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Politics of Food and Technology Series | India’s protracted hunger crisis and the digitalisation of its Public Distribution System

By ISS Blog Bliss 19 February 2026 353 views

This blog is part of a series on ‘the Politics of Food and Technology’, in collaboration with the SOAS Food Studies Centre. All of the blogs in this series are contributions made at the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) Conference in Istanbul-Bergen, October 2025, to the panel with a similar title. To read the rest of the blogs in this series, please click here.

The Public Distribution System (PDS) of India, one of the largest food security programmes in the world, is a rights-based legal entitlement that distributes food grains to below poverty line households. In 2015, digitalisation, using a biometric Aadhaar system, was introduced to deal with the problems of corruption and leakages and make it more efficient. In this blog, C. Sathyamala and Somjita Laha argue that digitalisation has not necessarily led to the streamlining of the programme but has, in fact, resulted in the exclusion of the food insecure.

In the early post-colonial period, India was a food deficit country dependent on international food aid. However, in the last three decades, it has become self-sufficient in food production and a net food exporter. Yet, the country has one of the highest prevalence rates of undernutrition in the world, which has been termed an ‘Asian enigma’, or a ‘development paradox’. As such, the country is experiencing a protracted hunger crisis. In 2025, as per the Global Hunger Index, out of the 123 countries that were assessed, India ranked 102: that was categorized as ‘serious’ level of hunger. This is despite the existence of several food security and social assistance programmes, the foremost being the Public Distribution System (PDS). Touted as one of the world’s largest food-based safety net programmes, the PDS’ aim is to ensure that certain foodstuffs are distributed at highly subsidised prices to vulnerable populations. In 2015, digitalisation was introduced to deal with the problems of corruption and leakages. In this blog we argue that digitalisation has not necessarily led to the streamlining of the programme but has, in fact, resulted in further exclusion of the food insecure.

Evolution of the PDS

During World War II, the British had introduced a system of food rationing that was functional from 1939 to 1943. Post-Independence, the Indian state revived it primarily to stabilise open market food prices and to provide some basic measure of food security, and the programme came to be known as PDS. Since its inception in 1950 the PDS has undergone several changes. In 1997, it changed from universal provisioning to a targeted system catering to only those households identified as below poverty line (BPL). Passed in 2013, the National Food Security Act (NFSA) made PDS into a rights-based legal entitlement even while retaining the targeted approach.

In 2015, digitalisation was initiated by linking ration cards with the Unique Identification biometric (Aadhaar) number of the recipients. This was to enable the authentication of the biometrics (fingerprints and iris scans) during collection of rations. This move was based on the state’s rationale that corruption would be reduced by accurate identification of beneficiaries and the elimination of fraudulent ‘ghost’ beneficiaries. During the Covid crisis, under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) (The Prime Minister Food grain Scheme for the Welfare of the Poor) food grains were distributed free. This scheme of free grain distribution has now been extended until January 2029. According to the 2025 year-end review of the Department of Food and Public Distribution, digitalisation of PDS is a resounding success with the digitisation of 100 % of ration cards with beneficiaries data and an almost 100 % of ‘Aadhaar’ seeding (linking to the Aadhaar card).

Problems of exclusion

The ground level reality is somewhat sobering, though. Marginalised populations in the country have faced serious problems of exclusion. Even if eligible, households may not possess a ration card or are unable to include additional household members on that card. One reason for exclusion has been the faulty methodology used in identifying BPL households. Another is the limiting of coverage and freezing of enrolment because of a quota system. The initial BPL household identification was based on the 2011 census and in the subsequent years no cognition was taken of the population growth or changes in the economic status of a household. For instance, the central government had allotted 7.27 million programme beneficiaries in Delhi. This allocation was exhausted by 2020. Following this, a freeze on new ration cards resulted in a long list of pending applications. In 2024, the Delhi government acknowledged that 1.1 million beneficiaries were to still get a ration card.

Catch-22 situation

At times, registering for the PDS, can be a ‘Catch-22 situation’, where following official channels could result in further exclusion. One example is from our study carried out in urban resettlement colony in Delhi. An eligible BPL household attempted to access rations several times without success. This was because, the first time, a clerical error meant that their card did not have an official stamp. They were denied rations because the card without the stamp was considered invalid. Some 3 to 4 years ago, the family paid Rs 2000 (approximately €25 at the then exchange rate) to a middleman to mitigate this issue but the problem could not be resolved. One year ago, they approached yet another middleman who told them that they needed to cancel their previous ration card and make a fresh application. They then decided to give up. The irony is that digitalisation had probably categorised them as a ‘ghost’ beneficiary household because they had not accessed their rations from the time the card was made. This could also happen to migrant households if they are unable to verify their existence by completing their e-KYC (electronic know your customer) process in the specified period at the original place of registration. Currently, only 800 million people are being covered by the PDS as against the intended coverage of 813.5 million pe.

Digitalisation is not fool proof

Digitalisation poses further hurdles in accessing benefits, including difficulties in the authentication of beneficiaries. To be able to claim their food entitlement, beneficiaries must authenticate their fingerprints or iris scans at ePoS devices in ration shops that are linked to the centralised database for Aadhaar. However, the biometric authentication process is not infallible, and fingerprints may not match for the elderly or manual workers, the latter forming the bulk of the PDS recipients. When this happens, an iris scanner is used, but that can also fail for people with eye problems such as cataracts, or if they have had eye surgery. Often connectivity is an issue with the server being frequently down, in which case the customers have to wait until it is back online. The other problem that digitalisation cannot resolve is the quality of food grains in the warehouses which was not always found to be good. Though black market diversion has somewhat reduced, leakages continued because digitalisation has not led to the elimination of fraudulent/inaccurate measurements at the distribution point.

Conclusion

Digitalisation of the PDS has been promoted for its efficiency and transparency, but the ground-level realities appear to be different. By making it dependent on a ‘BPL’ constructed at a particular point of time, a dynamic situation has been made static. Further, digitalisation assumes importance only in situations when social welfare is targeted at a subsection of the population where it needs to operationalise a dividing practice in the Foucauldian sense. Given that digitalisation is not fool proof, it inevitably leads to further marginalisation of the marginalised.

Acknowledgements: Subodh Kumar, Arjun Dubey (IHD) and Chhaya Sharma for data collection.

This blog post uses findings from an ERSC-funded project entitled: Digitalising food assistance: Political economy, governance, and food security effects across the Global North-South divide (https://digitalisingfood.org/). For the working paper on India see https://digitalisingfood.org/digital-food-assistance-in-india-towards-a-digital-welfare-state/

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

C Sathyamala is the Co-Principal Investigator and India lead researcher of the project. She is a Senior Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute for Human development (IHD), New Delhi, and a Visiting Fellow at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Hague. Her areas of interest include food politics, political economy of health, reproductive rights, environmental justice, and medical ethics.

Somjita Laha is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute for Human development (IHD), New Delhi, and is trained in Heterodox Economics, and Development Policy and Management. She is interested in interdisciplinary research on political economy of labour, global value chains, environmental sustainability and gender in development.

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Unlearning Colonial Analytics: Rethinking Women in ‘Conservatism’

By ISS Blog Bliss 17 February 2026 347 views

In this blog, ISS Alumna, Tia Isti’anah invites us to rethink beyond the binary label of conservatism vs progressive. Drawing from decolonial feminist thinkers, it challenges the secular-liberal feminist moral world and invites readers to centre love as an act of unlearned colonial biases.

**Image from Harmonia Pictura from Pixabay**

In 2020, I was doing research with Yayasan Rumah Kita Bersama in Bekasi, West Java, Indonesia. I remember that I perceived women who joined the Islamic teaching in ‘conservative’ mosques as victims of religious doctrine. I had some categories for what I call ‘conservative’ mosques; the ones that called themselves ‘salafi’ or ‘manhanji’ and the ones whose women used the big veil which covers their shoulders and chest.

In one of these mosques, I talked to women who refused to work after getting married because they were worried about the ‘ikhtilat’. Ikhtilat refers to the gathering, mixing and intermingling of men and women in one place. I whispered to myself about how this kind of tafsir (explanation or exegesis) limits women from doing what they want. One woman I met even refused to use online booking services for transportation because it could result in her being alone with a man, although the public transportation in that area (Cikarang, Bekasi) was difficult to find. When I also joined the Islamic studies for this research in one of the mosques in Bekasi, I saw that women could only ask questions on paper by writing it down and giving it to the committee, while men could raise their hand and speak directly to the speaker in front of the audience.

As a woman who grew up in a traditional Islamic family and school, I often experienced the Islamic tafsir that justifies patriarchy and I remember feeling angry and confused listening to it. That experience made me feel the urge to save women who follow ‘conservative’ Islamic teaching which I thought of as patriarchal. This is also the reason why I am actively involved in the Islamic feminist movement in Indonesia.

Later, I found out that my analysis of putting women who accepted ‘conservatism’ teaching as merely a victim of religious doctrine is a colonial and binary approach. Chandra Talpade Mohanty called this kind of analysis a commodification and appropriation of knowledge about women in third-world countries, where we pack them as one category: oppressed, dependent and powerless, without allowing them to speak for themselves. This objectification or analysis, however, has been used by many Western and middle-class African or Asian scholars for their rural and working-class sisters. Sabaa Mahmood book’s Politics of Piety, which is the result of her anthropological research in Egypt with pious women, can be used as an entry point to unlearn this colonial analytical category and challenge secular-liberal feminist analysis. She invites us to see religious practices in their own terms, not through the eyes of other moral values.

Unlearning colonial categorization

Mahmood’s work is important because it challenges the secular-liberal feminist approach, which is obsessed with individual freedom or free will. This obsession with the norm of individual freedom stems from a secular-liberal feminist approach, which is rooted in Western history. Individual freedom, however, is inadequate for understanding the reality of pious women in Egypt, the women with whom Mahmood conducted her research. Pious women in Egypt are living in communities with significantly different norms than women in Western countries. Mahmood saw that their life goal was not individual freedom or free will, but striving for piety by following the Prophet Muhammad’s example.

I reflected on this during my own research in Bekasi. I assumed that women following ‘conservative’ teaching are backwards and in need of being saved. I thought that the ‘conservative’ Islamic doctrine, such as ‘ikhtilat’ limits their freedom. I also considered women having to ask questions in writing in Islamic teaching as a sign of subordination, especially when the same rules do not bind men. In fact, my analysis mirrored what Maria Lazreg calls reductionism, where religion is assumed to be the main reason for gender inequality or patriarchy. By assuming this in my analysis, as Saba Mahmood mentioned in her book, I denied other realities and factors of patriarchy. This also made me reject another reality about women in Islamic teaching – the reality that what they strive for is not about individual freedom but about striving to embody piety modelled after the Prophet Muhammad.

Mahmood’s work generated criticism, for example that the celebration of pious agency, if taken too far, could risk romanticizing the power of domination and denying the structure that is often imposed by those in power. However, her argument allows us to pause before putting other women (who, borrowing from Mohanty, are actually our sisters in struggle) in the oppressed, dependent, powerless and backward category box.

Decolonial Calling

Maria Lugones, a decolonial feminist, argued that even the gender system itself is colonial, as is the very definition of gender-oppressive. Moreover, she deepened this conversation by inviting us to practice playful ‘world‘ travelling by moving to each other’s ‘world’ with a loving rather than an arrogant eye. A world, as I understand from Lugones, is characterized as being inhabited by flesh and blood people, where meaning, ideas, construction and relationships are organized in particular ways. Loving here means that we see with their eyes, that we go to their world, see how both of us are constructed in their world, and witness their own sense of selves from their world. Only by travelling to their world can we see them as subjects and identify with them because we are not excluded and separate from them.

This made it clear to me that I have failed to love women who joined the ‘conservative’ Islamic teaching. Instead, I looked at them arrogantly, seeing them as victims and as oppressed women, while at the same time seeing myself as an educated woman who has become enlightened. I failed to understand how women in ‘conservative’ teaching see themselves within their values and their world. I failed to meet women where they are, not where I assumed they should be. I failed to see their own ways of making meaning, but rather saw them through the lens of me, who was already brainwashed by the idea of individual freedom as the only valid goal in life. By travelling to other women’s worlds, we are not necessarily endorsing what they believe, but rather learning to see their world.

Looking back, I realize that Lugones’s framework has helped me embrace contradictions and differences, to live with a loving way of being. I might not always agree with what people believe but I now try to love them. I think of a friend in Iran who is forced to wear a hijab. Because of that, she hates how religion is used as a tool to discriminate against those who are different. Her story is real and painful. Yet, by travelling to the other women’s world, I also find women who find their meaning and purpose in life from the same moral universe my friend rejects: ‘conservative’ Islam. Decolonial feminists remind us to see the plurality of women’s worlds; worlds that cannot be looked at through one single lens, especially not the lens of Western domination and power. The journey has humbled me, enabled me to unlearn what I thought I knew ,and relearn seriously from the wisdom of other women’s worlds who are different from mine – how they seek meaning, resilience, and dignity.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Tia Isti’anah is a freelance writer/researcher. She is an alumna of International Institute of Social Studies. Some of her writings can be found here: https://linktr.ee/tia.istianah (mostly in Indonesia language). Connect professionally here: www.linkedin.com/in/tia-istianah

Solidarity under Siege: Germany’s crackdown on the Palestine movement

By ISS Blog Bliss 12 February 2026 347 views

Since 7 October 2023, German authorities have imposed a far-reaching domestic crackdown on Palestine solidarity in tandem with the government’s political, diplomatic and material backing for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In this blog, Josephine Solanki shares the findings of her recent report for the Transnational Institute. She analyses and contextualises this crackdown, which ranges from legal changes, protest bans and police violence, to smear campaigns, cultural de-platforming, workplace reprisals, and the instrumentalisation of migration and asylum law. Together, these measures illustrate the emergence of a repressive infrastructure in Germany which criminalises almost any effective form of solidarity with Palestine and threatens broader civil liberties.

Aimé Césaire’s wrote that the methods of domination, racism and dehumanisation forged in Europe’s colonies eventually “boomerang” back, corroding democracy and being redeployed as repression inside Europe itself. Germany’s support for Israel’s genocide and apartheid regime abroad – with more than €485 million in arms transfers to Israel granted – has translated into repressive policies, mass surveillance, police brutality, and a shrinking space for free expression at home. A recent report titled ‘Solidarity under Siege: Germany’s repression of the Palestine movement’ I wrote for the Transnational Institute synthesises interviews with seven activists from the Palestinian solidarity movement, including Palestinians and German, Muslim and Jewish people, among other (overlapping) identities, legal and political analysis and case evidence to identify four main pillars of repression:

The legal-political architecture that deliberately conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism; using lawfare as a deterrent against political participation (with an estimated 12,000 Gaza-related cases currently pending), and specifically the instrumentalisation of asylum and migration law against those without German citizenship
Police violence and the crackdown on protests, with hundreds of demonstrations having been simply banned since October 2023

Cultural censorship, including the cancellation of events or exhibitions and uninviting of critical artists, funding cuts for both Palestinian and other organisations, and deplatforming of Palestinians and those standing in solidarity with them

workplace and economic consequences, including dozens of cases of people losing their jobs

Central to the repression of the Palestinian solidarity movement is the deliberate conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Germany’s historic responsibility for the Holocaust is routinely used to justify another genocide and the repression of those who try to stop it. Critics of Israel, many of whom are Jewish, are labelled as antisemitic and Palestinians who mourn their dead and demand justice are cast as a threat to public order.

