digitalisation Archives

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 489 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.

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.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

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

By ISS Blog Bliss 29 January 2026 561 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.

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 927 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.

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 1087 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.

Politics of Food and Technology Series | The Politics of Food and Digital Technologies in Changing Global and Local Crises

By ISS Blog Bliss 6 November 202520 November 2025 1081 views

Digitalisation is transforming how food and humanitarian assistance are delivered across the Global South and the Global North – from Sudan and India to the UK. While promoted as efficient and accountable, these systems often reproduce exclusions and reinforce unequal power relations. In this introductory blog, Yasmin Houamed argues that digitalisation is not a neutral innovation but a political process, fraught with risks and vulnerabilities.

Over more than a decade, inequality, food crises and humanitarian emergencies have increased globally. Humanitarian crises are not confined to the Global South. This is closely linked to a changing geopolitics and the effect of decades of neoliberal ideologies. , the results of which are evident in widely varying contexts, for example, Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, India’s protracted hunger crisis, and the UK’s deepening food crisis. This trend is also associated with an increase in technocratic approaches, including the digitalisation of food and humanitarian assistance. While promoted for reasons of efficiency and accountability, the use of digital technologies to provide assistance can lead to new forms of exclusion, or the formalisation of existing inequalities. Digital technologies involve powerful transnational and national companies, states, and organisations, each with their own specific political and economic motivations, interests, and effects.

This post, the first in a series on The Politics of Food and Digital Technology by BLISS in collaboration with the SOAS Food Studies Centre, introduces key themes that emerged from our recent panel with the same title at the International Humanitarian Studies Association conference, held in Bergen and Istanbul in October 2025. The following blogs in the series are based on each of the presentations in the panel, as well as comments from the discussants.

1. Digitalisation as Fiction

The push to digitalise critical services has become almost unquestioned in multiple contexts. In the UK, as panelist Iris Lim outlined, the Universal Credit welfare system has been digital-by-default since 2013. This digitalisation clashes with the reality of individuals excluded from accessing support due to their limited access to devices or internet, difficulties navigating bureaucratic processes, or (lower) digital literacy.

Governments and donors describe digital tools as neutral and objective, yet their use often masks political choices. As discussant Pierrick Devidal observed, humanitarian actors risk falling for “the fiction” of digitalisation – forgetting its long history and that key foundational elements of humanitarianism do not align with it.

Panelist Hayley Umayam’s research in South Sudan (2017–2020) shows how biometric registration as part of “needs-based” targeting shifts accountability away from people and onto digital systems by “translating uncertainty into procedural legitimacy,” giving the illusion of fairness even when large groups are excluded.

The attraction of innovation can distract from these realities. Technologies promise efficiency, but for whom? For recipients, digitalisation can mean new barriers, surveillance, and loss of agency. For service providers, it can mean extra work and less flexibility. To move beyond fiction, digitalisation must be grounded in lived realities and complement, not replace, human judgment.

2. Digitalisation as an Incomplete Image

Digitalisation promises visibility, yet it also produces blindness. As panelist Jeremy Taylor argues, the humanitarian sector’s increasing reliance on digital data creates a paradox of visibility: those most in need are often least visible to digital systems. He uses the example of the 2022 siege of Tigray, where data collection was nearly impossible or was manipulated by Ethiopian authorities. The question we must return to, Taylor asks, is “What levels of uncertainty are we willing to accept in order to save lives?” Digitalisation, in this sense, creates an incomplete picture of need – one that privileges measurable (if imperfect) data over on-the-ground knowledge.

Similarly, as panelist C.Sathyamala outlines, the digitalisation of India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) fails to provide for the most marginalised. For example, fingerprint authentication excludes manual labourers whose worn prints make them “illegible” to the state. In both cases, uncertainty by digital measures excludes the most vulnerable.

3. Digital systems as a Double-Edged Political Tool

Digital systems can function as tools of control, and they can also create new forms of exclusion.. Several of our panel papers examined how digitalisation reshapes power within and beyond state borders.

Panelist Eiman Mohamed’s paper on “digital sovereignty” highlighted another dynamic in Sudan: government-imposed internet shutdowns used to control communication and dissent. Rather than liberating states or citizens, digitalisation can reinforce dependency on global technology and finance companies – a form of “digital colonialism.”

India’s biometric ID cards are another example. C. Sathyamala describes how what started as a surveillance project for citizenship evolved into an asset making system where data collection becomes an important resource leading to capital accumulation. It is apparent from the cases presented that data is not neutral. It serves political, economic, and strategic interests as much as humanitarian ones.

