Dear All

Here is the latest  round up of new and interesting Politics sites of the week

 

 

In the news this week Zimbabwe elections.

This week Zimbabwe went to the polls
here are some useful research resources

A recent survey of the public for Afrobarometer found that "while a majority of citizens were optimistic that the election will be free and fair, substantial minorities remained worried about manipulation in the final stages of the electoral process." Search the website for other related surveys.

Official electoral legislation  can be found on the Zimbabwean Electoral Committee website
the harmonised election results are also being posted there.

Election observers.
the following teams are reviewing the conduct of the elections.
EU
Zimbabwe Election Support network is a coalition of civil society groups. it has raised concerns.
it has issued a preliminary statement
Commonwealth
EISA activities in Zimbabwe
IRI-NDI mission
SADC
Comesa

Africa Portal  has some good discussions. Including interviews with Zimbabweans. and the role of women in the elections.
Zimbabwe and human rights - new blog from Human Rights watch covering the elections. For more links see our blog.

 

 

World Friendship day- why it is bad to be lonely
30th July was designated
International day of friendship by the United Nations . The original resolution seeks to promote understanding and bridges between communities however friendship is also important to the mental health and wellbeing of individuals failure to address their needs impacts on the economic and social wellbeing of societies.
It can be difficult to define what constitutes social isolation. This paper  Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative 2014 considers the issues from an international angle

UK government strategies/ policies to reduce loneliness

the Campaign to End Loneliness has a research hub that links to recent examples of loneliness research
they cite a number of facts about negative impacts.
IoTUK has published a report on how technology might help

 

How many times a day do you check your phone?

According to the latest  Ofcom communications report people in the UK now check their smartphones, on average, every 12 minutes of the waking day. Their press release also has a fascinating infographic comparing usage and consumption of media from 2008 and 2018 which shows startling changes over the last ten years. The full report covers revenue from postal services and all other forms of UK telecommunications. It also provides insight into changing patterns of consumer usage.  For more media reports see our scoop.it page

 

Mapping climate change

Complex Emergencies and Political Stability in Asia (CEPSA) program at the University of Texas-Austin recently launched the Complex Emergencies Dashboard, which integrates raw data and modeling with mapping technology. See the climate change model. It includes physical exposure to climate-related hazards, population density, household and community resilience, and governance and political violence at both national and local levels enabling students to examine different criteria covering nations of Asia including India and Bangladesh.

 

Digital Hurricane Harvey collection now online

Rice University is preserving social media and other online memories of Hurricane Harvey which in In August 2017, caused flooding along the Texas gulf coast . It was also regarded as one of the earliest usages of  large scale social media as a form of communication during a natural disaster/ emergency. The Harvey Memories site has stories, images and videos of events . For example see this image of emergency alerts from an iPhone which create the sense the recipient was in  constant danger.

Other similar projects are the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank (HDMB), which houses artefacts from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, from the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University and the University of New Orleans  all contact user generated community reports as well as official emergency operation photographs and other resources.

 

 

Rural Solutions Portal launched.

A new website recently launched by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) which aims to showcase successful practical evidence based solutions to rural development problems and issues. Topics covered include food security, encouraging local community development , farming , agriculture

 

2018 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report: The Thread that binds

The United Nations has just released its annual report on volunteering.  It has estimations on the extent of volunteering by nation and gender. It also has special reports on how volunteering aids community resilience 

For information on the Uk

The Uk civil society Almanac 2017 has recent headline data on hours.  type and value to the economy which can be downloaded  free from its website. the Office for National Statistics discusses Changes in the value and division of unpaid volunteering in the UK: 2000 to 2015. This includes analysis of changes in participation and time spent volunteering in the UK and estimates of the monetary value of formal volunteering, based upon the Community Life Survey (CLS) and time use surveys. The Uk data archive provides an overview of major sources . These are available for UK archive members

Philanthropy Law reports expanded.
The International Centre for Non-for-Profit Law (ICNL)  has launched their Philanthropy Law Reports for India, China, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa focusing on information of national laws and regulations affecting philanthropies, including Civil Society, Non-government Organisations and Foundations. The site also includes global trends in NGO law. As well as a larger online library of NGO regulations overing all areas of the world.

(Dis)Connected Infrastructures and Violence Against Women’ project
British Academy funded project involving staff from Kings College London, LSE and Indian universities. It aims to investigate the potential role of technology in addressing  infrastructure blind spots and building safer cities for women in India. See the description. The blog has workshop material  which gives examples of innovative uses of technology for safety audits of geographic space . For example how gis mapping  can help with information on geography of the area by combining it with with records of violence and participatory mapping from local women.

 

Finally explore amazing images of Scottish life

The wonderful Digital Library of the National library of Scotland has just got better!

Their blog describes how the new technology of the universal viewer. Has improved functionality allowing better images and movement on the website. This now provides free access to over 73,000 images!
It you or your family are awaiting exam results see digitized Scottish exam papers from 1880s -1960s.
Here are some beach scenes they include amateur and professional footage around Scotland from the 1930s- 1970s. they are taken from the fabulous moving image catalogue

Best wishes

Heather Dawson

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