This crackdown is not enforced by state power alone. As I show in the report, media outlets play a direct role in manufacturing consent by consistently justifying the genocide in Gaza and the violence inflicted on the West Bank as ‘Israel’s right to self-defence’. Domestically, they have uncritically echoed official German and Israeli state political and police narratives, dismissing or even inciting violence against the solidarity movement and ignoring the rapidly shrinking space for dissent. Meanwhile, many civil society actors have effectively self-policed their members, disinvited Palestinian speakers, cancelled events, and remained silent in the face of repression. Even sectors of the German left and social movements, fearing reputational damage or funding cuts, have failed to resist Germany’s authoritarian shift. Worse, in many cases they have actively enabled it.

A dangerous development in this context is the instrumentalisation of migration and asylum law. Under the pretext of combating antisemitism and extremism and in a general climate of increasingly inhumane, harmful and at times deadly migration policies, the state has refused visas, reopened asylum processes or blocked people’s naturalisation processes (both Palestiniansa nd others) for their Zionist stance. Thousands of people are currently threatened by deportation because of their activism, and at least one person has lost their citizenship after it was granted due to a revised 2024 citizenship law. Essentially, Germany has already turned into a two-tier society where people without citizenship have to think twice about what they post on social media, whether they attend a protest, and how they want to engage politically. Furthermore, while state actors continue to single out rising antisemitism, other forms of racism, particularly Islamophobia, have surged, with people paying for this with their health and lives.

This crackdown is not occurring in a vacuum. It is part of a broader shift towards the hard-right and the securitisation and militarisation of various domains in German and in global politics. What we are witnessing is not only complicity in a genocide, but an attempt to remilitarise German society, to redefine dissent as extremism, and to equate liberation movements with Nazism. Measures tested on the Palestinian solidarity movement may well be extended to other dissenting groups, from environmentalists to anti-militarists. With the EU and especially Germany actively preparing for war, the government is gearing up to suffocate the slowly reawakening anti-war movement.

The consequences of the repression are of course also deeply personal. For many Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and anti-Zionist Jewish residents in Germany, daily life has become a climate of violence and fear. Even so, people are resisting. Protests continue, even in the face of police violence. Palestinian voices remain defiant.

About the author:

Josephine Solanki works at the Transnational Institute, an international research and advocacy institute committed to building a just, democratic and sustainable planet. She holds an MA degree with distinction in Development Studies from the ISS and a BA degree in Philosophy and Economics.

Reset how? A commentary on ‘The Humanitarian Reset’ by members of the Humanitarian Observatories Network

By ISS Blog Bliss 10 February 2026 384 views

‘The Humanitarian Reset’ is an initiative launched in March 2025 by the (at the time) new UNOCHA Emergency Relief Coordinator, former British diplomat Tom Fletcher. According to the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee, it is a ‘collective effort to deliver for people in crisis today while building a system fit for tomorrow. The Humanitarian Reset is about making our system faster, lighter, more accountable, and more impactful.’ The initiative combines several sub-projects, including trying to stimulate localization, creating “sharpened” country plans, finding “efficiencies”, and advocacy.

But is this really a true ‘reset’? And for whom is the system being ‘reset’? Similar promises were made following the World Humanitarian Summit and associated ‘Grand Bargain’ in 2016, but these initiatives were characterized as top-down, and in some cases quite removed from the daily lived realities of people affected by crisis, and the people and organizations that respond to crisis.

This blog follows a discussion held by members of the Humanitarian Observatory movement: a network of 16 grounded, self-governing, and multi-actor spaces that aim to foster humanitarian knowledge sharing, research, advocacy, coordination, and dialogue. During the Observatory Network meeting in October 2025, held in Istanbul in the lead-up to the IHSA Conference, more than 25 people representing 16 Observatories discussed the ‘Humanitarian Reset’ (split into groups), critically analysing its relevance in the real world and imagining a more relevant a poignant reset. This meditation on the Reset joins several others, including a statement by NEAR Network, ICVA, and even a recently-released think piece by the CHA thinktank in Berlin heralding the ‘fading’ of the Reset.

This blog is based on those discussions, with three main themes having emerged:

Theme 1: A Humanitarian Reset focusing only on better responses is partial

Across multiple groups, Network members discussed a perceived focus only on making humanitarian response better within the Humanitarian Reset. Multiple groups highlighted the need for a more holistic and long-term approach to humanitarian action if the Reset was to be made more relevant. This approach should be cognizant of and try to combat past historical injustices that have affected how people in various contexts are able to ‘deal with’ humanitarian crisis: “we should focus on the structural and historical issues, including everyday threats to people’s lives”, and “a lot of crises are structural and based in power and historical structures.” It was felt across various groups that formal humanitarianism focusing only on responding to disasters is missing quite a lot of ingrained and historically-related precarity that affects people’s day-to-day lives more than technical disaster response improvement does.

Meanwhile, multiple groups also highlighted that with the ever-growing effects of climate change leading to a “permanent state of emergency”, the nature of humanitarianism is changing and thus the Reset should consider taking a different and more cyclical approach: “Why is the current system not working? It is designed for quick fixes and emergency management”. In general, the groups saw a lack of attention in the Reset documents and discourse around Disaster Risk Reduction, Anticipatory Action, and other longer-term projects and initiatives that try to reduce people and societies’ vulnerabilities. One contributor quipped that the Reset seems to be trying to make the formal humanitarian system more resilient to funding cuts, rather than making societies more resilient to disasters; especially due to its call for ‘hyper prioritisation’.

Theme 2: The Humanitarian Reset should pay attention to a wider range of actors as being part of the ‘humanitarian system’

Across all discussions, Observatory Network members highlighted that the Humanitarian Reset seems to spend too much time focusing on the work of the ‘formal’ humanitarian system; for example iNGOs, UN Agencies, and some national organisations (depending on the context). This leads to a partial definition of ‘who’ and ‘what’ needs to be ‘reset’, and also reduces the transferability of its proposed changes. The focus on the international organisations leading local also led to discussions on the Reset as a form of neo-coloniality.

For example, several groups highlighted that the Reset up until this point has not particularly engaged with state actors, which are becoming ever-more pertinent humanitarian actors (or: actors with humanitarian aid roles), and especially with reference to slower-moving crises caused by climate change, such as extreme heat. The axing of most USAID programmes in early 2025 underlined this experience in Namibia: “it was a wake up call to the government, to work on its own and sustain its own people. This is something of a positive, it has helped push the government to provide for its communities… there is a new youth empowerment programme, whether the government is giving funding for young people to start up projects.” Meanwhile in South Asia, colleagues found that following USAID cuts they could pivot to work with affected people to define their own recovery from disaster (in this instance, extreme heat).

HO Network members brought attention to the point that most of the actors addressed by the Humanitarian Reset’s priorities are part of the established or ‘formal’ humanitarian system: “I haven’t really seen any region where the reset is happening or being driven by people on the ground. It is very top down”, and “most of the humanitarian [work] is coming from the North to the South, and this is part of the problem.” One group brought up the continuing presence of UN Agencies as being the main funding channels as an example that the approach taken in the Reset is unnecessarily narrow. The impression for many members of the Network is that the reset is a Global North-led initiative, that hasn’t really begun to approach shifting the centre of humanitarian work from its historic headquarters. In Kenya, for example, despite its ambitions, Reset-led initiatives it have not yet demonstrated a meaningful shift toward locally led decision-making or recognising the leadership of actors responding to climate-related crises, especially in the Kenyan arid/semi-arid regions. This theme also raised questions about accountability: you cannot genuinely reset a system if governments (and the donors supporting that system) do not feel accountable for causing the conflict or crisis (e.g. in Palestine and Sudan).

However, many of the groups did note that the number of people and organisations doing humanitarian work is broadening as a response to their context. Trends highlighted include several donors (for example, Gulf Donors) preferring to channel their funds directly to local or national actors.

Theme 3: A Humanitarian Reset cannot be ‘one size fits all’, and should be contextual

“We need to break down the universalism of the humanitarian system, as there are multiple humanitarian systems in place”. Many members of the Observatory Network observed that assumptions of universal applicability of many humanitarian reform initiatives hamper actual, real-world reform. Several people also highlighted that the language of humanitarianism used in many of the Reset documentation is not an accurate reflection of most people’s lived realities, and drew parallels to HDP Nexus initiatives: “it is now becoming detached from reality, and is becoming only useful for donors.” It is also important to highlight that a universal attempt to reform the humanitarian system minimises the differences in how change happens in diverse contexts. For example, in DRC, Network members noted that change will require bringing together national Civil Society organisations, not just (i)NGOs. “In our experience, changes are not linear. It is like a farmer; you plant seeds and wait. Something is happening [under the surface], but it is hard to see each step.” Meanwhile, the more diverse and plural the reset, the more effective it is likely to be in South Asia. Standardization is useful, and as a start, to lead to many local blooming of reset that is harmonized, localized, and contextualised.

Other takeaways

Within the group, several people noted that the Humanitarian Reset documents and statements mention further collaboration with the Private Sector as a way to increase efficiencies, funding, and broaden service provision. Whilst participants generally mentioned the potential possibilities of (further) Private Sector inclusion in humanitarian aid provision, for example by allowing displaced people living in Thailand to work in the private sector, obtain a wage, and live with more dignity, many sounded cautionary notes:

In India there is a discussion that there is a huge focus on corporate organisations taking humanitarian action. A lot of privatisation is taking place. A lot of monetisation is taking place in the name of cash transfers. The victims are not seen as victims, but as a potential workforce. HOISA finds that Reset must move from this ahead to make each victim an agent of new, safe, and less at risk community and nation with the help of the authorities and corporations as soon as possible.

In Kenya, meanwhile, there are discussions within the observatory network that increasing private sector involvement in drought response and climate services, while useful in some cases, is also creating concerns. In several contexts, essential services risk becoming commercialised, with vulnerable households treated more as customers than rights-holders. Hence, the need for safeguards to ensure that private sector engagement supports resilience rather than deepening existing inequalities.

In general participants also called attention to issues with “hyper prioritization”, which may lead to humanitarians having to make choices between contexts undergoing moderate severity crisis versus high severity crisis, with one participant saying that the approach might lead to “not providing food aid to the hungry, to allow provision to the starving”.

Conclusion – Reset how?

The Humanitarian Reset has the same potential as other reform initiatives led by the UN (as one participant highlighted: “this isn’t a new initiative”) including the Grand Bargain, but it might be better for the UN to take a more introspective look and propose reform, for example via the UN80 initiative. Within the Reset, there is a lot of talking happening, but this risks of becoming performative, rather then genuine transformation and meaningful action. Unfortunately, the Reset’s narrow focus in several ways means that it is likely to be a tool for funders and institutions that consider themselves part of the ‘formal’ humanitarian system. Indeed, several people highlighted that the slashing of USAID funding and programming caused bigger on the ground shifts due to necessity. Whilst there are new developments in multiple humanitarian contexts, including bigger roles for local/national organisations, inclusion of networks and citizens’ groupings in programming, and new forms of funding – these are happening at the same time as the Humanitarian Reset, not as a result of it.

This blog was written with contributions from:

Humanitarian Observatory DRC
Humanitarian Observatory of Ethiopia
Humanitarian Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean
Humanitarian Observatory of Palestine
Humanitarian Observatory of the Netherlands
Humanitarian Observatory Initiative South Asia (HOISA)
Humanitarian Observatory of Namibia
Humanitarian Observatory of Kenya
Humanitarian Observatory of Central and Eastern Europe
Humanitarian Observatory for Policy and Education, South East Asia (HOPESEA)
Humanitarian Observatory of Nigeria
Humanitarian Observatory of Myanmar
Humanitarian Observatory of Somalia
Humanitarian Observatory of the Philippines
Maraka Humanitarian Observatory of Pakistan

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

The Authors:

Mihir Bhatt (AIDMI), Juan Ricardo Aparicio Cuervo (Uni. Los Andes), Eunice Atieno (ORNACO), Patrick Milabyo Kyamugusulwa (ISDR-Bukavu), Julia Goltermann (KUNO), Tom Ansell (HSC-ISS), Kaira Zoe Canete (HSC-ISS), Gabriela Anderson (HSC-ISS)

This blog is part of the ‘Humanitarian Observatories: Building a Knowledge and Advocacy Network on Humanitarian Governance’. This project has received funding from the European Union under the Horizon European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept.

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Council Executive Agency (ERCEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Politics of Food and Technology Series | Food crisis in the UK and the digitalisation of welfare: Bridging gaps or deepening marginalisation?

By ISS Blog Bliss 5 February 202619 February 2026 275 views

In this blog, Iris Lim, Susanne Jaspars, and Yasmin Houamed (SOAS) highlight a growing food crisis in the UK, alongside a ‘digital-by-default’ welfare transformation. Digitalisation has created the potential to exclude poor and politically marginalised populations because they are unable to pay for digital access, and because of the way the system has been designed. They argue that this exacerbates already existing food insecurity and that digital access is fundamental to addressing it.

Over the last decade, the UK’s deepening food crisis has unfolded alongside a ‘digital-by-default’ transformation of welfare and food support infrastructures. Over this period, food insecurity has increased to as much as 18% of the UK population (in 2022). Emergency food distribution, almost unknown a decade ago, has soared, with Trussell, one of the UK’s largest food bank networks, distributing 2.9 million emergency food parcels in 2024-25, the equivalent of one parcel every 11 seconds. Policymakers routinely justify digitalisation for reasons of efficiency and accountability, but in this blog, we show how it redistributes responsibility and burden downward onto those already experiencing deprivation and food insecurity and deepens exclusions for those that need welfare the most across England. For a wide range of population groups (for example refugees, migrants, or white working class), design and delivery choices shape who gets help and who falls through the cracks.

In the UK, the digitalisation of welfare started with Universal Credit in 2012, which combined seven different benefits (unemployment, housing, child benefit, etc) to a single monthly payment. It requires claimants to apply online, and to provide ongoing online entries and communications with work coaches. Despite concerns raised early on about exclusions due to digital poverty, this was followed by online registration and pre-paid debit cards for the ‘Healthy Start’ government food support programme (for pregnant women and those with young children) in 2022. Free school meals have also been digitalised, and several government and charitable organisations distribute digital vouchers to be redeemed in supermarkets. Supermarkets and other retailers have also developed a number of apps to supply food to organisations and to individuals. Government digitalisation strategies from 2010 were driven by austerity policies which entailed cutting welfare and public service spending, Amnesty International, in examining the UK’s welfare system, concluded that it does not comply with obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Human rights violations include the barriers imposed by digitalisation because they increase hardship.

Poverty as a digital ‘paywall’

Poverty acts as a digital ‘paywall’ to food assistance and wider welfare access. Access to digital devices, data, and skills, all contingent on affordability, has become a prerequisite for gaining welfare support. Few people living in poverty have smartphones and so rely on basic phones, or, in the case that their phones have been lost or stolen, they rely on shared numbers. For those who did have smartphones, data poverty pervaded their experience. Those unable to purchase data for internet connectivity must hop between public Wi-Fi hotspots or borrow hotspots from volunteers. Broadband social tariffs are available from some internet providers but are poorly publicised and often unaffordable or unavailable where needed. According to one assessment, 95% of eligible households miss out. In some rural and peri-urban areas, connectivity infrastructure is lacking, making access difficult. Exclusion operates through market mechanisms, requiring people to purchase access to claim public support.

Eroding infrastructure and disappearing spaces of care

The shift to digital has coincided with the systemic erosions of physical spaces where people could previously get face-to-face help. Austerity policies since 2010 have driven library closures, reduced hours of available community support and cut staff across England. Even where physical spaces of support persist, limited opening days, travel costs, and absent staff constrain access. People fill these gaps by paying to print from private internet cafes or taking longer bus journeys seeking help where they can.

