Asylum requests in Brazil

Asylum services are extremely lengthy, frustrating and adding to the hardship of asylum-seekers that are eager and impatient to rebuild their life. Part of the problem is that asylum services are overwhelmed with more demands than they are equipped to handle. According to a recent article, in Brazil, 86,000 asylum seekers are waiting to hear about their asylum request while there are only 14 officials able to undertake the assessments.

CODE: pre-assessment, i.e. notifying straightforward cases (e.g. applications from countries at war), fact-checking (e.g. consistency between event dates) using ML, NLP, could decrease the length of the procedure significantly.

LAW: regulation enforcing higher (public) budget allocation to asylum services would allow to increase Human Resources dedicated to the different stages of the process (I.e. conducting the interviews, reviewing assessments and evaluating requests) and therefore decrease overall length of the process.

NORMS: Part of the reason why the Brazilian (and overall Latin-American) asylum services are so under-equipped to handle the increasing demand is because the topic is not considered a priority, by the government nor the civil society. A push from civil society could help bring the topic to the public agenda, increase the number of volunteers to support assistance and even legal processes.

MARKET: in Brazil, asylum-seekers are allowed to work once they have initiated their asylum process. Companies could partner with civil society, even government, to offer jobs for asylum-seekers thus reducing anxiety over papers.

Targeting of social programs

Targeting is intrinsically one of the core challenges posed by Conditional Cash Transfers (social programs aiming to reduce and break the intergenerational cycle of poverty). Currently, there are more than 100 nation-wide CCT programs.

CODE: improve inclusion/exclusion error rates using algorithmic fairness methods, i.e. reducing bias in selection against certain population subgroups (for e.g. rural vs urban).

NORMS: In certain countries, social programs such as CCTs face heavy criticism, for several reasons including ideology, accusations of patronage, corruption and inclusion errors (“people that are not poor receive it”). Improves in targeting could themselves contribute to changes in public opinion.

LAW: CCTs should be as institutionalized as possible, i.e. legally defined as initiatives independent from elected offices.

MARKET: private companies can partner with the government to offer employment for professionals who are themselves head of a beneficiary family or graduates / young professionals whose family was a beneficiary.

Crime prevention

In Latin America, homicide rates are four times higher than the world average. Violence creates fear and uncertainty, affecting not only the primary victim but also his/her family and community, also known as secondary victims. Although abundant research exists on the nature and sociology of crime, only a few studies worldwide have explored the effects of crime and violence on daily routines / activities of both primary and secondary victims.

CODE: use behavioral data such as bank card transactions’ metadata to assess the effect of crime shocks on daily lives, with a focus on the differential impacts between subgroups, starting by women and men – and provide insights for evidence-based policy to increase community resilience in the face of shocks.

LAW: Crime is a multifaceted issue. In certain Latin-American countries, one of (the many) drivers of criminality is impunity, especially for crimes such as murders and rape. Lobbying for stricter law enforcement and persecution of high-level crimes instead of low-level crimes.

NORMS: perception of insecurity, not just insecurity, also has an impact on individuals’ behavior. In areas where perception of insecurity is higher than insecurity, information-based campaigns can help citizens feel safe in their neighborhoods.

MARKET: local economy and businesses are also affected by crime and should be part of public initiatives to increase resilience of communities in the face of crime shocks.