Tag: Afghanistan

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Dispute Resolution Ideabook

Mobile phone Dispute Resolution with m-Jirga

Open Law Lab - Process FLow mjirga

 

The M-Jirga from Colin Rule

A presentation by Colin Rule, of Online Dispute Resolution fame, on a concept design for a mobile traditional justice platform. The m-Jirga program would mimic an elders council meeting in a town square or mosque, that would hear disputants’ sides of a conflict, then vote and issue a ruling on who will prevail.

The M-Jirga from Colin Rule is a presentation from a few years ago, with an initial sketch of what a mobile-phone based dispute resolution system would look like.

The m-Jirga was proposed for a rural Afghan audience, but wasn’t ultimately implemented. As a concept design, it is a useful starting point. How might we design systems of justice — that lets a person bring a dispute with another, get a chance to advocate her position, and receive an enforceable ruling — that could be accessed on dumb mobile phones or basic smart phones?

And, how might we let people who are disadvantaged in traditional justice systems (likely: young women, minorities, very poor) present their position in semi-anonymous way, so that their typical disadvantage is erased?

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Current Projects Training and Info

Call-in shows, SMS text-ins, and other ways to get right, fact-checked info

access-innovation-ideas-tech-rumor

A major problem in governance is the spread of misinformation and rumors. Sometimes these result from concerted campaigns by political actors, to manipulate politicians with rumors meant to make them suspicious or fearful about something.  Other times rumors are not driven by anyone, but snowball on their own.  Either way, flare-ups of rumors can wreak havoc on governance, personal security, community relations, and rule of law.

Misinformation can also be a problem regarding the law. With a proliferation of online forums and social media, people may get legal information from their peers that is incorrect. Can we use mobile tech to combat common misinformation and rumors, and spread quality and correct information?

Technology can be a carrier of rumors — see the unrest in the last Kenyan elections, when rumors sent by text fed into ethnic attacks, riots, and deaths.  But there are some tech design projects which are trying to quell, staunch, and kill rumor campaigns to improve local governance and relations.  A recent report by the USIP highlighted several of these in Afghanistan.

Call-In Program: Present the Rumor to Experts & Check if Its True

“Afghanistan has evolved rapidly as a test bed for mobile-based programs at the district level that have the potential to improve both communication with government officials and transparency. This is exemplified by the work done by the UK-managed Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), which has launched two mobile-based programs that deserve careful consideration for broader rollout in other districts: a specialized call-in radio program and a crime-reporting hotline. The team has demonstrated initial success in holding local government officials accountable for their response to emergencies and crime while engaging civil society anew, and the programs make for worthwhile case studies. Radio call-in shows are not new to Afghanistan. What distinguishes this weekly program in Helmand is the expanding audience it has, thanks to its regular use of provincial official as hosts who take questions from citizens about civil administration. The show is hosted on local station Bost and is funded by the UK government, which purchases commercial airtime for the show.

“Radio is the most popular and easy-to-use communication medium in Afghanistan, but call-in programs have had varying degrees of success. This show, however, has proved to be very popular by allowing provincial officials, who are constrained in their ability to travel because of security concerns and poor transport, to speak about the state of affairs in their sectors and address the concerns of constituents. Nick Lockwood of the Helmand PRT underscored the potential of this forum when he described a program that had led a senior police chief to make a number of changes to his unit in response to listeners’ complaints about corruption among his officers. Subsequent programs hosted by other district police chiefs benefited by attracting ever bigger audiences.

In an information-starved environment like Afghanistan, where such call-in programs meet with notable success, officials should also consider using an IVR-based news system to combat the rumors that can be so dangerous. In fact, the Institute for War & Peace Reporting launched its IVR-based news service around the September 2010 elections in Afghanistan. Its Cell Phone Voter Project provided users with a toll-free number to access news stories about the elections via their phones in Dari, Pashto, and English.”

Fact Check by SMS

“MobileActive.org’s Katrin Verclas, a pioneer in mobile phone deployments, pointed to Zimbabwe, where MobileActive.org had helped to implement an information system with features that could be adapted for similar purposes. On hearing of an event or news story, users can send an SMS to the system, which then replies with a phone call that provides accurate information about the event or news. Users can listen to messages in three different languages. In the first week of its implementation in Zimbabwe, this program received over three thousand phone calls and is helping to create a more politically engaged public.”

Mobile Citizenship

“Verclas further noted that mobile telephony is likely to be used more frequently in this way to raise awareness of critical issues of citizen concern, share documented stories of localcrime and corruption, record user responses to questions and prompts, and poll citizens about local issues. Lockwood of the Helmand PRT confirmed this observation in the Afghan context, indicating plans to explore ways of promoting the agenda, activities, and meetings of the District Community Councils (DCCs) as a way of creating a sense of ownership of the DCCs among their constituent populations and instilling a demand for services. USAID also has plans to create a service called Mobile Khabar (khabar means “news” in Dari and Pashto) to use mobile phones as a delivery system for news and information.”

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Dispute Resolution Ideabook

Mobile Dispute Resolution for Access to Justice in Afghanistan

The Internet Bar Organization has fielded a proposed design, the Internet Silk Road Initiative, that would use online and mobile tech to provide access to justice & dispute resolution capabilities to Afghanistan.

The project’s website is down now, indicating that perhaps the proposal has been shelved right now. But its ambit is of interest:

“The proposed Internet Silk Road project aims to provide a vitally important service to Afghan communities at a time when the need for clearly defined land tenure is a growing concern for both foreign and domestic interests in the country.

Our goal is to resolve Afghan land disputes by

1. investigating the effective and ineffective aspects of the dispute resolution systems currently in use,

2. collecting evidence related to potential disputes helping to create a harmonized e-registry of land and attendant disputes, and

3. creating an alternative dispute resolution mechanism for land disputes that integrates traditional and formal dispute resolution practices to provide disputants a remedy that is accessible, fair and just.

To be judged a success, the project must gain acceptance both by the populace and the central government, in accordance with IBO’s broader mission of promoting effective rule of law through ADR.”

It would use basic technology to let citizens document their sides of dispute and present it for ADR process. The tech could provide a structure and design to the ADR, guiding the citizens through it. It could also supply a way to collect, store, and share evidence that will be useful in deciding the outcome of ADR.

There are more slides for the proposed project from a USIP November 2011 presentation.

Of course, there is no online information about how this system could be implemented with citizens and with the approval-stamp of the government. The inklings of the project provide one prototype (or perhaps, concept design) that could move the ODR for ATJ (Online Dispute Resolution for Access to Justice) idea space forward.

Sheldon Himelfarb wrote a summary of different mobile-based design interventions for improving quality of life and rule of law in Afghanistan, including a short summary of the ‘aspirational program’ of the Online Dispute Resolution system.

He wrote, “Currently, the promise of this program seems to be mainly in capturing land data in digital form through the use of smart phones in order to convert handwritten and woefully inadequate land records into reliable digital repositories. The actual arbitration via mobile phone of the project is decidedly more problematic. Although a great deal of preparatory work has been done, considerable cultural challenges remain, given Afghanistan’s traditional justice system. Most of the Afghanistan rule-of-law experts who were consulted expressed great skepticism about the willingness of local communities to abide by decisions rendered by officials, however impartial, who are remote and unfamiliar to them”

This commentary indicates the cultural and political barriers that may arise to prevent an ODR for ATJ system.