Speaking about Citizen Science Initiatives that Provide Impact Through Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

Post-2015 Development Agenda has highlighted the need for partnerships between diverse stakeholders. Besides few exception made, formally governments do not usually collaborate with private sector, civil society or even academia in statistical operations. They are still lagging behind what many organizations have clearly understand: produce and use replenished data or perish.

One of these far-sighted visions is what we call citizen science, an spontaneous participative phenomenon that takes people to the street to collect, organize, and disseminate data shared with scientists for imputing the sustainable development quest. This is mostly an unexplored discipline in the official decision taking processes, sometimes a bit isolated from actual local empowerment but one step forward from public placation, the act overcoming distrust and animosity.. Evidence shows that actors have different tensions and incentives along their endeavor. However, the 2030 Agenda boosted from the United Nations, advocates for a constructive convergence in the data quest and calls for untapped data partnerships to support the measurement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Please find below our proposed session to run at next International Statistics Institute - World Statistics Congress where we will portray and discuss new methodologies for strengthening capacity building in National Statistical Offices (NSOs) for nationwide challenges like the multilevel Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) reporting operations. The angle of analyzing this institutional void is to understand why and how governments reveal they are not opening to receive assistance from citizen science, hence their own surveyed people. 

Please click on image above to download the IP "Map 4 Census: experimenting answers to how civil society can partner with governments to monitor the SDGs with data" .

Our invited paper to the session aims to profile new types of working arrangements, e.g. data partnerships between governments, and third parties, which among other includes the integration of co-produced surveys, and crowdsourcing data from untapped sources for official statistics such as civil society or academia. In particular, the storyline will describe and draw vital lessons from the portrayed experiences of citizen-rooted non-governmental organization that have essayed solutions in the form of data partnerships.

Mission impossible: Looking to engage LGBTq communities with governments to co-create data

The triggering episode to getting involved in LGBTq data quest resulted for us out of a serendipity tale. Thanks to an invite by Global Colombia Certificación (GCC) to GeoCensos to develop a project in Europe, an unexpected derivation broke into our annual dissemination plans. It all started when we realized the existence of the so-called rainbow map. It happens to be that Rainbow Europe is a benchmarking tool that issues annually the "Rainbow Map and Index" including recommendations for the surveyed results in selected countries. The map illustrates the legal and policy situation of European LGBTI communities. Among the concluding remarks of the report, France and Greece are leading countries in their respect for diversity and inclusion, improving their equality action plans. 

Rainbow Europe Map and Index 2023

Our original assignment was mandated by GCC and aimed to implement a test to replicate a quality assurance LGBTq-friendly model to certify thematic bars and restaurants in Cyclades, Greece. When performing a first armchair mapping all target locations to be certified, a quick census query using ELSTAT-based statistics allowed to identify a quite densely territory populated by LGBTq communities, characterized by an active participation in local urban decisions. Thanks to the manifestation of interest from additional stakeholders and donors about our first findings a road show in Europe was organized to learn along with data and software tech think tanks plus grassroots organizations. Contacts included Hackerspace Greece, OpenStreetMap Greece and Kosovo, Higgs Space and other key actors of the grassroot developer’s local scene in Greece and the Balkans. The roadshow facilitated meetings and implemented several workshops to nurture a project idea that could pursue integration of geospatial data with statistics for the benefit of less advantaged communities The wrap up of the final workshop of the roadshow summoned LGBTq communities around the island of Naxos. From the wealth of information, we gathered out of these networking experiences that we were able to compile a database of results based on unstructured consultations with key stakeholders. To further flesh out further our initiative, a multi-stakeholder webinar was organized to discuss how LGBTq communities could collaborate with governments, with a particular focus on co-creation with national statistical agencies. 

Attended by more than 40 interested participants at peaks, we launched Friday 30th this prepositive idea, out of which we wanted to discuss along with 5 groups of actors, i.e., the National Statistics Office of Panama, World Pop from Southampton University, Science for Change from Barcelona, UNIBAM NGO from Belize and GeoCensos Foundation from Latin America and the Caribbean. 

 

The NSO from Panama presented the results of a study with the perceptions of Panamanians regarding LGBTIQ+ community and Southampton University framed the discussion to answer why we need to use maps for indicators of welfare in neglected demographic groups. Participants at webinar “Engaging LGBTq communities with NSOs “ 

In the panel discussion, the group of NGOs and advisory organizations were expected to answer to the following questions: 1. Which are the visions from actors involved in sustainable development statistics and data when it comes to LGBTq communities? 2. Which actors should manifest interest in partnering in this realm with data with governments, i.e., NSOs? 3. Which are the findings, lessons learned, and challenges coming from available implemented experiences? 4. Which is the state of the art of available citizen science practices and how could they be improved to fit-for-purpose in the SDG realm?