DATA FOR CLIMATE ACTION

This story was originally published in the 1st edition of the Voices for Just Climate Action Magazine in June 2023. Read the full magazine here.

In 2022, the largest data and innovation event in Latin America, the Brazilian Conference on Data Journalism and Digital Methods (Coda.Br) had its first regional edition in seven years of history. Coda Amazônia, carried out in coalition with different organizations through the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) program, brought together in Belém (PA) more than 150 participants to talk about civic innovation, open data, data journalism, public transparency, and methods fingerprints.

Also, last year, the mapping of data ecosystems and civic innovation in the Amazon identified 182 actors who dialogue with local issues. These movements can be fundamental to driving the transformation of popular participation narratives and technologies in the Amazon region. By establishing a community for exchanging and promoting information, it is possible to develop a local culture that values the role of residents in the region as protagonists in building solutions for relevant issues in the community. Through the Escola de Dados (School of Data) program, Open Knowledge Brazil accessed this territory for the first time. But since the construction of the idea of holding a local edition of Coda, promoting the protagonism of local actors has been a priority. Half of the people invited to the first Coda Amazônia are from or residents of the North region. The same principle was also applied to contracting suppliers of services and materials for the event.

“We started the conference program talking about colonialism and data extractivism, about corporate actors appropriating data, but how do we, different parts of this ecosystem, manage to collect or produce data to drive our narratives, tell what is happening, from our perspectives? The coalition of organizations that promoted this event, and the VCA project more broadly, seeks to strengthen the civic innovation ecosystem in the Amazon. It is how we unite our capabilities to strengthen local voices”, highlighted the executive director of Open Knowledge Brazil, Fernanda Campagnucci.

Coda Amazônia was a hybrid, with 13 in-person workshops and live transmission, via YouTube, of its three main panels. There were more than 800 views online (via YouTube), around 47.1 thousand impressions of messages on the Escola de Dados (School of Data) profile and more than 3.6 thousand page views on the event’s website. The audience came from 49 cities located in 21 Brazilian states, which shows that the North region became the center of discussion in other regions during the event.

“I was able to understand more about some new subjects, mainly knowing the names of people of reference, who I will follow up with”, a participant replied when answering the anonymous form of evaluation of the event.

The event also provided connections, as in the case of a participant from Rio Branco, in Acre, who met a teacher from his city during Coda, in Belém. “For me, the theme was very relevant. I loved the participation of Sonaira [Silva], who I had never met in Acre, but we ended up connecting in Belém. As I am from Law, I believe that I would need to have a deeper contact with data analysis to be able to visualize tangible uses”, replied another participant.

For Jader Gama, information technology advisor at Funbosque, a researcher at the Center for High Amazon Studies at UFPA and a member of the Casa Preta collective, the face-to-face edition contributes to organizing local articulation. “Having participated in the first historic edition of Coda Amazônia shows that our group, consisting of very different people but with common goals, is on the right track. We can contribute and articulate an ecosystem. We are networkers, and this has a very large symbology in the Amazon territory”.

MOBILIZATION AND IMPACT

The event was organized by Escola de Dados (School of Data), from Open Knowledge Brazil (OKBR), through the coalition Strengthening the Data Ecosystem and Civic Innovation in the Brazilian Amazon, which involves institutions based in Pará – Casa Preta Afro-Engagement Association and Digital Inclusion of the Amazon Friends Association (INDIA/Puraqué Collective) – and from other regions (PyLadies Manaus and InfoAmazonia) under the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) program.

Beyond the involvement of the local organizations involved in the coalition, this participation and articulation initiated the dialogue with the Panamazonic Social Forum network, having as an initial step the choice to undertake Coda Amazônia as one of its preparatory activities. Then, the Federal University of Pará – through the Faculty of Communication (FACOM) and the Graduate Program in Communication (PPGCOM) – also joined efforts and provided their facilities to carry out the activities, as well as connecting Coda Amazônia to local students and researchers who formed the event’s documentation team.

Proof that the initiative began to take root was the creation of the Working Group composed of academics, public managers, and civil society organizations to coordinate the 2023 edition of the event.