4. Rethinking Responsibility: From Digital to Dignity

Similar questions of ethics, agency, and responsibility surfaced across all the papers. As discussant Usha Ramanathan observed, the fact that the same problems recur across regions is both “fascinating and depressing” – but recognising this commonality creates space for collective solutions. Increasingly, when technology fails them, the burden falls on individuals to navigate complex systems and challenge opaque, unaccountable bureaucracies. As Umayam puts it, the “moral burden is displaced onto digital processes.”

This shift dehumanises recipients of aid as they are treated automatically as potential fraudsters, having to continually verify their identity and ‘neediness’. Devidal argues for “building back” capacities that have been outsourced to digital systems: local discretion, trust, and accountability could all play into a wider conversation about ‘digital resilience’.

Across all cases, digitalisation reorders power – between citizens and states, between public and private actors, and between visible and invisible marginalised groups.

Conclusion

Digitalisation introduces new risks: surveillance, corporate capture and exclusion. Policymakers and humanitarian actors must ask not only what technology delivers but what it sidelines – local knowledge, trust, and human judgment.

Digitalisation is a political choice, not an inevitability. Systems must be designed to serve people rather than power, recognising that data is never the whole story – and that its use carries real risks for individuals and states alike.

Acknowledgement: Many thanks to my colleagues Susanne Jaspars, C. Sathyamala, Tamer Abd Elkreem, and Iris Lim for discussions, review, and comments on an earlier version of this blog. We work together on the ESRC-funded research project examining the effects of digitalising food assistance.

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

About the author:

Yasmin Houamed

How upgrading the roles of Trade Unions can help to redress power imbalances – and not just between the worker and management

By ISS Blog Bliss 11 January 202415 December 2024 2608 views

In this blog, Nandini Ramamurthy looks into how different worker empowerment techniques and organisations can benefit and redress power imbalances. Not only through the traditional power imbalances between an owner and worker, but also gender imbalances. Digital initiatives, in particular, can be used to counter gender-based discrimination and violence at work, including in the case of garment factory workers in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, India.

Capital and labour are in antagonistic relationship because of the nature of the power embodied in them. For workers, the power comes from their sheer numbers, integral role in the production process, and participating in trade union and collective bargaining activities. Companies and the people that run them, on the other hand, derive their power from owning the means of production (whether in technology and fixed asset terms, or through employment contracts). A recent development that seeks to further empower companies and owners is dismantling trade unions and removing their power of collective bargaining, and replacing it with workers committees – which are non-binding and do not have official power. In the era of economic globalisation, these practices are becoming more and more common.

The main argument of this blog is to highlight how workers are addressing their precarious situation in the digital realm (online). Airing grievances and highlighting injustices online means that a worker can be anonymous: so they do not need to fear reprisals from management. Digitalisation is particularly useful in supporting victims of sexual and verbal abuses, especially women. Therefore, this blog aims to further highlight how upgrading trade unions roles and expanding collective bargaining is relevant for gender studies in understanding inequalities and power imbalances.

The gendered perspective of trade unions is understood by examining union bargaining agendas for gender, and looking into the women’s roles and their leadership. Co-operative and self-help groups are described as alternate forms of trade unions (Sundar 2007). In this model, the purpose of trade unionism is about building on social unionism. A report by the Indian Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) highlights that the state of Karnataka has about 1,200 factories, employing about 5,00,000 workers and that 80 percent of them are women. The Tiruppur Export Association (TEA) suggest that there are 8,300 factories employing more than 1,500,000 workers, of which about85 percent are women. Typically, women’s wages, working conditions, including in trade unions and use of collective bargaining are inferior. It is apparent that the traditional approaches of trade union and collective bargaining are not bringing any significant changes in integrating women workers into the mainstream labour market institutions. One way to ameliorate the situation could be using more digital tools.

To write this blog, I have used a digital ethnography as the research method. Gram Vanni and 90.4 Radio Active are the two radio stations used as sources. The 90.4 Radio Active station uses Behind the Label program, while Gram Vanni engages through Namma Kural, Tholilalargalin Kural, Urimai Kural and Vandu Murugan. These shows/podcasts are popular amongst and aimed towards garment workers.

Looking more closely at the cases of Tiruppur and Bengaluru, it is clear that the range of people taking part in labour markets in the two states (migrant workers, local workers, male and female workers, child labour, and workers with varying shades of socio-economic and demographic features), makes it difficult to make generalised statements. So, given this context, this blog narrates the experiences of workers that are exposed to digital methods for raising grievances, taking part in collective bargaining, and getting representation from a union. This is the voice of a female garment worker Geeta Bhonsle from Bengaluru. The worker deliberated on supervisor’s behaviour when asked for a 5 minutes break “…. the supervisor said this is workplace and not Dharmashala”. Vasantha, a garment worker from Bengaluru discussed about the dourjanya (forceful) working conditions. Latha and Vijaya complained about disrespecting women bodies within and outside the factory site and on safety issues during night duty. Savithriamma discussed the problems she faced despite having an ESI (insurance) facility “… it resulted in loss of workdays and ended up paying more money on diagnosis and medical treatments”. Muddu Raj a male garment worker elucidated his discontent when management applied discriminatory practices at workplaces.

