Closer than ever
APC understands that we are all dealing with unprecedented circumstances as we face the challenges, fear and uncertainty brought on by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. We know it impacts our work, our personal lives and the lives of those we care about. Each country is tackling the situation differently, so the contexts we find ourselves in are as diverse as the ways we find to navigate shifting conditions.
In these exceptional times, we wish to send our solidarity and appreciation for connecting with us. While we are distancing ourselves physically, we continue to stay closer than ever to each other and share tools and resources as well as support. We also want to examine how we can continue to promote human rights online in the context of a global pandemic. We are all facing this problem together but we know it affects different countries and communities in different ways. Therefore, we would like to channel the strength of our network to share some important resources that we hope will be empowering, enlightening and reassuring.
Below you will find articles and insights shared by our community, which has been working on human rights and technology issues for over 30 years. We will be updating these lists on a regular basis, so please feel free to connect with us if you have some resources to share.
The annual Internet Governance Forum, the United Nations’ most significant multistakeholder platform for discussing internet governance, is taking place from 2 to 17 November remotely. Here are some highlights on the participation of APC and its members.
India has the world's third-largest population with HIV, after South Africa and Nigeria. This report looked into the situation of people living HIV in India and how their plight was affected by the lockdown measures imposed as a means to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
The global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) begins its fifteenth outing this week – but it’s an IGF the like we haven’t previously seen. Thanks to COVID-19, it’s online and it’s spread over two weeks.
Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa shares a brief on how the African civic tech community has created several innovations or adapted and repurposed existing resources to confront the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the onset of the economic crisis and the pandemic, education in Lebanon changed dramatically with the distinctive rise of e-learning, whereby teaching is taking place remotely on digital platforms. This abrupt shift to the digital realm has significant academic and social implications.
This first piece in a three-part series using a feminist data justice perspective to understand artificial intelligence, privacy and data protection in South Africa looks at data and the right to privacy focusing on the current health pandemic.
APC with members of the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms Coalition called on authors from the region to develop a series of reports on the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa and human rights. Read the summaries of the 19 papers here.
Some thoughts on what could, should and might happen to the Internet Governance Forum.
Since the first case of COVID-19 was announced in Tanzania in March, the government has been in the spotlight for its handling of the pandemic. It has denied its severity, suspended media houses, and criminalised COVID-19 related speech through enactment and enforcement of repressive regulations.
Inhabiting the internet causes a huge footprint on land, nature and bodies, but we can learn how to create a more attentive and sensitive relationship with digital technologies. In the second part of this webcomic, we will discover some ways of caring that we can start to integrate in our lives.
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2020
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