A New Generation of Analysts at CABAR.asia School in Almaty

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Working with big data, analysing conflicts, writing about sensitive issues: the latest Fifth CABAR.asia School of Analytics was held in Almaty from September 26 to October 1.

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In his welcoming speech, IWPR CA Director Abakhon Sultonnazarov said that CABAR.asia analytical platform was created 8 years ago to strengthen the expert potential of the Central Asian region. As part of this platform’s activities, IWPR regularly conducts educational events for young experts.

“We highly prioritise helping all of you – analysts, experts, and researchers – to build as many connections as possible during the School. Today, this is more important than ever, since you have a very responsible mission to unite our societies, establish a dialogue between our countries and be the agents of positive changes,” Abakhon Sultonnazarov said.

Later, the alumni of the previous Schools of Analytics held their presentations. Among them was Sergey Marinin, IWPR Central Asia Project Manager.

Then, the editors of the regional analytical informational and educational platform CABAR.asia Nargiza Muratalieva, Natalia Lee, and Marat Mamadshoev spoke about the analytical materials’ standards and requirements for the analysts’ work.

During the first session, Kairat Moldashev, Ph.D., Vice-Rector for Research at the Suleyman Demirel University (SDU), spoke about the unacceptability of plagiarism in the analyst’s work and the emerging ethical dilemmas.

He also spoke about the methodology for policy analysis and evidence-based policy development. The trainer provided specific examples of properly prepared analytical materials, stressed the importance of systematic literature review and work with focus groups.

In the afternoon, during a workshop session, School participants worked on improving their articles under Kairat Moldashev’s supervision.

On the second day, School participants studied the methods of collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. Trainer Evgeny Sedashov, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the School of Politics and Governance, Higher School of Economics, Russia, spoke about the computational methods used in social sciences and the prospects for using machine learning in analytics.

According to Evgeny Sedashov, data analysis is ingrained in modern social sciences. He highlighted that the tools used in academic research are universal and can and should be used in applied analytics.

The trainer noted that in the last 10-15 years, machine learning methods began playing an increasingly important role in social research, and spoke about how researchers should use these tools in their work.

In the afternoon, Serik Beissembayev, Director of the Paperlab Research Centre in Kazakhstan, spoke about the tools that researchers need for effective policy advocacy. According to him, advocacy allows researchers to influence the situation in the industry/country and helps their career advancement.

Serik Beissembayev advised the School participants to look for a window of opportunity to promote recommendations on important social issues, build collaborations and partnerships, establish cooperation (not confrontation) with government agencies, and be prepared for the fact that “the ideas/recommendations could be stolen”.

On the third day, Parviz Mullojanov, Ph.D., political analyst, Senior Adviser at International Alert in Tajikistan, spoke about the main methods of conflict analysis. It is especially important to understand the goals of a potential conflict. Among other things, it helps to develop preventive measures to resolve it at an early stage.

After that, a panel discussion “Experts’ Security: How to write about sensitive issues?” took place. It was conducted by Rustam Kypshakbayev, human rights expert, consultant, trainer, mentor at the School for a New Generation of Human Rights Defenders (Kazakhstan), and the School for Human Rights Defenders (Kyrgyzstan) and Marat Mamadshoev, IWPR Tajikistan Editor-in-Chief.

Rustam Kypshakbayev urged young experts to be extremely careful when working in social media. Otherwise, there are risks of being accused of spreading slander and fake news and inciting hatred.

On the fourth day, Mariam Gamkharashvili, co-founder and head of the ForSet project, Georgia, spoke about working with data (statistics) and the importance of visualisation. The trainer showed how to filter redundant data: clear the graph of unnecessary elements, in particular, lines and repeated values, and leave only the necessary numbers. “Visualisation should help the readers to understand the data better and easier. Keep things simple for them,” Mariam explained. The participants had the opportunity to practice by creating their own first data visualisation.

The fifth day began with the sessions by Inga Sikorskaya, Director of the School of Peacemaking and Media Technology in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan). She spoke about writing on sensitive topics and avoiding hate speech and discrimination. According to her, “hate speech is any form of self-expression that include the dissemination, provocation, stimulation or justification of racial/ethnic/linguistic/religious xenophobia: Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, gender and other types of hatred against minorities and other socially vulnerable groups based on intolerance and discrimination”.

In global practice, the illegal forms of incitement to hatred are included in the anti-discrimination legislation, the main concept of which is public incitement to hatred.

The common mistakes in texts that lead to hatred are negligence, including unnecessary details, pointing to identities when it does not have a semantic meaning, inappropriate title that has hostile accents, mixing social issues and ethnic rhetoric.

At the same time, Inga Sikorskaya highlighted that criticism of political organisations, religious or ideological associations, as well as beliefs, should not be qualified as incitement to hatred.

In the afternoon, Kirill Martynov, Ph.D., the Novaya Gazeta Europe Editor-in-Chief, co-founder of Free Moscow University, Russia, spoke about how analytics influences the process of policymaking in the post-Soviet space. As part of these sessions, role-playing exercises were held.

On the last, sixth day of the School, Jamilya Maricheva, journalist and founder of the anti-corruption ProTenge project (Kazakhstan), held a session “Promoting analytics using social media tools: case studies”.

Zarina Akhmatova, journalist and media consultant, told participants how to establish effective cooperation with the media and gave practical advice.

“Be open and understandable, and people will love you for your professionalism,” said Zarina Akhmatova.

At the end of the School, participants received training completion certificates. During all this time, the CABAR.asia editors provided mentoring support to the participants of the School in working on their articles. The first articles of the School participants are expected to be published soon.