Karen Bett - Mapping Ourselves Into Existence w/ Data, Power & Citizen Voice

In this episode we sit down with Karen Bett, Kenyan economist, data policy powerhouse who shares a transformative vision of how citizen data and mapping can reshape the world. From pushing governments to publish open budgets to helping to put entire communities like Kibera on the map, Karen is on a mission to ensure no one remains invisible. With clarity and conviction, she unpacks the power of GIS in disaster response, education, health, and equity—and why data isn’t just numbers, but a force for dignity, justice, and truth. Tune in to explore how the future of development is being co-authored by everyday people, one map at a time.

Transcript

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Be black. Be black. Be bold. Bold. Be innovative. Show the world equitable gl. We're coming together as a collective to celebrate people of African descent, the diaspora, and talking about geospatial equity and justice. You're listening to the North Star Gaze, a podcast with intimate stories from GL luminaries. Hi everyone. So today's episode is one I'm truly excited about. Today we have data and policy powerhouse, and we're going to get into the world of data policy and inclusion. So our guest today is called Karen Bett. She's a senior policy manager. At the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development? During Covid is when Karen and I met and we were working on a couple of really interesting, impactful projects around data, how data can be used to push for visibility when it comes to gender based violence and what that looks like from a data policy perspective. That was my introduction to Karen and her work. Her work has been very impactful. She pushes for accountability and transparency across organizations, governments, and she was actually part of the team that advocated for having the government of Kenya publish budgets online for free for the public to access. And so when it comes to her view of how she looks at data and. Powering government systems and building data systems around accountability. That is her go-to and that's her niche. I'm really excited about this episode so allow me to welcome Karen Karen maybe before we get into your world, you can start by, introducing yourself. My name is Karen. I'm a Kenyan woman living and working in Nairobi, Kenya with my family. I've been in international development for close to 15 years now and really working on data particularly. Data for development, but also working on public finance and poverty alleviation. My background is in economics. And it was interesting that in my grad school is when I got introduced to the sustainable development goals. Back then it was the MDGs and it was that moment I almost vividly. I enjoy every day of my work and yeah, very. Karen, so I know when we were started working on the Covid project, we were coming at from an angle of incorporating, mapping and GIS data into that particular project. And I'm curious to know what was your first interaction of GIS? Was this, was that the first time you're hearing of GIS and, pushing for the incorporation of maps into understanding gender-based violence or health and how we are looking at health. It's interesting. My first interaction with GIS was actually not that project. He was more at a personal level. So my brother who I follow is a GIS specialist. Back in, 20 years ago, he would talk about GIS and me with just the level of knowledge. Then I couldn't understand what he was doing, but he seemed very influential on my dad. My dad wanted a map of our village a map of a farm he's bought somewhere in the middle of nowhere and my brother could. It did sound like a very clever thing that he was doing and he could get my, and my interaction with though, of course I wasn't actively. And then of course before the Covid work I joined the Global Partnership and one of the initiatives that we were championing back then in 2018 was access to earth observation for countries to support them in decision making. How cities have developed, how land has degraded, how forests have reduced or increased. And for me that was another second moment to really get all get on GIS state and observation. And then of course, the third one was interactions with you during the pandemic, it was hard for government to, in real, therefore there's an opportunity to utilize the resources that was within reach for government, which is the people on the ground. Use technology and then see what can happen in such a situation where you need data much faster to make decisions in real time. You don't have the mechanism to deploy questionnaires to people on the ground. That was for me another demonstration. Why realtime information, realtime data through use of GIS and other data sources was quite powerful. Thank you so much for that. I have a two part question. First I heard you say MDG, I'm familiar with Sustainable Development Goals or SDG. Can you explain to our audience what MDG is and also. So I'm listening to you. It's fascinating that you had a brother who was already working with GIS but we're in an age right now where people are very concerned about data disappearing. And I'm just curious about for the work that you do, how has your view of geography and maps influence the work? Is there something that, seeing it. Displayed has enabled you to see or do as a result of having it on the map? Yeah. Thanks Erica. Just on your first question on MDGs that's the Millennium development goals, and this was the global goals that the world was aspiring to achieve before the sustainable development goals. The SDGs is just how collaborative the SDGs has been compared to the mdg. So the millennium development was primarily led by government and the rest of us in the world watching what government doing and how government is monitoring progress. Whereas for the sustainable development goals, it's really everyone has a role to play, including yourself and myself, and the organizations we represent and the communities we represent in achieving those goals. So for me, of course, the MDG sounded exciting because I was a student and it sounded like these are the things we should be prioritizing, but. Much higher in terms of excitement and really seeing