As public spaces with face-to-face support have diminished, food banks and community support organisations have doubled as social infrastructure where people can still receive mediated digital access and build trust and skills, yet these remain volunteer dependent and uneven.

Myth of simple digital literacy

One persistent issue underpinning digital welfare is the assumption that digital competence and skills is straightforward – that if someone can use a smartphone, they can navigate a digital welfare system. The reality is far more complex. Digital skills vary highly by context and people adept at sending messages and photos to their friends on social media apps may struggle with formal emails, government portals, and forms. These concerns cut across generations and familiarity with technology, affecting older adults and younger people alike. Language and literacy also create key barriers, with both English as an Additional Language (EAL) and native English speakers struggling when they confront text-heavy portals and official language. To fill this gap, only ad hoc chains of help and translation through friends, children, and volunteers mediate a fragile and uneven access.

Design choices

Interface and service design itself shapes patterns of exclusion. Designers build platforms that work best on desktop computers, but most marginalised people use them on mobile phones with tiny screens and face difficulty uploading required documents. Some systems still require people to download PDFs, print them, fill them out by hand, scan them, and email them back. These complicated user journeys overwhelm even confident users, especially if they have to travel to access a printer or scanner, which introduces new costs to your attempt to access food assistance. Small missteps, such as a missed upload deadlines or dropped connection, often produce detrimental sanctions or benefits losses.

As Taylor notes in ‘Beyond the Numbers’, when systems demand proof that vulnerable people cannot provide, we risk ‘institutionalising a bias towards the visible’. In the UK, welfare design may be embedding this bias directly into interfaces and processes. Rather than streamlining access for those who need food assistance the most, digitalisation seems optimised for administrative efficiency. This creates obstacles for users who must travel far to scan forms, navigate portals instead of speaking to humans, and be digitally competent to demonstrate their need through online forms. Within the UK Welfare system as a whole, several organisations including Amnesty International have highlighted the ‘punitive regime’ of administration and complexity needs to access benefits that people are eligible for.

The psychological toll

The digital-first regimes carry heavy psychological costs, such as anxiety around sanctions for simply missing an email, humiliation at intrusive verification, and a sense of being set up to fail. People describe panic when payments stop, tears at job centre interactions, and resignation among older residents too proud or too demoralised to ask for help. The shift to digital has removed the human interactions, that at their best, allowed for discretion and dignity.

Conclusion: The politics of digital-by-default and its effect on food insecurity

In a context of cuts and rising need, the UK’s digital transformation of welfare and food assistance often deepens rather than bridges marginalisation. By layering device and data requirements and eroding in-person infrastructures, digitalisation reorganises access to food assistance, welfare, and ultimately, food security, through new forms of stratification. The UK government has developed a welfare system that makes it difficult to navigate for precisely those who need it the most.

Digitalisation has coincided with increases in food insecurity and has added to the burden on food assistance projects, and often volunteers, which now also provide support with digital access. The timing is good to bring about change. The Government is committed to reducing dependence on emergency food parcels. And initiatives like The Crisis and Resilience Fund could make digital inclusion a core part of food security policy and not just an afterthought.

More Reading: This blog post uses findings from an ERSC-funded project entitled: Digitalising food assistance: Political economy, governance and food security effects across the Global North-South divide. See: https://digitalisingfood.org/.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Iris Lim is a Postdoctoral Researcher and works on the UK case study for the ESRC-funded project that analyses the effect of digitalising food assistance. Her research examines digital public service delivery, digital inclusion, citizenship and integration, and critical user-experience (UX) research.

Susanne Jaspars is the Principal Investigator of the same project. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the SOAS Food Studies Centre. She is also a Research Associate at CEDEJ Khartoum, and co-editor of Disasters Journal. Susanne researches the political dynamics of food in situations of conflict, food and humanitarian crisis, and has also analysed migration and asylum policies. Other interests include social approaches to nutrition and accountability for mass starvation. She has worked mostly in the Horn of Africa, often Sudan, but increasingly also in Europe.

Yasmin Houamed

Yasmin Houamed is the Research Assistant for the UK case study of the ESRC-funded Digitalising Food Assistance project. She received her MA in Anthropology of Food at SOAS, University of London, and her BA in Political Science from Stanford University. Her research has previously focused on food systems and commodification in Tunisia.

Paving the Way for Authoritarianism: The Prabowo regime and Indonesia’s colonial continuities

By ISS Blog Bliss 3 February 2026 622 views

This blog captures the current political situation in Indonesia under Prabowo’s regime. This regime utilizes all possible resources to bring back an authoritarian government; from eliminating opposition and restructuring national budgets, to other structural intervention and subtle measures such as controlling the way people acquire knowledge by controlling media and using a buzzer or ‘thought leader’ who promotes opinions and perspectives sympathetic to the regime with the aim of making them seem common. Fatimatuz Zahra considers the regime to be employing colonial logic, in which the state treats its own population, particularly marginalized groups, as objects to be disciplined and extracted from rather than as respectable subjects.

How this regime got elected and how it’s doing

From the very beginning, Prabowo Subianto and his vice president Gibran Rakabuming (37 y.o at that time) took advantage of an opaque political system in Indonesia. Gibran, who is the son of former president Joko Widodo (Jokowi), fulfilled the administrative requirement to run in the 2024 election for vice president after the constitutional court approved a lawsuit lowering the minimum age requirement for a presidential and vice presidential candidate. Following this decision, the chief justice of the court , who is Gibran’s uncle, was removed from his post due to an ethical violation. Jokowi’s endorsement of Gibran’s candidacy was also allegedly done through what used to be known as ‘pork barrel politics’ which can be defined as using state and public resources to influence voters. In this instance, the regime used state resources, such as mobilizing the social assistance budget, to further its political interests. Jokowi (at the end of his second presidential term) played a huge role in the success of Gibran’s candidacy, which seems to have been well prepared ahead.

These dirty measures continued throughout the campaign. Prabowo and Gibran successfully whitewashed Prabowo’s dark history and blood legacy, including his involvement in the 1998 human rights violations, through their ‘gemoy’ campaign and use of jargon to reshape Prabowo’s image into that of a cute, chubby grandpa. With the massive use of social media campaigns and narrative battles to rebrand this pair, they successfully won the election with 58% of the votes.

What is it like to have a president who is allegedly a human rights violator?

Amnesty International said that Indonesia is experiencing the most serious deterioration of human rights since the 1998 reform era. This can be seen in many areas: the massive militarization of civil spaces, the absence of meaningful public participation in the policy planning and implementation process, and the excessive police repression that has been increasingly normalized. In November 2025, the House of Representatives and the government passed a revision of the Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP) that further facilitates the police’s use of brutality. In response to the legislation, Indonesia witnessed a massive protest in August 2025 against police brutality and to demand reform of the bureaucracy. Yet instead of listening to that protest, the regime continues to pave its way toward authoritarianism.

Strategies of power consolidation under the current regime

In October 2025, the documentary “Dirty Vote II: O3” was released and went viral. The video exposed how this regime consolidated its power via three pillars: otak, otot and ongkos(O3) or mind, muscle, and money. The documentary suggests that the regime is deploying these three pillars as an expression of insecurity. The regime needs to strengthen its muscles (otot), namely the security apparatus, such as the military and police. These institutions have been repurposed by the regime and no longer function to protect citizens or provide external defence, but increasingly act as instruments and defenders of the ruling elites’ interests. Another strategy is demolishing the opposition as a manifestation of the mind (otak) to push through laws and other political decisions that serve oligarchic interests. And this strategy has been successful, as is evidenced by how easily this regime has passed many problematic laws that have been protested against for years. The last strategy is to strengthen guided capitalism, as a manifestation of money (ongkos). This constitutes an elite-driven mechanism of power consolidation to manage the regime’s interests. One recent example of this was to change the electoral system from direct elections to selection by the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR), an institution that has been criticized as dysfunctional and not representing the people.

One of the most visible implications of deploying these three pillars is how this regime continues to ignore people’s voices. This is clear in policy decisions that are not grounded in public interest, for example, the decision to impose budget cuts in strategic sectors such as health and education to fund the problematic free-meal programme, which, rather than resolving the policy objective of addressing stunting, has generated widespread cases of food poisoning. We are also witnessing how this regime openly dismisses any criticism, for example, when it passed the Indonesian National Armed Forces Law (UU TNI) and the revised Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP) despite nationwide protests, some of which included fatalities.

Using paternalistic logic, this regime has also silenced women’s voices with its many militaristic policies and projects, such as making the military a strategic partner in the free-meal programme (MBG) while at the same time ignoring the protests of mothers who live in fear of their children being poisoned by it. Indeed, even the President regarded the poisoned children as merely numbers. The way this regime is refocusing the budget by cutting spending in the care sector while continuously increasing defence spending is another example of how this regime is structurally marginalizing women.

Reproducing colonial logic

From the practices above, we can see that this regime is currently continuing the colonial legacy by deploying colonial logic in its way of governing. The way this regime defends elite interests while continuing to delegitimize critics by using expressions such as ‘ndasmu’ (an insulting word, like bullshit) or ‘antek asing’ (a political slur used to label someone as a lackey of foreign interests in order to delegitimize their action) to describe critics, is evidence of how this regime is trying to normalize its exploitation. This is an important pillar in the coloniality of power – seeing the population as inferior in order to justify their exploitation. In order to maintain its power, the regime is also deploying a strategy of whitewashing collective knowledge, such as denying the historical fact of the 1998 mass rapes and reframing human rights violators such as Soeharto as national heroes. This is a manifestation of coloniality of knowledge, which controls the knowledge and production systems as a means of asserting superiority within the hierarchy of power.

Fundamentally, this regime reproduces the logic of coloniality, which works by producing the hierarchy of ‘being’, with certain groups being treated as more fully human than others. This is manifested in people’s voices and interests being easily dismissed, with their interests taking second place to those of elites. People’s voices are seen as noise that obstructs power, rather than expressions of political agency. This forces critics of the regime to continue our collective movement to resist this colonial structure, which promises the dream of modernity while steadily narrowing the space for civic action in the name of stability.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts solely reflects the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Fatimatuz Zahra is an alumna of the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), where she majored in Social Justice Perspectives. Her work engages with gender, religion, and political issues in Indonesia, with an interest in decolonial approaches and feminist analysis

Politics of Food and Technology Series | When the System Says No: Digitalization and Accountability in Food Aid

By ISS Blog Bliss 29 January 2026 407 views

Digital tools promise efficiency and impartiality in humanitarian response. In food aid, biometric systems are meant to ensure that the ‘right’ people receive assistance. But when the verification of need depends on being readable by a machine, accountability shifts. Drawing on field experience in South Sudan, Hayley Umayam explores how exclusions come to look like a system error rather than a downstream effect of human decision-making.

Needs-based programming is the organizing principle of most contemporary humanitarian action. In South Sudan, where millions require assistance each year, and resources are consistently insufficient to meet needs, organizations justify allocation choices through a ‘logic of impartiality’: aid should go to those most in need. This logic is increasingly operationalized through digital and technocratic systems designed to make suffering measurable, commensurable, quantifiable, and thus ‘governable’.

Over the past decade, humanitarian agencies have turned to digital tools like fingerprint scanners and unique digital identifiers to manage service delivery. These tools promise accuracy and efficiency, an appeal that is easy to understand in a world of shrinking aid budgets and growing demand. They offer a way to demonstrate that limited resources are used responsibly and that assistance is delivered to the “right” people, thereby reinforcing claims of impartiality. There are plenty of technological evangelists, too, highlighting the potential use of Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning in ‘streamlining’ the aid process.

Within this paradigm of impartiality-through-efficiency, accountability becomes largely procedural. It risks being defined less by relationships with affected communities than by the ability to show that needs-based logic has been correctly applied. If you can demonstrate that you followed needs-based logic using the right indicators, vulnerability criteria, and verification procedures with some level of “community buy-in”, you are seen as accountable. In other words, claiming that “the most in need” were reached is a way of demonstrating impartiality, and accountability is about legitimizing hard choices in contexts where almost everyone can qualify as in need. Strangely, humanitarian hyper-prioritization may actually lead to a reduction in the number of people who can access aid.

South Sudan makes the limits of this approach especially visible. Routinely described as complex and protracted, it is a setting where identifying the “most in need” is not only contested but, in practice, impossible to do in any complete sense. Selection is less about discovering need in any comprehensive sense than about justifying exclusion in the most acceptable way under conditions of scarcity.

When I reflect on the promises and risks of digitalization in these conditions, I return to a moment early in the rollout of biometric systems at food distributions I helped monitor. This encounter may seem mundane, but shows how core ideas of need, accountability, and responsibility are shifting as humanitarian action is increasingly digitally mediated.

“Before the computer, we used to get food”

At a food distribution site in Lakes State, a woman presses her finger onto a biometric scanner. The machine beeps, and the screen shows a red X: Not matched. She wipes her hand, prays, and tries again. After several attempts, the screen finally turns green. The next woman in line is less fortunate. Her fingerprints fail repeatedly. After trying multiple machines, she is sent home without food, her distress visible.

“They have brought computers in and these useless cards that make some of us not get food,” she says. “Before, without the computer and with our previous cards, we used to get food.”

During these early months of biometric rollout, moments like this were common. Fingerprint readers often struggled with calloused, dusty, or sooty hands. People waited anxiously to undergo a process they did not fully understand. Some prayed before placing their finger on the device, others cried with relief when the screen flashed green. And when it didn’t, there was little to be done but blame the computer.

The long social and moral labor of being selected, being summoned for a distribution, queuing, and presenting oneself as deserving collapses into a single, opaque interaction between body and machine. At that moment, one’s neediness is technical, not social or relational.

“It’s the System That Decides”

Frontline staff experienced these moments of biometric failure with their own mix of frustration, sympathy, and resignation. They had been trained on the new equipment, but they could not control how the machines behaved. When the screens displayed error messages, there was often little they could do to fix the problem on the spot. They could not see inside the system or override its judgement. While they could log exclusions in hopes of a ‘catch-up’ distribution cycle, I seldom saw mention of this in upstream reporting. Concretely, a non-recognized fingerprint simply meant no food, while a distribution that adhered to its list of scannable beneficiaries checked the box of impartiality.

Biometric systems were introduced into an already tense moral terrain. Even before digitalization, frontline staff were the face of decisions that they often had no control over. Caseload numbers were set elsewhere, and it was the unenviable task of field teams to turn those inevitably constrained numbers into a verified list of the “most in need.”

In this context, some staff began to see digital tools as a buffer against the reactions of the affected-but-excluded. Instead of saying we cannot assist you, staff could say the system does not recognize you.

Who is accountable for technical errors?

Some of these early rollout issues have been partially mitigated over time. Nevertheless, the encounter at the scanner still matters because it offers a glimpse into how humanitarian need and accountability are being reconfigured, which will likely only continue with increased digital aid practices.

Exclusion appears as a technical error rather than a consequence of prioritization and human decision-making. This sustains a humanitarian fantasy of impartial needs-based programming in which defaults to technical systems and procedures. By transforming moral and political decisions into technical ones, humanitarian organizations can maintain legitimacy amid chronic shortfalls, while displacing responsibility onto machines and caseloads. This procedurally legitimizes needs-based distributions while making certain bodies invisible, producing a formal sense of impartiality even as real-world access is uneven. Meanwhile, those with unrecognizable fingerprints have limited recourse to accountability.

None of this means digital tools should be rejected outright. In many contexts, they can limit some forms of abuse and allow aid to reach people who might otherwise be excluded. But if we evaluate them only in terms of their supposed efficiency or as neutral tools of impartiality, we miss how they redistribute responsibility, normalize exclusion, and translate need into something that exists only when a system can verify it.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Hayley Umayam is a PhD candidate at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Her research focuses on the politics of knowledge and expertise in famine and mass starvation. She holds an MA in Peace and Justice Studies from the University of San Diego.

