affordable Internet (A4AI) stressed, “An important strategy for governments
to consider as part of a policy framework to achieve universal access.”
Community networks are particularly important to expanding access by
addressing market failures or providing connectivity in unserved or
underserved areas. In fact, “The coverage of underserved areas and the
fight against the digital divide are the most frequent driving factors for
[the] deployment [of community networks].” Community networks do not merely
expand access and build infrastructure; they also foster spaces that
encourage community and skill building, as well as technical skills needed
to maintain the community network’s infrastructure. Such networks
undoubtedly empower the unconnected – on their own terms, and based on
their unique needs and local context – and are crucial to ensuring the next
billion internet users come online in a sustainable way. With more
financial, technical, and policy, regulatory support, community networks
are well positioned to continue to connect the unconnected while doing so
in a sustainable manner, and advocating for sustainable access through
on-the-ground practice to address real challenges facing communities around
the world.

Technological interventions are not a panacea for the countless challenges
of the 21st century in and of themselves, nor is the internet the magic
bullet for democracy. As we have witnessed all too often, technology, the
wrong hands, can easily be harnessed as a tool for authoritarianism instead
of democracy. Regardless, however, access to ICTs and information have
untold potential to improve lives and catalyze positive sustainable
development. Simply put, the internet does not have to be bad for
democracy. Franquesa & Navarro (2017) poignantly argued this fact,
stressing: “The future of societies around the world depends on
accessibility and participation – that citizens must be able to fully
engage in the governance of the digital, not only as mere users or
consumers. The current model of unequal access to digital devices and
connectivity is clearly unfair and unsustainable. Too few participate in
the design and governance of the digital world, creating an elite of
private interests. A minority of the world’s population can enjoy the
benefits of sleek devices and fast connectivity.

Everyone is or will be influenced by the growing environmental impact of
the digital world. If digitally excluded communities become peer-production
actors, they will be able to build their own circular devices and
sustainable network infrastructures, they will benefit from local
reinvestment of surpluses, and they will have the opportunity to become
active participants in the interactions of the design and governance of the
common digital space.” Therefore, we should address energy, sustainability,
internet access, the right to information, education, civic engagement, and
democracy as a holistic and interdependent system. There is so much more
that can be done to help people get online and ultimately stay online,
across stakeholder groups – especially since the multistakeholder model of
internet governance is inherently democratic and inclusive. Yet, ensuring
access is sustainable is paramount to ushering in a better, greener, more
livable, and ultimately more democratic world.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/hri/michael-j-oghia/internet-
access-sustainability-and-citizen-participation-electricity-as-prerequisite
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