what we can achieve as a world when we work together. On your second question just the power of maps and the power of, GIS for me it's almost that thing that, it's hard to dispute, if there's a school and it can be mapped. Then there is a school. If there's a health facility in a community and it is mapped, then it exists. So it's hard to dispute observational maps because it's the reality on the ground. And I think for me, what I've observed in the work that I do is data. Increasing become really powerful to even influence policy makers. One, because it provides realtime information. It doesn't need map locations, you fairly technology and. Mobilizing communities. So that has accelerated access to data. It has also done something really powerful in that it has engaged communities in the process of producing data. And just that process of engaging communities is really powerful for communities to understand. Why it's important to invest in data, but also to invest in facilities and for communities to hold their leaders for account. I think what I've also observed with time is we are moving. We've got the buy-in from policy makers on the importance of this non-traditional sources. We are now getting into a space where we're, thinking about governance, thinking about confidentiality, and particularly, observation is really, locating someone. It's getting someone's, where they are at that moment, and you can almost even know what they're doing depending on, where they're, and that is really getting into discussions around privacy and confidentiality, which are important to have because we need to have the guardrails because if you flip the coin around data for good, then data can be. Location data falls in the wrong hands. It can actually, be very dangerous and can actually harm people rather than doing good. So I've seen the volition where we are using data now in addition to just having that data, what are the governance mechanisms that need to be in place to ensure that we're regarding the people who are giving us this information? As you're speaking, I'm looking at it from a user perspective, right? One of the biggest sources of data we have is government and from census data to, like the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, and you've worked with governments across the globe, in strengthening how they look at data, their data systems, and how they can use data to drive citizen engagement, but also what you've mentioned accountability. And so as you're speaking, I'm thinking of data democratization and like what you did with budgets, and I'm trying to figure out. There's clearly a gap when it comes to getting access to the data that we need in the format that we need, I think there's been conversations around can we be able to get boundaries data from, I don't know, whichever government authority, can it be updated, can it be free? Can it be available? And I'm curious to know as a policy manager, what's the pathway towards us having. Some of these data that we think are really important for analysis for innovators, what's the pathway for us to getting there? And can you paint a picture of where we are at in terms of, making data not just open, but also useful. What does that look like from where you see it and your interaction with different African governments on the state of data and democratization? Yeah. I have like about three or four features or characteristics that would get us. To that point, I think the most important, of course, is having champions in government, champions outside government, who really see the value of data being available and accessible and usable. And it only takes champions to, push for example, with kenya Open movement. It really took a government champion professor Vi demo to show that it's important and therefore he just took the responsibility. Of course we wouldn't have champions everywhere, but as much as we can get champions to push for that agenda it would go well. And I think when we're thinking of champions within government, like within the National Status offices, the head of the National Steps offices being the champions themselves, and also, more technical staff also playing. I think the other thing that's important is just demonstrating the use almost use cases. So what's the value? What's the benefit of this data being available and usable, and how does it improve lives? How does it change lives? I think the more use cases, the more demonstrations we can give to government on the value of the data, then the more chances of us. Data multiplies its value when it's used and reused. So once you produce data once the only way you can make most use of it multiplying the benefits is making it accessible for others to use and reuse. The other point, and it's important that I mentioned this earlier as well. What data can be more harmful, if it's fully? And how do you protecting communities, protecting the data or, the people who pro contributed that data. So it's really also thinking that do we have the right legislations as a country? Do we have the right guidance and guidelines and standards to ensure that even once data is open, it's used in a way that is ethical, that is confidential, but also safeguarding the rights of the subject. That's so interesting and I, I'm sitting here going I wanna know so much more about what you're doing and how it evolved over time. I am particularly curious about the use of maps as deliverables and how. That became a thing in your organization, where did the push come from to begin to incorporate maps? And when I hear you talking about the value of data for so many people on this podcast, we're pretty much all data geeks, right? But for people who are not data geeks, sometimes seeing that image. Gives them an aha moment. So I'm trying to understand like what were the aha moments for your organization and who was driving for maps as being part of the deliverables? Yeah, I think I feel there are like two routes that put us to those aha moments or two aha moments really for us as the global partnership one. And the work that I champion has always been non-traditional data that communities are involved in, and in that moment I found that we could get examples where citizens were actually doing the mapping themselves and getting