IHSA Conference Reflection: Recentering Protection for Civilians in a Fragmenting World Order

By ISS Blog Bliss 27 January 20263 February 2026 391 views

On 16 October 2025 academic and practice thought leaders came together to discuss Protecting civilians in a changing world order at the IHSA conference hosted by Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkiye. This blog, written by Amra Lee with other panelists, is a result of the panel discussions and intends to continue critical discussions on protecting civilians, with a view to establishing a Working Group in 2026.

The geopolitical dynamics driving changes to the current world order – including the resurgence of ‘might is right’ and decreasing respect for international law – have pushed the humanitarian system including the law, norms, institutions and funding that support it to its limits. Ongoing impunity and the growing normalisation of war without limits continue to increase threats to civilians, aid workers and principled humanitarian action. The impact of these threats have been compounded by seismic changes to the humanitarian donor landscape, particularly the withdrawal of major funds and funders.

While protection for civilians in conflict has often been inconsistent and insufficient in practice, the nature and scale of the current threats and challenges require urgent action. Political and humanitarian actors, including parties to armed conflict, must acknowledge the gravity of the current moment and work to leverage a wider range of practices that can help prevent, mitigate and respond to civilian harm.

The UN Secretary-General in annual Protection of Civilian reports and briefings to the Security Council has called for moving beyond the more traditional focus on compliance and accountability to explore a wider range of “effective, legal, policy and operational responses”. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has further been working with a diverse cross-regional range of member states to reinforce respect for international humanitarian law. And at the same time, the humanitarian sector has many lessons to inform the reset – that protection is central to humanitarian action, that proactive protection requires incentivisation and investment, and that, in practice, civilians are most often agents of their own protection. 

The panellists responded to the above context and calls, examining how a humanitarian reset and the UN80 reform discussions can better centre people and their protection in practice, and explored new pathways forward. The pathways included lessons on civilian harm, theorising humanitarian diplomacy, accountability as a fifth humanitarian principle, centering civilian safety and security, and critical lessons from the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP). 

Opening the Discussion

Amra Lee from the Australian National University opened the panel, providing an overview of a changing world order and what decreasing respect for international law on the resort to and use of force means for civilians and the wider humanitarian system. This includes record aid worker and journalist deaths, the increasing challenge of countering mis-disinformation and hate speech, and the imposition of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation during an imminent risk of famine, that saw 1373 Palestinians killed simply trying to access food to survive.

Reorienting Focus to Proactive Protection

Hannah Jordan from the Norwegian Refugee Council (NORCAP) presented on the joint NORCAP-Nonviolent Peaceforce-Alliance for Peacebuilding research that developed an analytical framework to reorient civilian protection practice to proactively respond to civilian safety and security in a context of escalating harm. This includes shifting the current focus on providing services to reducing risks, interrupting violence and supporting local solutions. The framework prioritises actions that are civilian-centered, systemic, cross-sectoral, cross-temporal, influential, specific and adaptive, providing key guiding questions to support such work. 

Building on this foundation, Gemma Davies presented the timely joint HPG-ODI-Nonviolent Peaceforce research that directly responds to the risk of deprioritising protection in ongoing Humanitarian Reset discussions with ‘back to basics‘ narratives, reinforcing the need to proactively (re)prioritise and refocus protection efforts to demonstrate how they reduce civilian harm and increase investment in civilian-centred protection.

Humanitarian Diplomacy, Principles and Accountability

Clothilde Facon-Salelles from the University of Antwerp presented on theorising humanitarian diplomacy, examining the power dynamics between international humanitarian actors and semi-authoritarian states in a way that does not presuppose the hegemony of liberal humanitarianism. 

Following this, Junli Lim from Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, presented on ongoing challenges and threats to principled humanitarian action, including the role of private security contractors. This included proposing accountability as a fifth humanitarian principle, and discussing the ways in which emerging mutual aid networks and practices contribute to accountability with local trust that can increase the effectiveness of protection services. Mutual aid practices offer important insights into alternative systems for implementing humanitarian assistance and governance.

Civilian Harm

Marnie Lloydd from the Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington examined national inquiries that take place following action in conflict, highlighting deficiencies in militaries’ transparency and reporting mechanisms, as well as recommendations that emerged from these inquiries including New Zealand’s Defence Force Order 35 on Civilian Harm. Marnie discussed the urgency of integrating robust proactive preventive measures, civilian harm tracking, and transparent reporting frameworks from inception, reflecting on what the UN Secretary-General’s Protection of Civilians report for 2023 characterizes as a ‘broader approach…addressing the full range of civilian harm’, to move toward more comprehensive protective measures. 

Rise and Fall of RtoP

Building on the themes of accountability and civilian-centered protection, Stefan Bakumenko concluded the panel with a discussion on the rise and fall of RtoP. Conceptualised in 2001 and formalised in 2005, the concept nominally promised communities at risk of atrocity crimes a combination of good governance, international cooperation and multilateral intervention. However, incentives to respect existing normative commitments were already fading in the face of global militarization, austerity, multipolarity, attacks on international law, and instrumentalisation of the concept, as seen in Libya, Ukraine, and Palestine. Today, protection will need to better understand and support grassroots mobilization, mutual aid, and accountability, instead of relying on the whims and shifting political interests of states.

Moving Forward

The geopolitical dynamics driving changes to the world order can be expected to continue, with far-reaching implications for civilians and principled humanitarian action. The need to refocus, adapt and expand approaches to meet the current moment is clear. While power shifts increase threats and risks for civilians, they also present an opportunity to challenge past problematic beliefs and forge new understandings on how to mobilise more effective civilian-centred and civilian-led action. The panel initiated a timely discussion on recentering protection in humanitarian action and discourse, reinforcing both the responsibilities of states at a time of existential threats to principled humanitarian action and the critical role that civilians will continue to play in their own protection. 

* The panellists intend to continue these discussions and plan to establish a dedicated working group on civilian protection within IHSA in 2026. Please reach out to Amra Lee amra.lee@anu.edu.au and Marnie Lloyd marnie.lloydd@vuw.ac.nz if you are interested to join.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Amra Lee is a senior practitioner and PhD researcher whose research focuses on protecting civilians in a changing world order.

Politics of Food and Technology Series | The digital paradox: Digital food assistance in Sudan as a tool for efficiency or exploitation?

By ISS Blog Bliss 15 January 2026 592 views

In this blog, Tamer Abd Elkreem (University of Khartoum) and Susanne Jaspars (SOAS) argue that digitalised food assistance in Sudan presents an extreme case of digitalisation as lifesaving but at the same time its weaponisation through internet shutdowns. It feeds into power relations and a violent, extractive political economy by excluding some of the most marginalised and functioning as a tool for economic and political control.

Food assistance has a long history in Sudan, as has its manipulation for political purposes. Efforts to digitalise finance, food, and social assistance started in the mid-2010s for reasons of access, accountability and efficiency, including through the use of biometric ID cards, pre-paid bank cards, electronic vouchers, online self-registration, and mobile money. These initiatives involve a range of organisations, authorities, and companies (e.g. telecoms, internet providers, banks, merchants). The current war and its humanitarian repercussions offer a critical lens through which to examine the dual nature of digitalisation: it is a life-saving intervention as it is one of the only ways that aid can be provided to crisis-affected people since the start of the 2023 war. At the same time, though, digitalisation leads to new exclusions and feeds into inequalities. We argue that the digitalisation of food assistance must be understood within the context of asymmetrical power relations, competing interests, and political economy.

The weaponisation of communications

The manipulation of communication systems has become a weapon of war . The banking system collapsed in April 2023 with the start of the war between Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) from April 2023. The Bank of Khartoum had the only banking app (Bankak) that continued to function, because it had developed online solutions separate from the Central Bank infrastructure and was not dependent on its electronic switch. It soon became the main way of assisting people in Sudan, as international humanitarian organisations left, and – already limited – government social protection programmes stopped. Moving physical goods across the frontline (that divides the east from the west of the country) became almost impossible.

In February 2024, the RSF sabotaged government internet service providers (in large parts of Sudan, including Darfur, Khartoum, and Al-Gezira), stopping communication and digital cash transfers for at least 2 months until it was gradually restored in some areas. At the same time, RSF and affiliated traders brought in Starlink satellite dishes from Chad and United Arab Emirates to provide internet services. They could benefit economically from charging fees for internet access but more importantly, could control communications and conduct surveillance of the population. In war-affected areas, Bankak and Starlink devices have become the only means of access for besieged communities, for examples in cities like Al-Fashir during much of 2024 and 2025. In our research, we see that access to Starlink internet access is clearly linked to war dynamics and stability of RSF control: the more securely held, the more Starlink services and the lower the cost of access. In areas of active war Starlinks services are subject to heavy security surveillance or are confiscated to prevent its used for intelligence communications to SAF. In October 2025, the RSF at first live-streamed their massacres in Al-Fashir to show their capture of the city, but following widespread international condemnation completely blocked communications to cover up the atrocities.

Digital exclusions

Though digital cash transfers provide aid to some, many are excluded. Clearly, the internet shutdowns discussed above are the most extreme form of exclusion. Otherwise, humanitarian operations have been underfunded, and digital innovations by international organisations (self-registration, digital vouchers, wallets and platforms) remain small scale and experimental. Charitable people in Sudan and diaspora outside the country provide cash to relatives and friends, often connected via WhatsApp, or send it to community initiatives such as soup kitchens (Takaya) and Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs). Money is most often transferred via Bankak. In the aftermath of the Al-Fashir invasion, these same WhatsApp groups became a tool for extortion. Sudanese abroad deleted the groups when it became apparent that the RSF used them to identify foreign contacts to demand ransom payments as well as to identify SAF collaborators.

So what happens to people who do not have relatives in the diaspora? In parts of Al-Gezira, we see deepening inequalities. The labourers previously working on the agricultural scheme are historically marginalised in terms of land ownership, and access to land, and social services. Few have relatives abroad. They now have no work, no diaspora aid, and are less represented on aid committees. Even if they did have friends to send money, since the SAF recapture the internet is weak and few banks are operating, and most are undocumented citizens.

For mobile money transfers, you need a bank account, an ID document, as well as a smartphone, which many in rural areas do not have. In many parts of Sudan, particularly in Darfur, people did not have these because they mistrusted government (and banks) and did not want to be visible to the state. This necessarily limited self-registration for international aid programmes using online applications, as well as who could receive transfers from diaspora. Those who did have Bankak accounts could make large profits by charging for the transfer. In RSF areas, where banks remain closed, merchants or businesses act as mini-banks. Our researchers documented the range of fees that businesses charged for money transfer transactions, and that the charge is directly related to level of insecurity and market functionality, ranging from 5% in relatively secure areas, up to 70% in the extreme case of tightened siege of Al-Fashir.

Those who did not receive sufficient assistance from organisations or through social networks, went into debt, carried out precarious work (like e.g. cleaning, cooking, petty trade – if markets were functioning), or migrated to work in gold mines. Some joined the army or militia: and so, fed directly into the war.

Feeding into unequal power relations and political economy

Digital banking and digital aid feeds into power relations and political economy through the practices used and businesses and authorities involved. Over the past year, Sudan has seen a rapid expansion of digital banking. The government enforced financial digitalisation by issuing new banknotes, a move that created a vast digital trap. Sudanese citizens were required to deposit old, unbanked cash into financial institutions but faced severe withdrawal limits, precipitating a cash crisis. This scarcity, in turn, pushed more people toward digital payments. Humanitarian organisations initiated and helped promote digital cash transfers where they had not done so before. This change also provided the government with funds for the war and undermined the economic system in areas controlled by the RSF. The RSF, in response, maintains the use of the old currency and is establishing its own currency system illegalising the new banknotes in its controlled areas.

In Sudan, the most strategic telecommunication and financial sectors had long been privatized, and mostly owned by foreign countries who are also heavily investing the war. For instance, more than 80% Bank of Khartoum, which has lions share in the digital financialization, is owned by UAE. We are also witnessing a phenomenon in which the state is being bypassed by digitalisation – including by privately-owned Starlink satellite dishes and solar panels (in places like Darfur), digital technologies using blockchain and platforms that bypass banks, and many organisations use US-based multi-national corporations to store their data. Digitalised food assistance programmes are not only eroding national sovereignty from this aspect only but also by weakening the social contract; no one, these days, is talking about the responsibilities of the state.

Conclusion

The unprecedented crisis in Sudan reveals the digitalisation of food assistance as both a lifeline and a threat, a tool that connects vulnerable communities, that both mitigates and perpetuates emergencies, and saves lives while feeding the very forces that endanger them. Through data extractivism, it simultaneously erodes national capacities, agencies, and legitimacy. Digitalisation needs to be considered from the perspective of these wider parameters rather than from a purely technical one.

More Reading:

This blog post uses findings from an ERSC-funded project entitled: Digitalising food assistance: Political economy, governance and food security effects across the Global North-South divide. See: https://digitalisingfood.org/.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Tamer Abd Elkreem is a Co-Investigator/Sudan lead researcher of the project. He is a lecturer at the department of Sociology and Social Anthropology and the Deputy Director of Peace Research, University of Khartoum. His research interest focuses on power relations of development, Anthropology of post-colonial state, anthropology of mega developmental projects and critical analysis of its discourses and practices in Sudan.

Susanne Jaspars is the Principal Investigator of the project. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the SOAS Food Studies Centre. Susanne researches the political dynamics of food in situations of conflict, famine, and humanitarian crisis. Ongoing interests include: regimes of food practices and power relations, social approaches to nutrition and accountability for mass starvation, European migration and asylum policies and their effects. She has worked mostly in the Horn of Africa, often Sudan.

IHSA Conference Series: A shrinking humanitarian space requires a New Way of Thinking

By ISS Blog Bliss 13 January 2026 390 views

This blog is part of a series contributed by presenters at the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) Conference, held in Istanbul and Bergen in October 2025. Here, Alasdair Gordon-Gibson looks into the changing context for humanitarian action, and argues for a new and broader approach that embraces diversities of actors, approaches, and contextuality.

Many of the issues raised in the panels at the IHSA Conference, have focused on civilian protection. Most discussions centre around perceptions of a diminished humanitarian space and a lack of respect for humanitarian principles, as well as a loss of trust in its participants. My research argues that the space for principled humanitarian action has not diminished, but that changes in the geo-political landscape, with a growing diversity of stakeholders and increasing agency of affected populations, has meant that the nature of space for shared discussion has altered. To regain trust and access in this changed environment, humanitarians must learn a new way of thinking and talking that is more inclusive, respectful, and confident in the universal value of its discourse.

This requires a solution that looks beyond resetting the current patterns of policy and practice and turns towards a radical change in the way we think around the humanitarian engagement with politics and power. It will mean uncomfortable participation in spaces of engagement that challenge the traditional humanitarian approaches around neutrality and impartiality.

Most working in the humanitarian sector consider the principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence as being an essential and pre-existing part of the expression of ‘humanity’, and that are universally applicable regardless of context or culture. However, to many analysts they were established – like the organisations themselves – at a particular historical juncture and so may represent an ethos that is questioned or rejected by stakeholders outside of their foundational traditions. To regain relevance in a revised space requires confident engagement with the prevailing context of humanitarian action. This means acknowledgement of the political identity of the humanitarian sector, and recognition of its social agency: its interface with established and non-established power.

