Envisioning Education in a Digital Society: A Focus on Digital Repression in Conflict-Affected Settings

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Advanced technologies, particularly those that enable machine learning and artificial intelligence, have an outsized potential to transform education systems, improving learning processes and become increasingly inclusive for all learners, both in and outside of formal schools. Technology upgrades and creative approaches through new applications, digital skills development, enhanced digital media literacy, among others - are not only shaping education but also redefining the geopolitical landscape of the 21st century. In sub-Saharan Africa and specifically in fragile, conflict-affected regions such as the Sahel, the proliferation of digital information and dis-information has brought about both exciting opportunities and tragic challenges to safe learning environments. Focusing specifically on the most vulnerable and marginalized populations who have had their education disrupted by violence, displacement, fear of recruitment into violent extremist groups, loss of livelihoods and other risks, are also now faced with the need to consume vast amounts of information, both factual and erroneous, which highlights the critical role of education in navigating the digital space across societies. The dual nature of education, as described by Bush and Saltarelli (2000), is particularly relevant in the context of digitally-based education, digital skills acquisition and digital media literacy approaches adapted for schooling. On the one hand, digital learning has the potential to democratize education, promote inclusion, and foster wider social cohesion. On the other hand, it can also contribute to harm, exacerbate the digital divide, particularly when it distorts facts or marginalizes vulnerable communities. For example, women and youth, who are already at higher risk of exclusion, often bear the brunt of these negative impacts. Out of this new reality the concept of digital repression has emerged, and continues to be a growing threat to the education sector. The specific areas of repression include: censorship, surveillance, digitally enabled targeted persecution, social manipulation and disinformation and Internet shutdowns. When looking back at USAID’s 2021 Democratizing Digital Landscape Assessment we see it highlighted a critical opportunity for USAID to further integrate an better awareness of digital repression across its policies and programming efforts worldwide, with special attention to the pockets of ungoverned and conflict-affected spaces where access to education can be compromised, manipulated or halted altogether. A follow-on portfolio mapping of interventions in 2022 when further to reveal that the safeguards against digital repression remain underrepresented, both across donors and within USAID’s digital development goals.The presentations in this panel identify five key digital repression tactics, emphasizing the urgent need to counter these approaches, especially across the conflict-affected Sahelian region of West Africa, with illustrative examples from various country-led activities.
The first presenter will give an overview of digital repression, provide a framework for analysis and underscore the importance of countering and mitigating the five digital repression tactics across education programming in sub-Saharan Africa, particular in context of conflict and crises in Sahelian West Africa. Furthermore, she will discuss the ongoing and new educational technology (edtech) tools that are growing rapidly across partner countries, as UNICEF (2022) research identified over 1000 digital personalized learning products in use across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The second presentation address the ways in which digitally-based learning approaches enable young people to safely navigate online spaces, illustrating program activities with this explicit intention. A further exploration and discussion of how education sector digital literacy upskilling with youth is building their capacity to recognize and respond to digital harms, such as mis/disinformation, online bullying, and online sexual exploitation, as well as online gender-based violence. The key focus will be on the Digital Strategy’s Protecting Children and Youth from Digital Harm workstream which aims to share knowledge and raise awareness across USAID, other donors, practitioners and partners about digital harms to children and youth as well as implement five programmatic priorities that prevent and address these harms. Finally, the final presenter will will discuss the efforts undertaken by local communities, regional institutions, policymakers and practitioners on efforts to obviate the effects of false and erroneous information and knowledge in sub Saharan Africa, including highlighting some innovative programs to support veracity in digital learning and information resilience. Specifically, how communities are facilitating efforts to negate the spread of harmful knowledge and information that fractures cohesion. These include efforts to cultivating an information ecosystem more resilient to manipulation.

Sub Unit

• Education in Conflict and Emergencies SIG

Chair

• Wendy Wheaton, USAID

Individual Presentations

• Digital repression in the Education sector: A framework for strategic prevention - Wendy Smith, Independent Consultant

• Local, National and Regional Efforts in Information Manipulation and Informational Resilience: Examples for Learning and Knowledge Sharing - Vanita Datta, former USAID

• Empowering Youth to Safely Navigate the Digital World - Marc B Sommers, International Consultant (Self-Employed)