Paper details

Paper authors	Alphoncina Lyamuya
In panel on	Governing digital risks in humanitarian action
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person & Online

Abstract

The authority of computational systems is on the rise in humanitarian settings. From the adoption of predictive analytics to forecast the inflow of refugees at the border to the use of biometric technologies to facilitate asylum processes, bureaucratic institutions are increasingly incorporating novel technologies into their humanitarian operations. Focusing on the case study of cash and voucher assistance (CVA) programs, this paper examines how humanitarian organizations incorporate – and in the process legitimize – automated decision-making systems in delivering aid to forcibly displaced communities. Given that CVA programs are praised for offering a ‘more dignified’ and ‘cost-effective’ approach to aid delivery, I ask: How does the implementation of automated technologies in aid delivery reconfigure the entanglement between humanitarian management and surveillance? Also, given that CVA programs rely on institutional data assemblages to coordinate the distribution of aid to forcibly displaced people, I ask: How do humanitarian organizations reconcile the risks that automated aid delivery imposes on already vulnerable populations they seek to help and protect? This paper situates ongoing sociotechnical changes in humanitarian organizations within broader power dynamics to interrogate the professed and actual impact of the turn to data-driven technologies in facilitating humanitarian operations in sites of forced displacement.

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