If any country understands human mobility, it is Ecuador, because it itself has produced many people that have left and started to live in other countries and all these people also fall under the new Organic Law of Human Mobility, which establishes rights and obligations for migrants, immigrants, persons in transit, those who require international protection and victims of crimes of human trafficking and illegal migrant trafficking. People have the right to be treated with dignity, to have security, education, to work with dignity, to live with dignity, health. That is the meaning of not being illegal. You can’t penalize someone who is fleeing to save their life or for not having a passport. In Ecuador, there are no refugee camps, people are integrated. I met a group of Afro-Ecuadorean and Afro-Colombian women that had created an association and started their own business of selling textiles and clothes, and they were such a success that they were giving jobs to other Ecuadoreans. Those are the stories that move you.
Irene van Rij, head of UNHCR's Field Office in Guayaquil, Ecuador
Migrants contribute with their knowledge, networks, and skills to build stronger, more resilient communities. The global social and economic landscape can be shaped through impactful decisions to address the challenges and opportunities presented by global mobility and people on the move.
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) offers the opportunity and guidance to actualize human mobility and seize the opportunities it presents.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has assisted millions of migrants since it emerged 70 years ago to assist the vast number of Europeans displaced by the Second World War and continues to lead the way in promoting a humane and orderly management of migration for the benefit of all, including the communities of origin, transit and destination.
International Migrants Day 2021 - HARNESSING THE POTENTIAL OF HUMAN MOBILITY.
#Ecuador launches new human mobility national plan. @UNmigration
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility of Ecuador this week (04/06) presented the new Human Mobility National Plan. IOM, the UN Migration Agency, had supported the Government of Ecuador during the development of the Plan.
The Plan was developed within the framework of the National Foreign Policy Agenda’s 5th Objective, which focuses on “promoting the exercise of the rights of people…
It's Day 2 of a nationwide transport strike. Classes and work have been called off because of protests against the government's plan to modernize the transportation system.
While I agree with the government that we can transition into eco-friendly buses and jeepneys, they have to take into consideration that the increases in minimum wage are not enough to cover the increase in fares entailed by the investment to be made by operators and drivers. Some drivers work on a "boundary" system (akin to rents) where they turn over some of their profits to the operator and are left with the remainder. Some drivers don't even get enough to pay the "boundary."
In short, their pay is not regular.
The government has offered loans with preferential rates with the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines, but I really think the solution here is for the nationalization of the transport sector and increased investment in an actual bus / train system (construction of a subway is underway) or in the alternative, to subsidize the drivers and operators.
This is also punctuated by the ongoing regulatory struggle between ride-sharing applications such as Uber and Grab and problems of compliance with government regulations for common carriers.
In my opinion, these TNVs cannot escape common carrier liability because they ferry the public. They are taxicabs but on a digital platform.
But I'm digressing... back to government operating transport systems.
When the government bought out the light rail systems, they operated it in a surprisingly better way. The MRT-3, a disgrace of a train system, is privately-owned and operated. The LRT-1, the oldest line in the metropolis, is fully goverment-owned and operated and has much less breakdowns and stoppages than the MRT-3.
The government and the transport sector must end this madness. Impaired mobility is impaired growth. Our country loses Php 2 billion a day in productivity due to traffic jams and an inefficient transport sector. Our infrastructure problem turns away investors.
In the interim, the private sector should be able to introduce work-from-home schemes and agile work systems for at least the service sector. There are a lot of companies I know that can work on such a platform and increase productivity that way.
Everybody Knows This Isn't Nowhere: Designing for Non-Places
This summer at FUSE, we've been thinking about the “non-places” that people spend much of their lives at every day. While this term might be new to you, the concept is surely familiar. Maybe you're even reading this post from a non-place right now. Non-places are the transient waypoints we pass through on the way to where we are going. When we’re stuck in traffic on the highway on our way home from work, or waiting at the terminal for our flight to depart, or riding the subway surrounded by the same familiar strangers each morning, we’re at non-places. We visit non-places often, but they are never our destinations.
One concern with non-places and the increasing role they play in our lives, is that they are without character, and promote feelings of detachment. Despite the large number of people constantly passing through non-places, they lack a sense of community. We're starting to investigate what role social computing systems might play in addressing some of the shortcomings of non-places.
Technologies for Surfacing Communities around Non-Places
Non-places are distinct from “nowhere” in a critical way: our common human experiences at non-places imbues them with meaning, defining latent communities through co-presence. If you poke around the social web for a while, it doesn't take long to find people grabbing hold of these latent communities online in ad hoc ways. On Reddit you can find people exchanging stories and tips about public transit, for example sharing their praise and admiration for bus drivers or commiserating with one another over transit horror stories. On Foursquare, it’s common to see people check-in to non-place venues such as traffic jams. Airports are also among the most common Foursquare check-ins, giving people a way to signal their arrivals and departures, but also to be virtually present with their fellow travelers in transportation-limbo. Similarly, apps like Waze connect people in a lighthearted way with others on the road (often when they're stuck in traffic). What other technologies can we design to surface these latent communities and give them a voice and a purpose?
One of the reasons we're excited about this topic is that so much of our collective human attention is lying dormant as we pass through non-places. We sit on the bus, thumbing through the trendiest apps of the day, alone together with all the other passengers who thumb through the same apps. How can we leverage the attention of people at non-places? What problems can this community be tasked to solve collectively?
Though it’s too early for us to reveal what we’re planning (stay tuned!!), we’re experimenting with the design of a mobile app that:
automatically groups people on trips that start and end near each other;
surfaces latent non-place communities by connecting people who are on these common paths; and
enables communication among the members of these communities.
This app will help us investigate how to design systems to cultivate communities for non-places. Over the summer we're looking to explore questions of anonymity, identity, and engagement. How do we design social computing systems that allow people to connect, but are respectful of the delicate social balance of non-places?
Beyond communication, once we identified and cultivated these communities, we are interested in exploring how we can build new forms of transportation. Just over the last few years, innovations in transportation technology are rapidly changing the way we get around. By reducing the effort required to share excess transportation supply, services such as Über, Lyft, Car2Go, and bike sharing systems such as CitiBike are recalibrating what we thought was possible in transportation. Yet, we feel the transportation revolution in computing is just getting started. Imagine how much more would be achievable if we could unlock the power of the communities on the road. Can we finally solve the on-demand ride-sharing problem? Can we encourage healthier and more sustainable transportation decisions? Can we eliminate congestion? Can we build better, more efficient, and more "human" bus systems?
You can follow our progress on Twitter at @NonPlaceProject to stay in touch. We also need your help! Help us better understand the role that non-places play in your life. Are you part of a latent transportation-based community? Share your thoughts and stories below or on Twitter.