the communities on the map. And for me that was really powerful that, you start with a community does exist completely. Find a community on the map and a community that has mapped its schools, it has mapped its hospitals, it has mapped its water points, it has mapped the churches other social amenities. And that's really powerful because the community now knows we have. Three schools in our community, we need eight schools. And they can actually walk to their policymaker and, make the case why they need more schools, because it takes so long for children to get to school and water point. So for me, the power of citizens playing a role in producing the data. For me was really an aha moment that this is really powerful and if we They can also do it through social accountability. They can do it through community surveys or community sensors and other ways, but really citizens contributing to data was a powerful move. The second one, which was an aha moment for us as an organization, is when we began our work in 2015. We walked to government. And one of the things they asked for was observation because they had observed that the forests were degrading over time, but they just could not know how far back this goes and what's the magnitude of the scale. They could see the cities developing, but they didn't have information. So it was really a demand from governments to get access to observation. And back then it used to cost a lot of money to get access to that, and it needed a lot of skills. Very high skills to analyze. So that was one of the first offers we broker as the global partnership. We created the, we call it the Africa Regional Data Cube that has now evolved into the digital Africa, and that's giving African countries access to observation, at no cost and building their skills to analyze that observation for them to make the decision. This is really exciting and to people who are repeat listeners of the Gaze You, they will hear some links from what you are saying to some of our other episodes where some of our guests have talked about the need to. Put tools in the hands of lay people to make it easier for them to both access data and to be part of data collection. So this is pretty exciting. I, my head is just exploding because my next question seems I feel like you are already living that. The question is how can GIS be used to make the world a better place? But it sounds like that's your job right now but tell us from your perspective, how do you think GIS can be used to make the world a better place? Yeah, it reminds me of one organization that I think about three years ago they won an audacious project funding. Like mapping the world and it just showed me that in as much as GIS is really powerful. There are still places that are just a blank slate when you look at the map. And I think what we really need to get to is to map the world everywhere, not just the Global south. Remote villages, remote locations where, sometimes even technology and internet. But I think, if we can map the entire world, that would be really powerful because mapping does something really powerful that I'd mentioned earlier. It is the truth. It's either on the map or, it exists or it doesn't exist, but it also helps in just resource and decision making. For example for disaster preparedness, it's hard to know where to deploy resources when there's a flood. If you don't know where those locations are. This is where now community volunteers provide that support to map locations. There's still lots of potential for gis. And also advancing technology so that skills are easier to by communities, but also the devices that we use are easier to be used with low resource setting. Thanks Karen. As you're speaking, I'm like, wow, I didn't know that was actually the origin of how digital Earth Africa came to be. I think I've always thought that was very interesting to hear on how that project came about. And now we have this platform that's available for. African governments and for us to make use of app observation data. I'm curious, are you speaking about the different projects and the engagements with governments and having communities participate? What challenges, if any, would you say you face as a policy manager in what you're doing as a senior policy manager with these interactions? Wow. Challenges are many. Such as the nature of the beast. I think policy work is a very patient job. It's not something you just wake up to and demonstrate and convince and win people over. It's really a continuous dialogue. It's really engaging with government one step at a time but really trying to win them over and influencing their minds. So it's really about changing people's minds because that's when you start seeing the results in terms of policy. So I wouldn't call it a challenge, it's just the nature of the. Discussion convincing, proving going back to the drawing board but I feel that the reward, once, the policy makers get that aha moment is so powerful and transformational. And this is why it's really important, for policy work. To influence government because government has that mechanism to transform communities and to transform societies because they have that machinery. The other thing which I've observed over time is that it's difficult to do policy work in isolation as just one institution trying to push a policy agenda. It's important to really collaborate and join forces with like-minded organizations. And for me, those are moments where I've seen the power of policy engagement is when we go as a movement or as a collaboration rather than individual organizations. Success rates move faster when we go together I feel like I want to dig deeper into that question. Are there specific, policy or outcomes that really blew your mind after you approached government are there like exciting moments where you're like, oh my God, I can't believe we actually passed that and we now have a policy around that. And then I'm also curious on. When you're talking about citizens mapping and being able to put themselves on maps and using this technology, I'm curious on what that looks like on the ground, just to paint a picture for a global audience. Is it the use of smartphones or that technology just to give a clear picture of what community engagement