Auxiliary or Anarchist? The freedom to choose

Scholars of Social Identity Theory have observed that people’s orientation towards authorities change once they have established a social bond, meaning that incorporation into the social fabric of public life increases the likelihood of a more considered interpretation of the intent of authority and its auxiliary structures. The construction of social capital, and its associated features of trust, norms of behaviour and mutual obligation, have been linked to an emergence of community participation, where voluntary engagement with state or non-state authority is seen to be a product of shared values and a culture of responsibility to one’s community and society.

Interpretations of the auxiliary role has often been a contested concept in humanitarian engagement. As humanitarians, we are always an auxiliary in some form, most importantly to the community in crisis, but also often to the established or unestablished authorities and other stakeholders in the emergency response. The question posed here is how to navigate this relationship? How to challenge authority when red lines are crossed?

There is history of a legitimated identity to question and challenge authority that shares a common genealogy stretching from Europe to the Middle East and beyond. The traditions and politics are different, but there is a universal expression of dignity and respect, and the voluntary impulse to protect these values, that is common to all. Participating in the discourse of power and playing an influential part as a trusted challenge to authority is not absent from the contemporary humanitarian environment. Examples are evident when local actors and national politicians choose to resist authority – or are auxiliaries to authority but have access to opposition discourse.

Context Matters

There are no blueprints for a humanitarian response, since in every case the social and the political dynamics are different: context matters. The rise in authoritarianism, inequality and social injustices exacerbated by political authoritarianism, and environmental catastrophes through climate change, means that new social movements will emerge and so the formal humanitarian system must adapt in order to respond. This means acknowledging the hierarchies of politics and power and working more transparently with them. Access and engagement in this changing context require a new humanitarian approach. Humanitarian principles must be the lodestar guiding the ethical and operational compass but with recognition of their limits. Prescriptions of rules and principles do not mean their universal acceptance or applicability in all contexts: a dogmatic prescription of rules and procedures neglects the reality of people striving to survive in a crisis.

Mistrust and disappointment with the global political responses to conflicts and complex emergencies, where a sense of humanity is seen as a diminishing concept in humanitarian responses, has led for increasing calls for solidarity with affected populations that identifies a shared humanity. Disenchantment with political authority makes it more important than ever to engage with the political discussion, rather than distancing from it in the quest for absolute neutrality, impartiality, and independence. It means influencing political decisions in a bolder way that promotes the social agency of the humanitarian identity: one that engages in a discussion that is less dogmatic and directs towards a space for discourse around an ordinary humanitarian society rather than an ordered humanitarian system. I suggest that reconsideration of the two ‘orphaned’ Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement Fundamental Principles of Voluntary Service and Universality, interpreted and understood in the contexts of contemporary conflicts, will help drive a principled discourse with power and politics that is able to be in solidarity with the most vulnerable: an auxiliary when it works and an anarchist when it does not.

ENDNOTES

IHSA 2025 – Panel: Politics of humanitarianism: power, influence, and governance. Session Friday 17th October: ‘The politics of humanitarian negotiations.’

This blog presents arguments and ideas published in a short article entitled ‘Resetting the Moral compass’ Global Policy, 26 August 2025 https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/26/08/2025/resetting-moral-compass and an earlier piece ‘An Ordinary Humanitarian Society’ in Public Anthropologist, 20th August 2025 https://publicanthropologist.cmi.no/2025/08/20/an-ordinary-humanitarian-society-trust-and-solidarity-in-contexts-of-confrontation/

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

Alasdair Gordon-Gibson

Alasdair Gordon-Gibson worked for 25 years within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Awarded a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews he is currently an Honorary Lecturer with the Graduate School for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of St Andrews. Email agg2@st-andrews.ac.uk

Europe’s Silent Middle: Why Migration Isn’t the Polarised Fight You Think It Is

By ISS Blog Bliss 16 December 202529 January 2026 673 views

The Dutch have voted. Migration was once again front and centre. Campaigns warned of crises, headlines framed Europe as divided. Open borders versus closed minds, compassion versus control. It all sounds like Europe has taken sides.

But has it?

New research from the PACES project, led by Anne-Marie Jeannet, Associate Professor at the Department of Social and Political Science, University of Milan, suggests a quieter, more nuanced reality.

Most Europeans are not at the extremes. They sit somewhere in the middle. Ambivalent, thoughtful, and conflicted, they recognise that migration can be both necessary and challenging. They want rules and fairness, but, they also care about protecting people in need. Europeans Want Balance and Fairness.

The findings show that Europeans tend to support strong border control and structured return policies, conditional welfare benefits, and targeted regularisation schemes. For example, this could include returning rejected asylum seekers, limiting benefits to those who meet certain conditions, and allowing some undocumented migrants to stay legally.

Immigration policies that included returning migrants with criminal convictions were over 10 percent more likely to be supported than those that did not. By contrast, policies proposing to contain asylum seekers in third-country camps were 4 percent more likely to be rejected, as were policies offering residential or tax-based incentives to attract migrants (3 percent more likely). Overall, the study shows that the public favours policies that are lawful and orderly, but not excessively restrictive.

The silent middle often resolves tensions between competing values using mental shortcuts, or heuristics. Citizens distinguish between authorised and unauthorised migrants and between law-abiding and criminal individuals when forming policy opinions. When rules are transparent and fair, trust grows. Yet migration policies are often viewed as unclear, which can fuel fear.

The Middle Is Large, But Quiet

This middle majority is easily overlooked. Loud, extreme voices dominate headlines, giving the impression that Europeans are either for or against migration. In reality, most people hold multiple, sometimes conflicting, values: humanitarian concern, fairness, and a desire for order. They recognise that migration is not simply good or bad — it is a normal part of social life that can bring benefits, challenges, and everything in between. Rather than choosing sides, they weigh trade-offs, evaluate policies conditionally, and respond to evidence.

As World Migrants Day approaches on the 18th of December, perhaps it is time to move beyond framing people as simply for or against migration. These debates often make me wonder why so many of us feel torn about it. Many people say they want to help refugees while also wanting borders to be managed, or that they support integration but worry about pressure on housing or jobs. That mix of concerns is not a contradiction. It reflects the complexity of real life.

It also raises further questions: why is it so difficult for the silent middle to express their moderate views? Is it a lack of knowledge, a lack of interest, or simply the noise of polarised debate? And what would it take to bring these more balanced voices into the conversation?

Migration is more than a policy debate. It is a mirror reflecting our values, fears, and hopes. Acknowledging the silent middle, the thoughtful but often conflicted majority, opens the door to conversations and policies that reflect reality rather than rhetoric. And the next time you read that Europe has turned against migration, it is worth remembering that while extreme voices are loud, a much larger, quieter middle is watching.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Anne-Marie Jeannet is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Milan and affiliated with Bocconi University’s Dondena Centre. Her research examines how social changes such as deindustrialization and immigration reshape political life and public perceptions. She leads the ERC-funded project Deindustrializing Societies and the Political Consequences (DESPO) and has published widely in leading journals.

Marcela G. Rubio is an Economist in the Migration Unit at the Inter-American Development Bank. She earned her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration from Bocconi University in 2022 and studies how migration dynamics affect crime, human capital, and development outcomes. Her work spans Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia, with prior experience in academia, NGOs, and international organizations.

Lois Mobach is a Communications Advisor at Erasmus University, where she supports major research initiatives. She works on projects including PACES, helping translate complex findings into accessible communication. As co-author, she brings expertise in research dissemination and public engagement.

16 Days of Activism Against GBV Blog Series| Holding Both Ends of the Line in the fight Against Digital Violence

By ISS Blog Bliss 11 December 202519 February 2026 465 views

Prevailing responses to digital violence against women and girls remain overwhelmingly reactive. We demand justice only after revenge‑porn, doxxing, or cyber‑bullying has already shattered a woman’s livelihood, dignity, or sense of safety. The scale of the crisis is undeniable: globally, between 16-58% of women have experienced some form of online violence, and in Nigeria, 45% of women self‑report digital abuse. Yet our interventions continue to treat symptoms while leaving the systems that enables digital violence unchallenged.

We are holding only one end of the line.

In this blog, Emaediong Akpan argues for a dual approach that confronts both the structural and cultural roots of digital violence. First, we must hold tech platforms and legal systems accountable for the architectures that make abuse easy, anonymous, and viral. Second, we must rethink how we prepare and support the next generation, beginning with digital literacy from childhood. This is not about shifting responsibility to users; it is about building collective resilience against the weaponized shame that underpins digital abuse. When we meet survivors with belief, care, and solidarity, we disrupt the culture of silence and return shame to its rightful place — with abusers and the systems that protect them.

Beyond Reactions

Nearly half of the world’s women and girls, have no legal protection from digital violence. The uncomfortable truth in our fight for digital safety is that we are often act after the fact. There is an overwhelming number of safety nets: legal, social, psychological, designed to ‘protect’ women and girls after they have experienced harm in digital spaces. However, according to Amnesty International, 76% of women report altering their online behavior due to abuse. This statistic reveals the limitation of our reactionary approach. We are treating the consequences of digital violence but failing to confront the architecture that exposes women and girls to harm. Our reactionary approach, though vital, is a partial victory at best, it means holding one end of the line. My call is to extend our hands and hold both ends.

The reactionary approach operates after the fact, after the harm has been done. It fails to confront the underlying issue: a digital ecosystem that is engineered through its architecture, business model and algorithms to facilitate and profit from such harm. To address digital violence against women and girls, we must adopt a dual-approach. This approach requires us to hold the line of platform accountability on one hand while engaging in foundational prevention rooted in early digital literacy and communal care on the other.

Understanding the Impact of Digital Violence on Women’s Participation in Public Life

Globally, 16-58% of women have experience online violence. In Nigeria, 45% of women self-report experiencing digital violence, with girls aged 12-17 and young women up to 35 being targeted. 85% of women globally have witnessed digital violence such as cyberbullying, false and misleading smear campaigns, doxxing, image and text-based threats, and more. Although the forms of digital violence vary, the motive remains the same: to shame, silence, and exclude women and girls from public life. Below I explain the impact of two particularly insidious forms.

Cyber-Stalking: Research indicates that an estimated 7.5 million people have experienced cyberstalking, demonstrating that anyone with a smartphone, social-media or GPS-enabled device is vulnerable. Data from domestic violence programs in multiple countries indicates that 71-85% of domestic violence perpetrators use technology from smartphones and GPS to spyware, to stalk, monitor and threaten survivors. The intimate violence of the physical world now follows women into every digital space, collapsing any boundary between public and private life.

Gendered Disinformation: Amongst the most surreptitious forms of technology-facilitated gender-based violence is gendered disinformation, which can be defined as the “false or misleading gender and sex-based narratives [deployed] against women, often with some degree of coordination and aimed at deterring women from participating in the public sphere”. Women in public life, particularly politicians and journalists, are disproportionately targeted. A 2021 UNESCO/ICFJ survey found 73% of women journalists had experienced online violence, with 20% reporting subsequent offline attacks. The impact is a chilling effect on civic participation. More broadly, 76% of women who have experience digital violence think twice before posting, and 32% stop commenting on certain issues altogether. This is not a side effect; it is the core function of this violence, which is to enforce patriarchal norms by policing digital spaces.

What Do We Mean by ‘Digital Violence’?

Without a universal conceptualization, this phenomenon operates under a cluster of terms, each highlighting a different aspect of this menace.

Online Gender-Based Violence (OGBV): Emphasizes the space where the abuse happens as well as the gendered nature of the abuse.
Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV): Highlights the enabling role of information communication tools, which can amplify scale, anonymity, and permanence of harm
Cyber Violence: A broader term sometimes used in legal and policy contexts to emphazize the use of computer systems to cause facilitate or threaten violence
Digital Violence: An umbrella term to describe the use of technology and or social media to intimidate, harass, or threaten.

I use “digital violence” throughout this blog because it is conceptually encompassing. It captures not only the act of violence (harassment, doxing) but also the structural nature of the harm. It points to a violent digital environment shaped by the algorithmic amplification of harm and the prioritization of engagement/virality over safety. Digital violence as a concept draws attention to the platform not as a neutral mirror of gender-based violence offline but as an active participant in these acts of violence.

Holding Platforms and Systems Accountable

Our response ought to begin with the platforms whose digital architectures are designed to maximize ‘engagement’ irrespective of whether these engagements are driven by joy, outrage or hatred. The algorithms reward inflammatory contents with increased visibility, providing a fertile ground for digital violence to thrive. In adopting this approach, we must move beyond reactive content moderation to safety-by-design principles that places the responsibility on these platforms to mitigate systemic risks, including gender-based violence.

Our laws should specifically criminalize forms of digital violence including but not limited to cyber-stalking, disinformation, revenge porn, and doxxing. Although the Nigerian Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act 2015 is a good starting point, its effective application to address digital violence requires both amendment and judicial activism. The Act currently lacks explicit provisions for image-based sexual abuse, cyber-stalking, and platform liability. Courts must be willing to interpret existing provisions broadly while legislators work to close these gaps. We need legal frameworks that recognize the unique harms of digital violence—its permanence, its viral spread, its capacity to follow victims across every platform and into every space.

Digital Literacy as a Complimentary Strategy

Preventive approaches have been critiqued —often rightly for placing the responsibility on potential victims while absolving platforms of responsibility. My suggested approach does not absolve platforms of their responsibility. Rather, I argue that building communal resilience is not a parallel response but a complimentary strategy in this fight against digital violence. Even in a utopia with perfectly regulated platforms, harm can exist. The goal is to change the social and psychological terrain on which these attacks land.

Fostering a child’s critical consciousness does not excuse a platforms toxic design; it can help mitigate the effect of that design. This is the inoculation I speak of, is not against infection, but against the shame that digital violence weaponizes. Where young girls and women have the nonjudgmental support of their community, it becomes harder to manipulate them into feeling shame and equips them to identify, and resist abusive dynamics.

Building Communal Resilience from the Cradle

Today’s children are digital natives in a profound sense. Globally, one in three internet users is a child. In high-income countries, 60% of children use the internet by age five. In Africa, with the world’s youngest population and smartphone adoption surpassing 50%, children are primary users of family devices, entering complex digital publics with little to no guidance. This strategy ought to begin with digital literacy.

Critical consciousness from early childhood: Teaching children to question what they see online, who benefits from this content? Who might be harmed? Why is this being shown to me? This is media literacy adapted for an algorithmic age.

Bodily autonomy and consent: Children need to understand they have the right to set boundaries online, to say no to requests for images or information, and that consent given under pressure is not consent at all. These conversations must happen before children encounter coercion, not after.

Trusted adult networks: Every child should be able to identify at least two adults they can turn to if something online makes them uncomfortable or afraid. This requires adults who respond without panic, judgment, or punishment, a significant cultural shift in many contexts.

Community response models: When digital violence occurs, the community’s response matters as much as the legal one. Schools, religious institutions, and community organizations must be prepared to support survivors with unwavering belief rather than interrogation, with resources rather than blame. In Nigeria, organizations like the International Federation of Women Lawyers, Feminist Coalition, and StandToEndRape have pioneered such models, but they need to become the norm, not the exception.

The evidence supports this approach. In Finland, where comprehensive digital literacy has been integrated into education since 2014, young people report higher confidence in identifying misinformation and manipulation online. In South Korea, where digital citizenship education is mandatory, rates of cyber-bullying have declined even as internet usage has increased. Nigeria has the capacity to develop contextually grounded approaches that respond to our specific realities of digital violence.

Conclusion: Holding Both Ends of the Line

The fight against digital violence is a struggle for the future of public space, discourse, and democracy itself. A singular focus on post-harm justice, while morally imperative, is strategically incomplete. It addresses the symptoms but does not prepare the next-generation for these realities. We must confront digital violence by contesting the exploitative architectures of platforms and by building a critically conscious population from the cradle. This dual-approach is critical in this moment.

