How can citizens be involved in governing by contributing their wishes, ideas and expertise? And how can leaders use big data to make their work more transparent and prevent corruption? Beth Simone Noveck, law professor and director of the GovLab research center in New York, advises governments worldwide on open governance – for example Barack Obama during his time in office and, since 2018, the German government. In this interview, she talks about this democracy of small steps and the chances and challenges of Germany’s Digital Council.

Harvest workers, nannies, craftspeople: Eleven million people live in the US without papers, nothing goes without them. Trump wants to deport them anyway. A life full of fear.

Until recently, the only people who came into Jomi Pacharin’s remote mountain village were vendors and debtors. Doctors, teachers and government officials never set their foot here, they find the trail too arduous; hence many Paharia die from malnutrition and preventable diseases. When local helpers of the German NGO Welthungerhilfe first came to their village, Jomi and her neighbors stayed inside, full of suspicion – until they realized that these strangers would not take their belongings but offer something.

Indian fishermen and Burundian farmers have one thing in common: As poorest among the poor they are not responsible for climate change; yet they are the first who live with its consequences. In both countries, the weather has been diverting from its usual pattern for a decade. Welthungerhilfe trains fishermen and farmers to take precautions.

India has 84 dollar billionaires, but they don’t contribute much to reduce the country’s life-threatening poverty. India also has laws which guarantee the poorest the right to be alive, but they are not well implemented in the villages. However, in remote Jharkhand, 1,000 women stand up against this injustice. They search for 1 kg of rice per person that did not reach them. But they have more on their mind than just grains – they demand respect.