Local aid workers in the digital humanitarian project: between “second class citizens” and “entrepreneurial survivors”

This paper examines the experiences of Filipino workers recruited for technology and communications work by international aid agencies involved in the Typhoon Haiyan response. Filipino workers, many of whom were personally coping with the social and economic impact of this disaster, were hired on short-term contracts to test and implement various digital humanitarian innovations such as feedback and hazard mapping technological platforms. These workers were doubly marginalized: first, as tech workers whose work was viewed by aid officers on the ground as less substantial than that of food or shelter programs; and second, as local voices often drowned out by national and international colleagues. Moving beyond the usual figure of the cosmopolitan and adventure-seeking Western humanitarian acting on distant suffering, this paper draws attention to local aid workers’ aspirations for personal and professional mobility as they seize novel opportunities opened up by the digital humanitarian agenda. It outlines how the digital humanitarian project’s ambition to facilitate the inclusion of disaster-affected communities is fundamentally undermined by labor arrangements that doubly marginalize local aid workers.     

Beyond the Rails

The inauguration of the railway be-tween China and Laos is a key milestone in the realization of the Pan-Asian Railway Network running between Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province in southwest China, and Singapore.     

NEW DIMENSIONS

The active involvement of China in UN peacekeeping operations in the past three decades has earned it the status of global peace provider. Ever since China first deployed troops to the UN's blue helmets in 1990, when it sent five military observers to the Middle East, its commitment to serving the wellbeing of humanity through UN peacekeeping remains a key initiative showcasing the country's soft power.     

RCEP: Building Bridges,Not Walls

The parliamentary ratification of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement by 10 signatory states has finally set the world's biggest ever free trade bloc into motion, albeit only among the ratifying na-tions, on January 1, 2022. Six Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam, as well as Australia, China, Japan and New Zealand, have completed the ratification procedures. The RCEP was also signed by another four ASEAN members, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Philippines, as well as the Republic of Korea (ROK). Once in full effect, it will cover approximately 30 percent of the world's population and one third of global GDP. The agreement manifests the firm commitment of all 15 signatory economies in the Asia-Pacific region to upholding an open, inclusive and rules-based multilateral trading system. Its implementation is particularly timely for the region as its economies struggle to recover from the impacts of COVID-19 and rising trends of de-globalization.