We must confront digital violence by contesting the exploitative architectures of platforms while simultaneously building a critically conscious population from the cradle. We must demand that platforms redesign their systems for safety while teaching young people to navigate these systems with critical awareness. We must prosecute abusers while building communities that refuse to shame survivors. This dual approach is not a compromise, it is recognition that structural change and cultural transformation must advance together. One end of the line without the other leaves us perpetually playing catch-up, counting casualties, offering comfort after the fact.

It is time to hold both ends of the line. Our children are counting on it.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Emaediong Akpan is a legal practitioner and an alumna of the International Institute of Social Studies. With extensive experience in the development sector, her work spans gender equity, social inclusion, and policy advocacy. She is also interested in exploring the intersections of law, technology, and feminist policy interventions to promote safer digital environments. Read her blogs here: 1, 2, 3, 4,5

16 Days Activism Against GBV Series| Beyond Convictions: Rethinking gender justice through survivors’ lived experiences

By ISS Blog Bliss 2 December 2025 390 views

International criminal law has made remarkable progress in recognizing gender-based crimes, yet conviction rates alone cannot capture the meaning of justice for survivors. In this blog, Abubakar Muhammad Jibril draws on the Gender Justice in International Criminal Law Conference to argue that genuine gender justice must be reimagined through survivors’ lived experiences—centering healing, dignity, and accountability beyond the courtroom.

The limits of legal victories

Over the past two decades, international criminal law (ICL) has evolved to acknowledge sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) as crimes of the gravest concern. From the landmark Akayesu judgment of the ICTR, which recognized rape as an act of genocide, to the Rome Statute’s explicit listing of sexual slavery, enforced pregnancy and other forms of sexual violence, progress has been undeniable. Yet despite these achievements, the lived experiences of many survivors reveal a different reality. During the Gender Justice in International Criminal Law Conference, several participants echoed a powerful truth: a conviction does not automatically equate to justice. Survivors often remain unseen, unheard and unsupported in the aftermath of trials. Many return to communities where stigma and silence persist, where reparations are delayed and where their suffering is reduced to a footnote in legal history. This paradox between legal recognition and lived reality lies at the heart of why gender justice remains incomplete.

The epistemic gap in International Criminal Law

ICL, by design, privileges evidence, procedure and precedent. It asks: What can be proved? Who can be held responsible? Yet for survivors of gender-based crimes, justice often depends on questions the law cannot fully answer: How can I heal? Who believes me? Will my story change anything? This epistemic gap between legal knowledge and experiential truth reflects a deeper structural limitation. The courtroom, though vital, cannot capture the emotional, social and cultural dimensions of gendered harm. The narratives of survivors are frequently filtered through lawyers, investigators and judges, transformed into ‘admissible evidence’ rather than lived testimonies of pain and resilience. As feminist scholars like Catharine MacKinnon and Fionnuala Ní Aoláin have argued, law can recognize sexual violence without truly listening to survivors. This dissonance risks turning gender justice into a symbolic victory rather than a transformative one.

From criminalization to transformation

At the conference, one speaker remarked that international tribunals have been more successful in criminalizing gender-based crimes than in transforming the conditions that enable them. This distinction is crucial. Criminalization ensures accountability for perpetrators, but transformation demands more: it requires dismantling the patriarchal, cultural and institutional structures that make such crimes possible in the first place. Survivors do not merely seek punishment; they seek recognition, healing and inclusion in rebuilding their societies. For instance, the Trust Fund for Victims under the International Criminal Court (ICC) has provided symbolic reparations, but survivors repeatedly stress the need for collective and community-based remedies, access to education, psychological care, economic empowerment and public acknowledgment. These are not mere add-ons to justice; they are justice itself.

Centring survivors’ voices: towards participatory justice

Reimagining gender justice means shifting from a courtroom-centred model to a survivor-centred one. Survivors must not only testify; they must shape the process. Participatory justice approaches already piloted in certain post-conflict societies offer valuable lessons. In Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Uganda, survivor networks have played pivotal roles in truth-telling and community reconciliation. Their initiatives illustrate that justice becomes meaningful when survivors help define their goals and outcomes. As discussed in several conference panels, integrating psychosocial support, trauma-informed procedures and culturally sensitive reparations into ICL processes could bridge the gap between law and lived experience.

The politics of recognition

Gender justice cannot be disentangled from global hierarchies of power. Many survivors come from the Global South, yet international criminal processes are dominated by Northern institutions and perspectives. This imbalance shapes not only whose stories are heard but also how justice is defined. To move beyond symbolic inclusion, international mechanisms must decolonize their approaches, valuing local knowledges, community healing practices and indigenous forms of accountability. Justice cannot be exported; it must be co-created with those who have suffered most. A decolonial feminist approach to ICL thus requires more than reforming procedure; it demands rethinking the very epistemology of justice from punishment-centred to person-centred, from institutional legitimacy to human dignity.

Reclaiming the meaning of justice

The conference’s closing sessions were marked by a shared realization: while legal frameworks are essential, they are not sufficient. The future of gender justice lies not only in how courts punish crimes but in how societies restore humanity after harm. For survivors, justice is not measured in verdicts but in voices being heard, believed and healed. It is in communities that refuse to silence them, in policies that empower them and in histories that finally honour their truths. International criminal law must therefore evolve from a reactive to a restorative paradigm, one that integrates legal accountability with social repair, trauma healing and long-term prevention. Only then can justice be both legal and lived.

Conclusion

As scholars, practitioners and advocates, we must move beyond celebrating convictions to asking harder questions: Whose justice? For whom? At what cost? The survivors who continue to rebuild their lives after unimaginable violence remind us that justice is not a verdict; it is a process of human restoration. The future of gender justice in international criminal law depends on whether we can truly listen to the people for whom justice was meant to serve.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Abubakar Muhammad Jibril is a legal researcher and LLM candidate specializing in human rights law, with a focus on women’s and children’s rights, gender-based violence and international human rights frameworks. His work integrates comparative legal analysis across diverse jurisdictions, exploring the intersections of law, culture and religion, particularly within Islamic legal traditions. Abubakar’s research aims to promote equitable legal reforms and deepen the scholarly understanding of justice, dignity and protection for vulnerable groups worldwide.

16 Days Activism Against GBV Series| Pursuing Justice for Survivors of CRSV in Ukraine: Gender and Intersectionality Considerations

By ISS Blog Bliss 27 November 20254 December 2025 573 views

Since the first recognition of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in its jurisprudence Furundžija) to the recognition of gender as a ground for persecution by the International Criminal Court [para 936], International Criminal Law (ICL) has increasingly addressed CRSV, but there is still a long way to go. Inspired by the ICL Conference on Gender Justice and through the application of a feminist and intersectional lens, Katerina Lefkidou examines current challenges in addressing CRSV in Ukraine.

**Photo by** **Jan Kopřiva** on **Unsplash**

Conflict Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) in Ukraine

As CRSV increasingly calls for accountability mechanisms shaped through converging feminist, intersectional, and survivor-centered approaches, Ukraine appears to be a State that is at least willing to listen. With the adoption of Law 4067-IX in 2025, which provides CRSV survivors with interim reparations, and through the development of new Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the investigation and prosecution of CRSV, some steps are being taken in the right direction. However, a closer look shows that many issues remain unsolved. Since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, 385 CRSV investigations have been opened by the Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General, with 21 individuals convicted. Other international actors report higher numbers, which keep rising. However, these 21 convictions (mainly direct perpetrators), are a result of approximately 10 cases, which is quite low considering the reported figures.

Two main situations have been identified where CRSV has been systematically used by Russian forces throughout the conflict: 1) during house searches or forced visits carried out in occupied areas, and 2) as a form of torture against individuals detained, both civilians and prisoners of war (POWs), in “filtration points” and official/unofficial detention facilities. In the first case, most victims are women and girls; in the latter, the majority of survivors have been men [para 47]. Nevertheless, only cases of CRSV concerning women and girls have reached decisions in criminal proceedings. CRSV has been especially prevalent against Ukrainian POWs; 119 out of the 169 interviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported having experienced CRSV [para 30].

Challenges in reporting CRSV in Ukraine and gender roles

According to the International Independent Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, CRSV is under-reported in the conflict, and survivors are reluctant to speak out due to gender stereotypes, religious and family considerations, and stigma, especially in rural areas [para 630]. Incidents have been reported where survivors were treated disrespectfully by authorities and then consequently withdrew their complaints [para 93]. The recently launched platform “Було так” (“It Happened This Way”) created by Ukrainian Women Lawyers Association “JurFem” for survivors to share their experiences, particularly with law enforcement, also indicates the urgency of this problem. Further, survivors have even fled their home or even the country due to fear of stigma and blame from close ones and broader society, or reprisals from the Russian authorities. Additional obstacles include the harmful re-enforcement of gender stereotypes and stigma in CRSV media coverage [paras 630-636].

Bias shaped through gender roles—such as the culture of victim blaming, which especially affects women—has emerged in various examples. In Bucha, a woman who was raped by Russian soldiers to prevent the rape of her 13-year old daughter, later faced stigmatization and was even investigated for collaboration with the Russian forces. The gender paradigm shapes the stigma for male survivors, too. As reported by the All Survivors Project, Ukrainian culture often depicts men as defenders and fighters. Acts of CRSV challenge this sense of masculinity, making men less likely to disclose their trauma for fear it will be perceived as a sign of “weakness,” incompatible with traditional gender expectations. According to the Commission of Inquiry, men are more inclined to report torture without the sexual aspects [para 632]. Gender stereotypes also influence investigators, who frequently do not ask questions about potential CRSV when interviewing male victims of violence. Social perception of sexual identity is also relevant. The Russian Federation has exploited the cultural prejudice against LGBTQI+ people by actively seeking out LGBTQI+ people as targets of CRSV, and by systematically employing CRSV against non LGBTQI+ males. Consequently, male survivors of CRSV are branded as “weak” and “unnatural”, not in line with the role of “strong, straight, cisgender male.”

Intersectional dimension of CRSV

As long established by feminist theory, sexual violence is not an expression of sexual desire, but a means of conveying dominance, relying on the enforcement of rigidly defined gender roles. Furthermore, it is rooted in structural inequalities, and gender is not the only relevant variable. Socioeconomic status, for example, plays a key role in the commission, reporting, investigation, prosecution, and outcome of CRSV cases. Engagement with accountability mechanisms is only possible if basic needs of survivors are covered [para 634]. Poverty enhances vulnerability; survivors have often endured CRSV as a means for survival and may not even be able to identify that what has happened to them may qualify as CRSV. An example presents the experience of a woman in Kherson province, who, during the Russian occupation, moved in with a man for safety and protection. He instead exploited her and ultimately facilitated her rape by Russian soldiers.

Conclusion

A clear understanding of how gender norms, and other underlying factors of discrimination are manifested in Ukrainian society is paramount in order to fully address CRSV perpetrated in Ukraine. As reiterated throughout the conference, advancing gender justice requires holistic policy reforms that go beyond supporting domestic justice and include education and awareness efforts around gender bias aimed at collective societal change. Further, many survivors still require support to come forward and, ultimately, seek justice. It is vital that Ukraine continues its efforts in this area to pursue accountability for the full scope of CRSV crimes resulting from the Russian occupation and the ongoing armed conflict.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Katerina Lefkidou holds an LL.M. in International Human Rights Law from the University of Groningen. Her research interests include themes such as gender justice, equality and reproductive rights. She is a qualified lawyer, registered with the Athens Bar Association.

Experiences and observations of Hurricane Melissa’s path through Cuba: preparations, sanctions, and citizen networks

By ISS Blog Bliss 18 November 2025 776 views

In this blog, humanitarian practitioner and researcher Carla Vitantonio reflects on the immediate experiences of people in Cuba affected by the path of Hurricane Melissa, which slowly approached the Caribbean nation in mid-October 2025. As the Hurricane approached Cuba, various (international) NGO, citizen-led, and civil defence preparations were triggered, despite issues with international sanctions and internal bureaucracy. Though regularly battered by tropical storms and hurricanes, the experiences of Cuban people and institutions with Hurricane Melissa reveal some timely developments in the country.

We began observing Melissa on October 21^st. It was a tropical storm, one step below hurricane level, according to Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. However, we knew that its slow pace did not bode well, and realized that it wasn’t a matter of predicting whether it would pass through Cuba, but simply of understanding where.

I have been working in disaster risk prevention and management for fifteen years, seven spent in Cuba. I know the protocols and am well aware of my role in a situation like this. I have studied the preparedness system developed by the EMNDC (Estado Mayor de la Defensa Civil) in Cuba, and which many around the world admire. This system has allowed this small country in the Caribbean to survive annual hurricanes and storm seasons since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959.
Yet I live here and know that, beyond the official propaganda and its many detractors, Cuba is no longer what it once was.

Like many, I still sting with the memory of Hurricane Oscar, which devastated eastern Cuba a year ago. Last year, when a colleague from Brussels called me the day before Oscar made landfall in Cuba, to ask if we needed support, I responded with a bit of bravado: “Cubans brush their teeth with a Category 2.” And I was wrong. Even today, a year later, there is no clarity on the number of deaths or the damage caused by Oscar and the human errors that followed, and many believe that the historically efficient Early Warning System failed that time.

I’m not the only one who bitterly remembers October last year, the 3 (for some up to 7) days without electricity, refrigerators left open, as if gutted, while the luckiest ones tried to cook their stored food in an attempt to save at least some of it, the chaos of information and misinformation and the clear feeling, listening to the fragmented accounts of colleagues from the affected areas, that beyond the usual duel between the regime and dissident press, something really hadn’t worked in the preparation and response.

Unfortunately, we were not involved in any learning exercises after the fact: we don’t know whether the Civil Defense analyzed what happened and learned any lessons, nor can we hope to know: living in Cuba means oscillating between a scandal-mongering and delegitimizing press that is mostly funded by the diaspora and quoted by international media, and a state-controlled press, which publishes only sanitized and repackaged news, increasingly detached from what we see every day on the streets.

But let’s go back to October 21^st. Melissa’s slow approach allowed everyone to organize. The Civil Defense evacuated approximately 500,000 people. In Cuba, preventive evacuations have historically been managed along two lines: anyone who finds themselves in a situation where they need to leave their homes, first looks to family members nearby living in areas designated as safe by the Civil Defense. Only a small portion go to shelters, which are generally schools temporarily set up as shelters. Cuba’s civilian evacuation mechanism does not allow for individual objections.

Recently, a Cuban doctor that helped interrupt mother-to-child transmission of HIV told me about Cuba’s approach to HIV: “Because in Cuba, the life of every citizen is worth more than anything else. And to save it, we do everything, sometimes without caring whether someone agrees with our methods, or not. As if we had these lives at our disposal.”

I personally experienced the truth of this statement during COVID, when the state, to protect its citizens, imposed measures that would have been deemed unacceptable in many countries around the world. This was done precisely because of this duty to protect, which sometimes goes even beyond recognizing the agency of citizens. Evacuations during hurricane preparations, a painful process in which people are forced to leave behind what is most precious to them, and often even their livelihoods, work in the same way. We must save what is most precious to us: our lives. Everything else can come later.

International Reactions and Preparations

Meanwhile, mindful of the events of 2024, several European donors, including Germany, announced a couple of days before the hurricane hit that they would donate several hundred thousand euros to CERF, the United Nations emergency fund that will most likely handle the response. This is a sign of confidence in multilateralism. Unfortunately, the sixty-years long embargo (unilateral sanctions with extraterritorial effect imposed by the US), combined with the notoriously lengthy and complex internal bureaucracy in Cuba, make it virtually impossible to import any goods in less than three months—an interminable time for those who have lost their homes, and even for those wishing to provide almost immediate relief. And so, we are now witnessing creative appeals from the United Nations urging local entrepreneurs and individuals willing to respond, and who have access to products already on the local market, to come forward and join forces.
Beyond the commendable coordination effort, it is clear that the crisis the humanitarian sector has reached this country too.

