Abstract
The European social and economic agenda sets digital inclusion and integration of disadvantaged groups as a fundamental goal for European policies. Migrants, as one of the most vulnerable and unprivileged populations, should have access and benefit from ICT usage in order to facilitate the integration process in the host country. The concept of integration also has an impact on service providers and city administrations that address migrants’ needs, being asked to coordinate their actions to guarantee an extensive approach to the integration process. Starting from interviews conducted in the MICADO project with service providers working with asylum seekers and refugees and local authorities in Bologna, this contribution focuses on obstacles to an effective digital integration while providing assistance, integration support and social services to migrants. In this article, we highlight some of the issues that arose during interviews such as data ownership, multiplicity of digital tools, internal conflicts between service providers, the political obstacles paradoxically linked to the fear of over attraction of services by disadvantaged populations and the manipulation of the migratory phenomenon by right-wing parties. Reflections, based on these topics, are provided to address some of these obstacles, aiming for positive effects of a digital integration process, both for migrants and for city services’ providers.
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Notes
- 1.
The Digital Agenda for Europe outlines a strategy and lines of action to promote a single European information space, an inclusive knowledge-based society that could positively influence the quality of life of every citizen. An active use and better understanding of ICTs (information and communication technologies) can mean better prospects for work, information and social relations. The mission of this strategic tool is to enable an equitable, competent, democratic use of technologies, so that they can represent an improvement in the lives of European citizens and not an additional factor of inequality. More information available at https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en
- 2.
The Digital Education Action Plan (2021–2027) is a renewed European Union (EU) policy initiative to support the sustainable and effective adaptation of the education and training systems of EU Member States to the digital age. The Plan intends to steer a long-term strategic vision for high-quality, inclusive and accessible European digital education, seeks stronger cooperation at the EU level on digital education and underscores the importance of working together across sectors to bring education into the digital age, and presents opportunities, including improved quality and quantity of teaching concerning digital technologies, support for the digitalisation of teaching methods and pedagogies and the provision of infrastructure required for inclusive and resilient remote learning. More information available at https://ec.europa.eu/education/education-in-the-eu/digital-education-action-plan_en
- 3.
- 4.
The choice of selecting these two categories of migrants resides precisely in the specific features of MICADO and the consortium partners involved in the project. In Bologna, the reference partner is ASP – Azienda pubblica dei servizi alla persona – and the international protection service department, which is why the choice of subjects to be interviewed fell on services providers that deal with refugees and asylum seekers. For any further details about the definition of refugees and asylums seeker (legal status, reference services and normative sources), it is possible to consult the web site https://www.iom.int/key-migration-terms
- 5.
The EU-28 is the abbreviation of European Union (EU) that consists of a group of 28 countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, and United Kingdom) and operates as an economic and political block. (Note: The term and the numbers cited refer to the period before the United Kingdom left the EU.)
- 6.
The Municipality of Bologna collects and publishes open data related to the socio-demographic composition of the city. Among them we find information about the foreign population and the distribution of nationalities residents in the urban area. Dataset available at https://opendata.comune.bologna.it/explore/?sort=modified
- 7.
The GARSIA project (Gestione Accesso Rete Socio-sanitaria Integrata Automatizzata – Access Management Automated Socio-sanitary Network) started in 1997 in order to respond to two levels of need for the PA: facilitate the governance of social health services network and support the integration of institutional and professional actors involved in planning, managing and monitoring social heath information system. Currently GARSIA is the official data processing system of the Municipality of Bologna.
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Funding
The MICADO (Migrant Integration Cockpits and Dashboards) project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 822717. However, the opinions expressed herewith are solely of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the point of view of any EU institution.
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Carlone, T., Maggio, M., Marelli, C.M. (2022). Integrate Services to Integrate Migrants: Obstacles and Opportunities for Digital Integration of Migrants’ Service Providers. In: Akhgar, B., Hough, K.L., Abdel Samad, Y., Saskia Bayerl, P., Karakostas, A. (eds) Information and Communications Technology in Support of Migration. Security Informatics and Law Enforcement. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93266-4_2
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