looks like when it comes to technology and the technologies they're using to map these communities. Yeah, I could start with your last question and then I'll go back to the first one. I think for citizen mapping, citizens take the responsibility of mapping the location. I believe they use the smartphone and their devices to locate, institutions, whether it's schools, hospitals and other facilities, and really level them. So it's really getting things on the map by labeling and contributing to the development of maps. And from communities I've seen. Examples of that I could give the example of Map Kibera. Map Kibera is an community in Nairobi, where it started with not being on the map. So being on the map because the communities that live in Kibera took the responsibility of mapping that community and. On your first point. It's interesting that many of, like when I go back to my work earth observation and mapping always pops in the work that I've done and manage to influence governments when I started working with the Global Partnership, on where communities take the responsibility of leading issues. And back then there was a lot of backlash a lot of resistance, particularly from government on that type of data. It was seen as biased. It was seen as not of good quality, was seen as not representative enough. And one day I walked to a government office in one of the countries that I in. And as I was trying to a picture of what citizen data is I used. Google and just told them, if you needed to go to a certain location, you'll get on your phone and look for the map. You know that sometimes it's citizens who actually develop those maps. It's not done by, people who are sitting very big offices in a faraway land. Citizen data is not data that is really strange that comes from the blues. It's actually data that they have contributed to, or they've used in their day-to-day lives. And, fast forward to where we are now in the discussion about Citizen data is we no longer need to convince government. Data that's good enough for measuring the SDGs or just for measuring development. We're now talking of how do we use it, how do we scale, how do we improve? That is really interesting. Karen, thank you so much for sharing that perspective. We are part of an organization, north Star of GIS. What can we do to be supportive of the work that you're doing? Yeah, Erica I think. The more of us talk about the power of communities and citizens playing a role in data, the better. And I think even just with the work that STAR does in terms of supporting people of African descent to show that there's lots of good work out there, I think is really powerful because what I've seen. Happen mostly is we don't hear stories from the continent. We don't hear stories from communities like us about the power of the work that we do. But if, if you're to look at places like Europe there's a very strong movement even supported by governments around citizen data and citizen science. And sometimes it's just that we are not telling our stories. Not that we don't have stories, we're just not telling our stories. And I think I. The work that you do is really very powerful in telling those stories and getting the people who have those stories into one place. And I think also being the the place that sort of curates the stories becomes like a one stop shop to amplify the message. And I think that's really powerful. So I think what you can do is continue telling the story and also really getting those voices of those communities that. Their lives have changed because they've been mapped or they've been part of mapping, or they found themselves in a map, and therefore their lives have been transformed. And it's not only just, the stories of citizens and communities, also the stories of government, what have governments achieved by just mapping their communities and understanding the needs of their communities based on maps. Thanks. Karen as you exited, we had a really interesting offline conversation on the importance of Citizen Data and what that looks like and really like the perspective you brought in, right?'cause I don't think I looked at Citizen data from that perspective, which is really powerful and I'm curious on. Where the checks and balances when it comes to, 'cause I'm also now looking at it from can it be a threat as well where the data can be manipulated from, for example, the people it's coming from or from maybe by outside forces in manipulating and how do we create guardrails around that? I think one example we've seen is when we had the. I think this was in the news, right? Where there was a fight around the Kenyan boundary and I think the Somali boundary and there was discussions around, oh, but you moved it. No, I didn't move it. You moved it. And that was like a really interesting conversation on even how GIS analysts locally and in Somali are using the maps. And it would be very interesting'cause you're literally just showcasing a map of schools and then it would go to, do you mind zooming out? I to see where our boundary is and it's. That's not our boundary, right? And so it's clearly, this is just boundary, but there's clearly the other side of it on. And I'm wondering what that would look like from the citizen data and the threats and the how do we, what are the guardrails around that from a policy perspective? Wow. That's a question that needs a whole university to answer. I wish I had the answers because those are the things that, I really. The world is not full of only good people. It's also full of very bad people. And people who actually see data as a powerful tool to do harm. As you give the example of the boundaries of Kenyan, Somalia, it can get very political and actually create lots of diplomatic tension. Even war. You never know. I don't have the answers unfortunately. I just know that it's a discussion that has to happen and should happen fairly soon. And that discussion should not happen with us in the policy spaces in, international conferences, I think it needs to happen at the community level. It's really giving the communities, the agency to really decide what are the guardrails that make sure that your privacy is infringed or your. Data that you contributed to has been reused in a way that you don't understand that