Meanwhile, on October 29^th, after 24 hours of intense rain and wind, Melissa made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane, hitting the provinces of Holguin, Granma, Santiago, and Guantanamo. The latter two are regions that have become extremely socially and economically impoverished in recent years, and are still struggling following the impact of Hurricane Oscar in 2024. Furthermore, these are the areas of Cuba hardest hit by the deterioration of the national electrical system and the infamous and lengthy apagones, blackouts that last for days, punctuated only by a few hours of power, which now plague the country relentlessly.

This year, the Early Warning System did not fail, and everyone is already prepared: international NGOs have alerted their local partners of the need to gather information as quickly as possible, the United Nations has activated its coordination system, and above all, the Cuban Civil Defense has mobilized the complex network of military and civilian personnel (including the Red Cross) that will handle the response in the hours immediately following Melissa’s passage. Within 24 hours, the hurricane receded, leaving behind destruction and fear, but the consequences continued for days to come: rivers, swollen by the rain, began to overflow their banks on October 31^st, especially in the province of Granma, forcing the Civil Defense to launch a massive rescue operation that even included a mass transportation of people by train.

As I write this article, it seems we have emerged from the most critical phase and that we can all deal with the very delicate recovery phase.

What have we learned, as citizens and people involved in disaster preparedness and response?

Times have changed, and the Cuban government is slowly shifting to a different approach: on November 1st, an official gazette formally established that the government would pay 50% of the reconstruction costs for all citizens who need to rehabilitate their homes. We are therefore moving away from the “the state will take care of it” approach, which in recent years had sadly turned into empty rhetoric, given that the state no longer had the resources to handle everything. We are moving toward a supportive approach, where the state recognizes the citizens’ leading role while still striving to offer participation and support. The feasibility and sustainability of this offer remain to be seen.
Beyond the national and international agencies traditionally responsible for response, we need to rely on all those networks of private citizens who, from areas of Cuba less affected by the hurricane and often even from abroad, offer material support and donations. This change in trend began, I recall, with the tornado that hit Havana in 2019. Just a few months earlier, Cubans had gained access to 3G connectivity on their cell phones. Thanks to it, citizen movements rapidly mobilized to provide aid beyond and regardless of the official response.
That climate change is not an opinion, and we must think in terms of systems: for the first time we are witnessing a joint effort by agencies based in different countries (Cuba, Jamaica, Bahamas) to reflect on the impact of the event and combine their energies, not only for the response, but for future preparations.
That climate change is not an opinion (reprise), potentially disastrous events are intensifying in frequency, becoming more unpredictable in nature and, therefore becoming difficult to prepare according to the “business as usual” model.

In short, it would be interesting, beyond the usual ideological controversies that inevitably emerge when discussing Cuba, to look at this recent event as a source of learning, a pilot, something that can point us in the right direction for the future of preventing and responding to disasters.

Originally published in Italian on Left.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Carla Vitantonio is a humanitarian practitioner and researcher who has worked across a number of contexts and organisations, including CARE (as country Director for Cuba), and Handicap International (including as country Director for North Korea). She contributes to academic research initiatives at institutes including the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the European University Institute, and ODI. Carla hosts the podcast ‘Living Decoloniality’, and also serves on the Board of the International Humanitarian Studies Association, as well as regularly contributing blogs, think pieces and papers – in English, Spanish, and Italian.

The Politics of Food and Technology Series | Asserting Digital Sovereignty: The Politics of Internet Shutdowns in Africa

By ISS Blog Bliss 13 November 202514 November 2025 826 views

This blog is the second in a series entitled In this blog, Eiman Mohamed looks at the role of digital systems in Sudan, including the effects of digital colonialism, and foreign ownership of key digital infrastructure.

Over the past decade, digital sovereignty has become an increasingly central concept in global policy debates. It refers to a state’s ability to govern its digital infrastructure, data, and cyberspace in alignment with national interests. While the term has gained traction in Western discourse as a means of protecting citizens and national data from foreign influence, its manifestation in the Global South (particularly across Africa) has followed a different trajectory.

Across the continent, internet shutdowns have emerged as a recurring expression of digital sovereignty. Governments justify them as measures to ensure national security, prevent misinformation, or maintain social order. Yet, these acts of disconnection often function as political instruments, used to consolidate power, suppress dissent, and control access to information.

Using Sudan as a case study, this blog article explores how internet shutdowns have become mechanisms for asserting digital sovereignty and examines their wider implications for state power, economic dependency, and individual autonomy.

State Autonomy or Authoritarian Control?

In theory, digital sovereignty implies the capacity of states to manage and secure their digital ecosystems responsibly and transparently. It reflects a form of autonomy aligned with self-determination and public accountability. However, within authoritarian contexts, digital sovereignty often becomes a tool of repression rather than empowerment.

In Sudan, the history of internet shutdowns illustrates this distortion. Following the 2013 protests, telecommunications companies that resisted shutdown directives were restructured to include loyal government actors, effectively granting the regime direct oversight of national connectivity. Regulatory entities in the country were frequently sidelined, while the military invoked ambiguous national security clauses to justify recurring blackouts.

These shutdowns were not isolated responses to unrest but institutionalized mechanisms of control. By disabling communication channels during protests, the state curtailed citizens’ ability to coordinate, mobilize, and document violations. Over time, digital autarky came to signify not collective governance, but exclusive authority enforced through infrastructural power; a manifestation of digital authoritarianism under the guise of sovereignty.

Economic Autonomy and the Persistence of Digital Colonialism

Digital sovereignty also encompasses the ability to shape and sustain a national digital economy free from external domination. Yet, across much of Africa, this autonomy remains constrained by digital colonialism; a structural dependence on foreign-owned technologies, platforms, and infrastructures.

In Sudan, the 2024 internet shutdowns exposed the fragility of this economic autonomy. When connectivity was severed, online mobile banking platforms, relied upon by millions for remittances and daily transactions, became inoperable. The resulting liquidity crisis crippled household economies and informal markets, as people lost access to cash, wages, and essential goods.

In the absence of state-provided connectivity, citizens turned to Starlink, a satellite service operating beyond national control and one that is open to profit-bearing and other political influences. Access was mediated through militarized networks, where civilians paid inflated prices to armed groups for limited connectivity. This dynamic generated profits for militias, bypassed regulation, and deprived the state of revenue.

Rather than restoring sovereignty, the shutdown fragmented Sudan’s digital economy into competing domains of authority: foreign, military, and informal. What was presented as a gesture of independence in fact deepened dependency, illustrating how disconnection reproduces digital colonialism in new and exploitative forms.

Individual Autonomy, Dignity, and Food Security

The human dimension of digital sovereignty extends beyond the state and economy to the individual. In the contemporary world, digital access underpins not only communication but also livelihoods, humanitarian assistance, and access to food.

In Sudan, the 2024 shutdown directly undermined this autonomy. The blackout halted digital payment systems, severing millions from remittances and cash transfers essential for food and medicine. Humanitarian organizations that relied on digital platforms for coordination were unable to deliver aid efficiently. Community networks that tracked safe routes for bread and flour deliveries were silenced.

As connectivity vanished, digital exclusion translated into material deprivation. In Khartoum and other cities, communal kitchens shut down after losing access to mobile money platforms, leaving low-income families without affordable meals. Those able to afford satellite connections often paid exorbitant fees at military checkpoints, while marginalized groups were left completely disconnected.

In these conditions, internet shutdowns became a form of infrastructural violence, determining who could access basic resources and who could not. Connectivity itself became a marker of privilege, linking digital exclusion to hunger, insecurity, and indignity.

Rethinking Digital Sovereignty in the Global South

Sudan’s experience underscores the need to reconceptualize digital sovereignty in the Global South. It is not merely about who owns data or infrastructure, but about how power is exercised through connectivity and disconnection.

When state autonomy transforms into authoritarianism, digital sovereignty ceases to serve the public. When shutdowns fracture local economies, economic independence gives way to new forms of dependency. And when digital access becomes contingent on wealth or political loyalty, individual dignity and survival are compromised.

Ultimately, digital sovereignty must be understood as a struggle for justice, autonomy, and existence. In many parts of Africa, internet shutdowns are not simply acts of censorship; they determine who speaks, who eats, and who survives.

Reframing digital sovereignty through the lenses of autonomy and justice reveals that the politics of digital control in Africa are inseparable from the politics of life itself.

BLISS will be publishing various blogs from this series over the next few months. For more information about the project ‘Digitalising Food Assistance: Political economy, governance and food security effects across the Global North-South divide’, check out the project website, or overview on the website of SOAS, University of London.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Eiman Mohamed

Eiman Mohamed is a cybersecurity expert and digital development practitioner with more than seven years of experience driving digital transformation and implementing ICT projects across both private and non-profit sectors. Her expertise lies in cybersecurity governance, risk, and compliance (GRC), as well as digital development project design and implementation particularly in fragile and conflict-affected contexts mainly in Sudan, Africa.

She holds a Master of Science in Digital Development from the University of Manchester (2024). Her research interests include digital political economy, digital justice, and digital finance.

From Hands-On to High-Tech: How Dutch Care Workers Navigate Digitalization and Robotization

By ISS Blog Bliss 4 November 2025 923 views

Whether we embrace it or not, digital technologies and AI are here to stay, and they are fundamentally changing the human world of labour. As new technologies revolutionize the healthcare landscape, these changes are reshaping the lives and work of care workers. In this blog, Sreerekha Sathi shares insights from her research, which explores important questions about how digital technologies are reshaping care work in the Netherlands specifically: how these innovations are affecting care workers and how care homes are adapting to digital solutions and AI-assisted robotics. What specific forms of AI-assisted robotics are currently being utilized in Dutch care homes and how can we evaluate the benefits, challenges and risks associated with their implementation?

Digitalization, robotization and the care worker

The Dutch healthcare sector faces increasing inequality in access to care, staff shortages, increasing workloads and a high percentage of aging populations. Around two thousand government-funded care homes serve the elderly, those with dementia, disabilities and other care needs.

Like other countries in Europe, the Netherlands has been experimenting with digitization and robotization in health care. Over the past two decades, AI-assisted digital tools and Socially Assistive Robots (SARS) have become more common in surgeries, patient monitoring, consultations, diagnostics, rehabilitation, telemedicine, cognitive and emotional care, especially in the post-pandemic period (Getson, C., & Nejat, G. 2021, Kang et al. 2023). Beyond Europe, countries like China and Japan lead these developments, with Sweden and the Netherlands close behind.

The use of digital solutions and AI-assisted robotics have moved beyond the experimental phase into early adoption. Current discussion focuses on opportunities for collaboration between private companies, academic institutions and healthcare providers. This pilot study involved conversations with few care workers in the care homes, innovation managers, company officials and academic scholars in the Netherlands.

Conversations with care workers show that most technologies in use are still relatively simple – medication dispensers, sensor systems and communication tablets – selected for their affordability and ease. Once prescribed, digital care tools like Compaan, Freestyle Libre, MelioTherm, Medido, Sansara or Mono Medical are introduced to clients by neighbourhood digital teams, usually via smartphone apps connected through WIFI as part of online digital care.

The introduction of robots is slowly gaining ground. Many universities, including Erasmus University, are collaborating with private companies on new projects in robotization and digitalization in health care. Some of the robots which are popular in use currently in Europe include TinyBots (Tessa), Zorabots (NAO), Pepper, Paro and other robotic pets, and SARA, which supports dementia patients. Some care workers believe that the robots promote social contact and enhance patients’ independence, while others appreciate that robots taking over peripheral tasks can make their own work easier.

Care workers are required to learn and engage with new technologies, which directly affect their everyday lives. Although they are relatively well paid by normal standards, their workload and stress often exceed what their pay reflects. Larger, well-funded care homes have support staff who assist care workers for indirect or non-medical support at lower pay. When new technologies are introduced without sufficient involvement and inputs from the workers, they can lead to more burden on workers in terms of time and labour costs. For them, new technologies are often ‘thrown over the fence’, with insufficient training or involvement of care workers in design or decision-making, leading to frustration, resistance and underuse even when the tools are effective. They argue, ‘we don’t need fancy tools – just the right tools used in the right way.’

Many workers feel that if a robot can take on physical tasks, the workers can give clients more time and attention. When the purpose of a tool is clearly explained, and workers remain present in critical moments, clients and families are more accepting of new technology.

Gender and labour in new technologies

Feminist Science and Technology Studies (FSTS) has long shown how technologies carry gendered biases. Feminist histories of computing have highlighted women’s contribution to the invention and introduction of computers and software (Browne, Stephen & McInerney, 2023). A relevant question to explore today is would new technologies using AI assisted robotics replicate the same biases. Although new technologies are often presented as objective, they are built upon datasets and assumptions that can reproduce biases and stereotypes, based on the foundations of the feeds and accesses in-built into it (1). Robots, for instance, often reflect the idealized gendered traits. Nurse robots are designed with feminine or childlike features – extroverted and friendly – versus ‘techno-police’ styled introvert security robots as stoic and masculine.

Care work remains a heavily gendered profession, though more men are joining the field. While some men care workers face occasional client push back, they are increasingly welcomed amid shortages. Many care workers worry about being replaced by robots, yet most agree that emotional presence of caregivers – especially in elderly and dementia care – remains essential and robots may support but cannot substitute the human connection that defines good care work.

Further, workers also stress that technology must be context-sensitive: its success depends on the socio-economic profile of the area, staff availability and the lived preferences of the people receiving care. They advocate for flexible, context-based implementation rather than top-down standardization of new machines. Core to the debates on digitalization and robotization in care are ethical issues often narrowly framed as privacy concerns but extending to autonomy, emotional dignity and growing surveillance and inequality.

Insights into the future

The study observe that many attempts to introduce digital technologies or robotics in care homes stall in the pilot phase, often disliked or abandoned by care professionals or clients. Care workers need time and training to trust these devices, especially regarding the risks and uncertainties involved. They emphasize early involvement through co-design as essential for building trust, transparency and accountability. For sustainable implementation, the focus should shift from what is ‘new’ to what is ‘useful’.

Future debates will likely centre around prioritizing digitization in health care versus SARs in physical care. Persistent challenges include time constraints to software failures (Huisman & Kort 2019). As efforts to create ‘smart homes’ and support independent living continue (Allaban, Wang & Padir 2020), environmental sustainability and climate resilience must become priorities.

Another important step for exploration is to critically analyze the growing corporatization and monopolization in digitization and robotization (Zuboff, 2019; Hao, 2025). Rather than leaving healthcare innovations to monopolies or private capital, public or community-based state welfare support must retain agency in how digital and robotic tools are implemented. Finally, pushing back from military robotics towards socially beneficial technologies – such as health care or waste management – needs to be prioritized.

As a work in progress, this research is significant for understanding the social impacts of digitalization and robotization. In the next step of this study, these conversations will further bring together care workers, academics and innovative managers between the global south and the global north to foster dialogue about how these changes are reshaping the healthcare economy, care homes and the future of care workers.

End Note:

A focus on changing forms of labour, along with the concerns around gender stereotypes and gendered knowledges attributed to social robots, is important for further exploration in the fields of AI-assisted occupations. The introduction of new machines involves the invisible human labour behind them, which is mostly the ‘ghost workers’ from the global south, whether with data work, coding or mining. What is inherent to existing social contexts, including gender, class, and racial stereotypes, are already heavily compromising the digital world.