In the case of Tiruppur, Vijayalakshmi explained that through using digital platforms, workers do not get into unnecessary saitchchavaravu (controversy) “…. the management has no idea which worker is on the other side”. Even though there is suspicion the workers are free from allegation of participating in trade union activities. Deepa said that on a digital faceless platform she has the courage to speak about kattupadu illatha kodimiyana thakudhal (atrocities). Moreover, the workers can freely discuss ‘forbidden’ subjects such as mental health, work pressure, sexual favours, maternity issues and mensuration related problems. Another innovative digital technique comes from the Gram Vanni podcast, which hosts Vandu Murugan: a drama show on labour welfare issues. At the end of the show, the presenter asks questions on labour-related issues, and rewards workers for correct answers. Workers also call IVR to record violations and grievances, and Gram Vanni then helps them to connect with trade unions or legal assistance. Sathya, a female worker, benefited from such interactions.

Digitalisation and using digital tools and techniques increases the rate of mobilisation and solidarity among workers because it can minimise discrimination and provide a place for people to express their grievances. Furthermore, digital spaces can transcend borders, break cultural barriers, and build collective strength and network. With the help of the digital realm, we can collect information globally, and use it to challenge the powers held by buyers and suppliers in the global production system. It provides opportunity for workers with repressed voices especially when trade union and collective bargaining is beyond their reach. From the discussions mentioned above, it is evident that digital tools and spaces have rekindled the interest of solidarity.

Reference

Sundar, Shyam K.R. (2007). Trade Unions And Civil Society: Issues and Strategies. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 42(4), pp. 713-734.

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

About the author:

Nandini Ramamurthy holds a PhD degree from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). Her doctoral work focused on understanding governance, work and value share of local clusters in global production system, Tamil Nadu, India. Currently, she is working on ‘Odisha Migration Study’ project as a Senior Research Associate at Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad. Some of her research interests are migration and development, work and employment, trade union and role of digital tools in bringing solidarity among garment and textile workers. She has more than 10 years of industry experience in Micro Finance and MSME sectors, and specializes in digital financing.

EADI/ISS Series | Digitalizing agriculture in Africa: promises and risks of an emerging trend by Fabio Gatti and Oane Visser

By ISS Blog Bliss 15 May 202019 May 2020 3904 views

The potential of the digitalization of agriculture in Africa to contribute to food security, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability agendas is being increasingly claimed by international development actors, and reflects in growing investments in digital technologies that are supposed to help small-scale farmers to ‘upgrade’ the way they farm. However, these technologies should not be considered panaceas from the get-go and require critical scrutiny to ensure that they will benefit who need it the most. There is a strong need for independent and in-depth social science research able to go beyond the surface of international donors and policy makers’ discourses and assess the effectiveness ‘on the ground’ of such new and greatly emphasized developing trend.

Drones used to map the boundaries of fields and monitor plant health, ground sensors to measure soil moisture levels, air temperature and humidity to prevent crop diseases, digital apps to provide farmers with localized weather forecasts, market price information and agricultural advice—these are just some examples of an emerging rural development trend called digital agriculture.

Assuming different guises (‘digital agriculture’, ‘smart farming’, ‘climate-smart agriculture’, ‘precision agriculture’), digital technologies and ICTs have started to penetrate the agricultural sector in the Global South in the past few years. Africa, with more than 60% of the population employed in the rural sector and relatively low agricultural yields, has become the main target of this ‘development’ strategy. For some, this is ‘the new Green Revolution’, an opportunity which Africa, having failed to seize before, cannot afford to miss this time.

These technologies, however, are not without concerns and limitations. Our ongoing research on digital agriculture in Africa draws out some of the hidden dimensions of the digitalization agenda, showing that we need to be aware of the risk that digital agriculture – when implemented without critical debate – might primarily benefit tech companies and multinational input providers, rather than smallholders or the environment. In the next section, therefore, the purported benefits of digital agriculture are discussed, along with some concerns.

A triple-win strategy

Most proponents of digitalization in agriculture—governments, international donors, development agencies, and high-tech companies—convey the idea that it represents a triple-win solution which could be used to ‘feed’ a rapidly growing population while at the same time reducing rural poverty levels and mitigating the environmental impact of farming.

In terms of food security, digital and mobile technologies promise to deliver better yields and reduced losses arising from bad crop management. The rural poor will purportedly benefit from better market integration from being able to sell their product at higher prices, for example by being able to guarantee the traceability and origin of the product or to reduce the time between crop harvesting and selling, therefore enabling a shift toward more perishable (and profitable) crops (Asad 2016). In addition, the environment would benefit from a reduction in the use of pesticides and wasteful irrigation practices. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that enable achieving such promises remain a ‘black box’.