you don't approve of, and that, ends up doing more harm than good. So I know what we need to do and how we need to do it. I just don't know, like what are the boundaries of what we'll get into, but it's an important discussion we need to get into, especially because technology is moving so rapidly. AI is you can't think of the world before ai because AI is all we think about now, but things are moving so fast and naturally what happens is innovation goes way ahead before regulation and those guardrails. But if we can try and close that space, that gap, that time lag as much as possible, it's important and it takes everyone's efforts and it really has to start from the ground up rather than from up down. Thanks, Karen. I think as we're wrapping up one would be, I'm curious on how you interact with, the wider community? And then the second one would be, I think you talked about that, but yeah, your biggest breakthrough and why was it impactful to you? So your biggest breakthrough and why it was impactful to you. And then in what ways do you interact with the wider GIS community? Besides me, well, besides you it's you. But anyway, I think I've. I wouldn't say I've done a perfect job interacting with the GIS communities. I'd love to get into those spaces more because of course, just how powerful GIS is and just how good GIS is. And also I think I've focused my efforts mainly in getting that global policy. Movement going around the role of citizen data and the power of citizen data. And now I feel it's time for me now to come down and start really interacting more with those communities that produce the data that we've been championing. So I. I'm looking forward to getting more involved in the GIS communities in the continent, but also in the country and doing more. And, taking it back up to just demonstrate that, all these things we're talking about here are the realities, here are the people, here's the results. And I think for me, that's really powerful that I'm thinking laddering down and laddering up the work that I do so that it really, influences those global spaces that we take the conversations to in the data for development world. I did mention a bit of what I felt was a breakthrough, which is convincing the global statistical community that citizen data is good enough to be used for measuring sustainable development goals and actually is a powerful. Data source that can close data gaps, that can be produced much faster, much cheaper than relying on census and surveys, which take 10 years, take five years. And if we engage with communities, if we engage with citizens in producing data it's much faster. That engaging citizens in data processes is powerful in and of itself because citizens then feel and communities feel. That they're part of the process and they're part of finding the solutions. And I think for me, that's my constant reminder why I do the work that I do is for citizens and communities to see themselves in data and that they have a part to play in the solutions that affect their lives. Fantastic. Thank you so much for that, Karen. Finally, on a lighter note, one of the questions that we ask our guests is this. When you think back to the beginning of 2024, or maybe as you did a recap in your mind what was not on your bingo card for 2024 that came to fruition? What happened that you totally did not see coming or that you hoped would come that didn't show up? Yeah this, by far, Erica was the hardest question as I was trying to look through the questions, preparing for this. So early 20, 24, I had a baby. Thank you. And it was interesting. I knew that, have the baby, I'll bounce back, I'll get back to my work and I'll, I'll conquer the wild in 22 4. And then of course that was, that wasn't my big part. I needed to bounce back like a month after having the baby. But, some things take time. You also need to give yourself time to, bounce back. But I also realized, when I fully bounced back that. There's still lots and lots of work to do. So it, I guess it was just the fear of missing out and sometimes we, as women of this age group tend to. Put too much pressure on ourselves especially in, balancing work and life. But there's a season for everything. And now, I enjoyed the moment of motherhood and nurturing my baby to be where she is now. And I have bounced back. I don't feel now that I lost 20, 24 just because I was getting another human being to adjust to the world. I think that was. An equally even more important role that I play as a mother. And yeah, I thought I was just going to bounce back in a flash, but it took more time, but it was much more rewarding for sure. Fantastic. What an awesome thing. Thank you so much for sharing that glimpse of your life. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about North Star of Gs, check us out on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube at GIS North Star. We want to thank our sponsors of the 2024 Homecoming event, our institutional partner, reg Grid, and our sponsors, new Light Technology, ATech and Black at work. We'd like to thank our keynotes, Tara Roberts, Linda Harris, Dr. Paul Hinz Brown and Vernice Miller, Travis. We'd like to thank Howard University and the staff at the Interdisciplinary Building and Photography by Imagery by Chioma. We also wanna thank our guests for trusting us with their stories. Tara, Linda Paulette, Christian Abraham, Jason Vernice, Stella Beye, Karen, Nikki, George Frank Ladi, Toussant, Victoria. I'm the HBCU Environmental Justice Technical Team. And finally, thank you to the North Star team and our wonderful volunteers. We are your hosts of the season two of the North Star Gas Podcast, which is based on the 2024 Homecoming Conference event. Thanks for listening to the North Star Gaze, intimate stories from geo luminaries. If you're inspired to advance racial justice in geo fields, please share this podcast with other listeners in your community. The intro and outro, or produced by Organized Sound Productions with original music created by Kid Bodega. The North Star Gaze is produced in large part by donations and sponsorship. To learn more about North Star of Gs, check us out at north star of gis.org and on Facebook or Instagram at GIS North Star. 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