Acknowledgements: This research was supported by a small grant from Erasmus Trustfonds for 2024-2025, I embarked on this short study to explore these questions. Although the grant period concluded in June 2025, the research continues. I would like to thank Ms. Julia van Stenis for her invaluable support in making this study possible.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question

About the author:

Sreerekha Sathi works on issues of gender, political economy, and critical development studies. Her current research explores the intersections of gender, care, and labour with digitalization, AI, and the future of work, and engages with critical debates in decolonial thought. She is a member of the editorial board of Development and Change.

Risks and Rewards: Why do African graduates in Slovakia stay or move on?

By ISS Blog Bliss 28 October 202529 January 2026 648 views

Slovakia is emerging as a hub for African students seeking affordable, EU-recognized education, thanks to competitive tuition, a safe environment, and growing international support. Yet, life after graduation raises questions: Do students stay or leave, and what barriers shape their decisions? In this blog, Terézia Zemeníková and Lucia Mýtna Kureková, from the Slovak Academy of Sciences explore the social, cultural, and academic experiences of African students in Slovakia, highlighting challenges and calling for policy changes to better support and retain international talent.

Slovakia: A developing educational destination with persistent issues

Slovakia is becoming an unexpected hub for African students seeking affordable education and recognized EU qualifications. Universities offer a range of programs at competitive tuition rates, and the country’s EU membership ensures that degrees earned are recognized across Europe. Additionally, Slovakia’s safe environment, relatively low cost of living, and growing international student support contribute to this appeal. But what happens after graduation? Are these students building a future there or moving on? Are there any barriers in their life in Slovakia? How do the barriers they face in Slovakia influence their post-graduation decisions? This blog aims to inform readers about the unique experiences and challenges faced by African students who migrate to Slovakia, shedding light on their journey as an underrepresented group within the country’s educational landscape. Based on in-depth research and analysis, the blog presents comprehensive findings that explore the social, cultural, and academic aspects of migration. It also calls attention to needed policy changes to increase country’s potential to attract, accept, and retain foreign students.

Surveying migrant decision-making

Between 2024 and 2025, the Institute for Forecasting of the Slovak Academy of Sciences conducted 34 interviews with respondents from African countries as part of the PACES project, to understand their motivations for staying or leaving Slovakia. Within this group of participants, 17 were identified as past or current students: 7 Master’s, 7 PhD and 3 Bachelor’s students. Our respondents have mostly studied finance, economics and business (7), mathematical science (3), medicine (dentistry) (3) and computer science (1).

We conducted a study using these 17 interviews and secondary research to better understand the decision-making of African students to stay or leave Slovakia and the influence of barriers they faced in Slovakia. Findings show that 41 per cent (7) of the respondents are planning to leave Slovakia after graduation, 29 per cent (5) plan to stay and 1 plans to return to their home country. The remaining 4 (24 per cent) refused to answer or did not know, which indicates their uncertainty about their future movement.

What do the numbers say?

Slovakia is not a typical migration destination for Africans, and still serves mostly as a transit country for those seeking destinations elsewhere in Europe. African migrants come to Slovakia for various reasons, but many are highly educated and come to study. While the population of African students is small, it is steadily growing.

Recent data show that 134 African students are enrolled in Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes, and 36 are at the doctoral level. While smaller than student populations from Europe or Asia, their presence is both vital and growing. The 17 African students interviewed in this study, while a small sample, represent 10 per cent of all African students in Slovakia in 2024.

**Source: CVTI SR- Statistical Yearbook- universities (2024/2025)**

The motivations for choosing Slovakia

International students choose Slovakia for various reasons:

– Programme structures: Interesting programmes offered by Slovak universities increased motivation to apply (5 respondents);

– Networks: Friends or relatives who studied in Slovakia encouraged others to come and apply for studies (4 respondents);

– Policies: Governmental scholarship schemes offered accessible pathways and more sustainable future prospects (2 respondents);

– Affordability: Tuition fees were affordable and lower than in most other EU countries (2 respondents);

– EU diploma recognition: Degrees obtained in Slovakia open opportunities across Europe (1 respondent).

‘The number one determinant was that the school was affordable; it was cheaper than any other school in the European Union. I saw and read the structure of the programme; I liked it. I applied and luckily they gave me admission.’ – Male graduate from Nigeria.

While student migration often marks the beginning of temporary or even long-term migration plans, the subsequent realities faced by the migrants may significantly influence their decisions. Research showed that African students face several specific integration barriers, which lead to very uncertain prospects, and essentially might encourage leaving more than staying in Slovakia.

The walls they hit

Interviews revealed that the reasons for students’ decision to leave included language barriers (6 respondents), limited job opportunities and low salaries (5), difficulties with visa renewal processes and communication with the Foreign Police (5). Students also reported obstacles in securing housing, healthcare and work permits.

Language was the most significant barrier: 16 out of 17 respondents experienced difficulties, and 31% described it as the factor most strongly shaping their decision to leave. Only three respondents who had real opportunities to learn Slovak were more likely to stay, but most courses were short-term and basic, preventing higher proficiency.

Legal hurdles further restricted settlement. Strict and lengthy procedures for temporary residence permits, combined with uncertainty about work permits after graduation, discouraged students from pursuing long-term employment. Discrimination in housing also surfaced:

‘It happened to me, or you might find housing, and once they realize you’re a foreigner, either the prices are changed, or the terms of the contract change, or they just refuse… like we don’t accept foreigners.’ – Male graduate from Kenya.

Out of 17 students, 4 have experienced a school-to-work transition. Yet only 1 of them wanted to stay in Slovakia after finding the employment. This suggests that barriers extend beyond securing a job after graduation and shape students’ broader perceptions of life in the country.

‘What do I lack in Slovakia? I lack a vibrant African community. I don’t have many friends, even though I have stayed here for a long time. Jobs are scarce. Opportunities for personal improvement and development are low, even if you are employed. Whatever salary you are getting, almost half of it is going to taxes to cover your expenses. The quality of life is OK in Slovakia, but language is an issue. Salaries are low, the jobs are few, and the supporting communities are also weak.‘ – Male graduate from Kenya.

Despite these challenges, a few students still chose to stay. Five respondents cited career opportunities as the main reason, supported by Slovakia’s security (1), calm environment (1) and personal relationships they had built (1).

What can change?

Although Slovakia’s current policies aim to attract, accept and retain foreign students, there remains a lack of specific and consistent support policies at the government and university level. Findings from this research indicate that ensuring smoother transitions from study to work and strengthening comprehensive integration policies would make Slovakia a more viable long-term destination.

Government level: Introduce a structured post-study visa pathway to allow graduates to seek employment and contribute to the economy. Simplify residence and work permit procedures to reduce legal uncertainty;

Universities: Create stronger academic and administrative support systems, including help with paperwork and tailored career services; offer free Slovak language courses within university curricula, extending beyond basic proficiency, to improve labour market integration and long-term settlement;

Institutions: Build support networks to foster integration and counter isolation among foreign students. Develop local level initiatives and allocate resources to support integration into social security system and community activities.

What we have learned

The research shows that Slovak language knowledge is pivotal for African migrants, shaping everything from healthcare access to social participation. As long as language barriers persist, the potential of Slovakia as a true destination country will remain limited.

Policy gaps also hinder international graduates’ settlement. While African migrants prioritize language acquisition and clear pathways to employment when deciding to stay, existing integration policies in Slovakia fall short in addressing these critical needs, resulting in a misalignment that limits the country’s attractiveness as a permanent settlement option and perpetuates its status as primarily a transit country. In addition to helping the nation’s economic and social development, addressing these gaps by better aligning policies with research findings, creating clear post-study work pathways, bolstering institutional support and integrating language learning would make Slovakia a more appealing and feasible long-term destination for international graduates.

For Slovakia to shift from a ‘transit’ to a ‘destination’ country that attracts skilled newcomers, government actors must be willing to invest in structured support, anti-discrimination measures and deliberate social integration initiatives.

This blog draws on the PACES project, a Horizon Europe-funded research initiative that uncovers how migrants make decisions in rapidly changing societies and how policy environments influence their mobility. The project combines policy analysis with qualitative fieldwork across Europe and Africa, offering a robust framework for analysing migration in a broader societal and institutional context.

This blog is part of the PACES project funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Terézia Zemeníková graduated from The Hague University of Applied Sciences and completed an internship at the Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences, Institute for Forecasting of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Her research focused on labour migration, student migration and the social inclusion of African migrants in Slovakia, exploring integration processes and intercultural understanding.

Lucia Mýtna Kureková (PhD) is a senior researcher at the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS). Her research focuses on areas such as labour migration and labour market integration of immigrants in the EU; welfare and social inclusion; skills and technological change; and online labour market data. She has participated as lead researcher in several international collaborative research projects funded by the European Commission.

What is Frugal About Gig Platforms?

By ISS Blog Bliss 27 October 2025 476 views

M-PESA, a fintech platform, created alternative banking for those previously excluded from formal finance. While it advanced financial inclusion, it also highlighted deep inequalities and the extraction of value from vulnerable users. In this blog, Anna Elias, Erwin Tuijl, and Jasmin Hofman remind us that frugal innovation is not just about low-cost solutions — it is about addressing the social and political dimensions of exclusion and examining who truly benefits from digital progress.

M-PESA is often cited as a landmark example of frugal innovation in the digital era. This fintech platform created an alternative banking infrastructure for people in informal economies who previously lacked access to formal banking. While M-PESA has significantly advanced financial inclusion, it has also been criticised for deepening inequalities between those who have and those who lack access, as well as enabling its operators to extract value from vulnerable users in informal settlements . This case highlights an important nuance: frugal innovation should not only be understood as delivering low-cost and simple solutions, but through a more holistic lens that embeds social and political dimensions to actively tackle exclusion and inequality This broader framing pushes us to critically examine how digital platforms do more than just lower entry barriers, they shape who ultimately benefits and who remains excluded.

This tension between increased accessibility and persistent exclusion also appears in social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook. These platforms empower grassroots innovators in the Global South to reach wider markets, but gaining visibility often requires additional investments in advertising or search optimization, reinforcing inequalities based on users’ resources. In contrast, in refugee camps, semi-literate women use WhatsApp for voice messages and photo sharing, fostering new forms of collective agency and entrepreneurship despite limited formal infrastructure.

These examples show that digital platforms can enable users to overcome resource constraints in innovative ways. Frugal innovations aim to “do more with less for more people,” characterized by low cost, simplicity, and ease of access. Yet frugal is not always inclusive.

So, where do gig platforms fit within this framework? Are they truly frugal, that is easy to use, affordable, accessible and do they effectively address livelihood challenges in informal economies? Gig platforms connect people offering short, flexible tasks or “gigs” with customers. They broadly fall into two categories: remote digital work such as coding, translation or data entry on platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk, and location-based services like ride-hailing, food delivery or home maintenance via SafeBoda, Uber, PedidosYa or Urban Company.

To understand how these platforms operate, we highlight the case of Sonal, a beautician in a Mumbai suburb, whom one of the author’s engaged with during fieldwork. At 5 AM, she prepares her kit and checks her Urban Company app, which has scheduled six appointments for her that day. Before joining the platform, Sonal struggled to find steady work, relying on informal networks and occasional beauty parlour jobs, opportunities that diminished further after COVID-19. Urban Company now connects her to customers she would not otherwise reach. Yet, her income fluctuates with the platform’s algorithms: her rating dropped after a couple of three (with five being the maximum) star reviews, affecting her visibility and job allocation. She is also repaying her smartphone in instalments, a vital tool for her livelihood, which reduces her daily take-home pay. Many workers like Sonal navigate this digital frontier across many contexts, balancing new opportunities with precarious conditions.

Gig platforms lower entry barriers by providing affordable, ready-made infrastructure: mobile interfaces, algorithmic client matching, payment processing, and marketing reach. Traditionally, workers in informal contexts needed not only monetary capital like owning a vehicle or renting space, but also social capital: trust, networks, and knowledge to secure steady work. Access itself becomes a form of capital determining livelihood security and autonomy. Platforms like SafeBoda or Urban Company bypass these hurdles, enabling workers with limited resources to enter new markets.

Ease of use is critical, especially for workers with low formal education or technical skills. Many gig platforms offer intuitive interfaces with regional language support, voice commands, and simple navigation. For example, the Urban Company app supports multiple regional languages and provides features like earnings dashboard for workers to track payments. Sonal highlights the convenience: “I can see my earnings by day, week, or month all in one place, indicate my availability, and manage my schedule through the app”.

Affordability is another dimension of frugal innovation. Many platforms have minimal or no registration fees, making them more accessible than traditional business setups requiring large upfront investments, buying a vehicle or setting up a salon, for instance. Platforms also reduce marketing costs by aggregating demand and matching it to workers directly, mitigating risks associated with finding customers independently.

At first glance, gig platforms appear to embody frugal innovation by offering low-cost, accessible means to improve livelihoods in informal economies.

Challenging platform frugality

Access to digital infrastructure remains a fundamental prerequisite for using digital platforms. Participation depends on reliable mobile networks, smartphone ownership, and basic digital literacy. While often taken for granted in urban areas, these conditions can be major barriers in rural regions, especially across parts of Africa where network coverage is patchy. Moreover, rural areas’ low population density limits demand for location-based services like ride-hailing or food delivery, deepening the urban-rural divide in gig work opportunities.

Costs of participation also challenge the frugality claim. For example, Jane from the Mathare informal settlement in Kenya sometimes skips meals to afford internet bundles. As for Sonal, she must repay her smartphone in instalments. Some platforms charge fees to service providers or merchants, for instance restaurant owners using Just Eat Takeaway may pay to be featured higher in search results or face fierce price competition [iv]. Beyond platform fees, workers bear costs of smartphones, internet subscriptions, loan repayment for vehicles, or workspace rent. Such expenses create dependencies and exacerbate precarity.

Formal registration requirements can exclude many people. Drivers in India can sign up on Uber with a valid driving license, but residents of informal settlements like Mathare often lack official IDs needed for the registration. Similarly, Syrian refugees in Lebanon are excluded due to their lack of a legal status, and strict SIM card registration rules in Uganda prevent some citizens from accessing mobile platforms at all.

Conclusion

These access barriers and costs suggest that gig platforms are less frugal than other digital platforms. Similar to critiques of M-PESA and lending platforms like Jumo, gig platforms may expand economic opportunities in the short term but also deepen dependency on platforms and create new inequalities. Participation divides are likely to persist or widen, with those lacking digital access or formal documentation left behind.

Understanding platform frugality requires a holistic view of frugal innovation that goes beyond low cost and simplicity. It calls for embedding social and political dimensions that address exclusion and power dynamics shaping who benefits. Only through such a comprehensive lens can we critically assess the promises and perils of gig platforms as vehicles for inclusive economic development.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Anna Elias is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University. Her research examines how digital platforms reshape livelihoods within the informal sector, focusing on workers’ experiences in economically disadvantaged, socially hierarchical, and resource-constrained contexts of the Global South. She co-coordinates the Platform Labour Group at Erasmus University and is affiliated with the Platform Work Inclusion Living Lab (PWILL).

Erwin van Tuijl (PhD, Erasmus University Rotterdam) is researcher and lecturer in Urban Studies at the TU Delft, and at the International Centre for Frugal Innovation (ICFI). He is also affiliated with the European Institute for Comparative Urban Research (Euricur). His current research focuses on just sustainability transitions (with a focus on mobility and energy), digitalisation, (frugal) innovation, and regional development.

Jasmin Hofman is a strategic professional and coordinator of LDE Global and the International Centre for Frugal Innovation. She develops crossover initiatives that bridge research, education, policy, and practice. With experience in designing educational programs, workshops, and innovative concepts, she leverages her expertise to foster collaboration and deliver impactful projects.