An expanding market

Digital agriculture seems to be first of all an appealing business opportunity for companies. According to some recent estimations, the market for precision and digital farming products has been growing at 12% per year and is expected to reach €10 billion by 2025. ‘Big tech’ players like Microsoft, Google, IBM, Alibaba, as well as big agribusiness companies like Bayer, Syngenta and John Deere have started to move into the market by making preliminary acquisitions, forging partnerships, and developing new products. In 2013, for example, Monsanto bought the Climate Corporation, a data analytics company specialized in weather forecasting technologies, for US$1.1 million.

Food security

The most intuitive effect of digital innovations in agriculture is an increased food production that would boost farmers’ income. A better reach of agricultural extension services and real-time information (for example regarding short-term weather conditions or market prices), combined with improved access to high-quality inputs and the reduction of losses due to unexpected weather events or bad pest management, are believed to allow small farmers to improve agricultural output both in terms of quantity and quality. Post-harvest losses could also be reduced with the improved monitoring of storage conditions. Additionally, an increasing ability of smallholder farmers to sell to larger markets by allowing buyers to track crops to source (certification and provenance) would allow countries and governments to achieve food security targets due to the much wider availability of lower-cost and more nutritious food products.

Poverty reduction

In mainstream discourses, smallholder farmers are considered the main target of such digital innovation policies. In terms of poverty reduction, easier access to credit and improved traceability of agricultural products, together with better integration into the supply value chain, are believed to eventually increase selling prices and consequently boost smallholder income, therefore contributing to lifting people out of rural poverty. Aker et al. (2016) found, however, that there is limited evidence to support this claim and that farmers do not always manage to sell their products at higher prices when making use of digital market information systems.

In order to make the services economically affordable, one of the solutions offered resides in the ‘Facebook model’: a digital platform collects farmers’ data and gets revenues from using and/or selling this data. In exchange, the users don’t pay (see for example this post). In this way data becomes the ‘exchange good’ with which the farmer effectively pays for the services provided by the company. This opens questions related to data ownership and which arrangements can be put in place to protect farmers’ sensitive data.

Sustainability

In the end, market and economic considerations seem to prevail, so far, over concerns about sustainability and environmental change. A recent report by the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) in Wageningen states that “hard evidence of the impact of [such innovations] on climate resilience has yet to emerge”. The main climate change-related use case so far seems to be the highly localized weather forecasts, combined with the fact that “by increasing their productivity, [they] can help farmers earn additional income needed to invest in adapting to climate change”. Similarly, for the FAO “the effectiveness of these tools for advancing sustainability goals is unknown”. What are the real implications for the environment, then?

Other challenges and obstacles

From a socio-cultural point of view, there are other aspects that need to be taken into account. Agricultural knowledge transfer is a highly social process based on ‘on-field’ experience: human-to-human interaction might not be easily reduced to blocks of data analyzed by external algorithms (see for example Stone 2010). Also, what Friends of the Earth in a recent position paper calls the ‘erosion of tacit knowledge’ must not be overlooked: the risk is that delegating all farm-management decisions to an ‘expert app’ would reduce farmers’ autonomy and lock them into a dependency relationship with data analytics companies. Last, the lack of infrastructure, the ‘digital divide’ between urban and rural areas, and the high costs of telecommunication services in some countries represent obstacles which should be overcome before digital agriculture would be able to deliver the promised benefits for the rural poor.

In conclusion, the potential of the digitalization of agriculture in Africa to contribute food security, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability agendas still requires a proper assessment based on empirical evidence. More research is required in order to go beyond initial overoptimistic accounts and to facilitate the bridging of local barriers and yet unknown or unexpected effects.

This article is part of a series launched by the EADI (European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes) and the ISS in preparation for the 2020 EADI/ISS General Conference “Solidarity, Peace and Social Justice”. It was also published on the EADI blog.

About the authors:

Fabio Gatti is a graduate from the Agrarian, Food and Environmental Studies (AFES) major at the International Institute for Social Studies (ISS). Together with dr. Oane Visser, he is currently investigating the impact of digital innovations on smallholder agriculture in Africa.

Oane Visser (associate professor, Political Ecology research group, ISS) leads an international Toyota Foundation-funded research project on the socio-economic effects of – and responses to – big data and digitalization in agriculture.

Tag Archives digitalisation

1. Digitalisation as Fiction

2. Digitalisation as an Incomplete Image

3. Digital systems as a Double-Edged Political Tool

4. Rethinking Responsibility: From Digital to Dignity

Conclusion