ASSOCIATION FOR PROGRESSIVE COMMUNICATIONS 2 0 2 23
Overview
In mid-2021, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) was asked
by Ariadne Network, the Technology and Society Program at the Ford Foundation
and the Mozilla Foundation to prepare a series of short issue briefs for funders
on potential priority areas for funding activities or initiatives that would bring
the work of digital rights organisations and environmental justice actors closer
together. The context was the recognition that there was a need for the two
groups to work more collaboratively given the global environmental and climate
emergency.
APC proposed four briefs, which are outlined below, and can be read in full
alongside this document. The briefs are different in focus and style, but
nevertheless follow the same structure and approach in identifying key areas for
intervention. Each brief states the key problem from the perspective of the APC
network, suggests mechanisms or processes for engagement and actors we feel are
worth engaging, and includes specific recommendations for donors.
Also included below is a summary of top-level recommendations common to all
of the briefs, which highlight the need for building trust between digital rights
organisations and environmental justice actors, an awareness of each other’s
priorities and ways of engagement, collaborative frameworks for action, including
through research and capacity building, as well as identifying new ways of
outreach and engagement. The briefs include APC’s perspectives on how best to
approach these needs and recommended processes, based on years of experience
in working collaboratively on digital rights.
he briefs have been developed through a collaborative process that involved
input and feedback from a small group of interested members, partners and allies in APC’s Technology, Environmental Justice and Sustainability Initiative.01 APC
circulated drafts of the briefs for input and convened two online meetings to
discuss the briefs, with an aim to ensure that they represented the perspectives
and concerns of the APC network working in the global South.
While there are many other important fields of activity that need funding and
further exploration, and no doubt other actors and networks worth engaging
not identified in the briefs, it was hoped that the briefs would at least be able to
provide reference points for collaboration between digital rights organisations and
environmental justice actors, and areas of immediate impact and intervention for
donors. They should therefore be read as the beginning of a broader conversation,
rather than ends in themselves.