This post was written by Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami, Executive Director and Deputy Director of IT for Change. Originally published on Bot Populi.
With the adoption of the Global Digital Compact this past month, there is a lingering sense that the forum opened up, yet let slip by a whole host of opportunities for shaping the future of digital justice. This only means that the work of civil society does not stop here. Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami outline the path ahead, and the efforts that will be required to ensure that the openings generated by the Compact are capitalized on during its implementation.
On 22 September 2024, at the UN Summit of the Future, member states adopted the Global Digital Compact (GDC): a framework for multi-stakeholder digital cooperation at the global level that sets out objectives, principles, commitments, and actions for “an inclusive, open, sustainable, fair, safe and secure digital future for all.” The origins of the Compact trace back to September 2021, when the UN Secretary-General (UNSG) released his report, Our Common Agenda, in response to a mandate from member states at the 75th anniversary of the UN. The Covid-19 pandemic had validated the urgent need for better global governance, and against this backdrop, the UNSG’s report issued a clarion call for inclusive, networked, and effective multilateralism to get the world back on track by turbocharging action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
A key agenda flagged in the report was about the looming reality of our digital present and the gaping deficit in its global digital governance. The UNSG-led process on the GDC acquired impetus in May 2023, with the UNSG presenting a policy brief on the GDC. The brief was developed with inputs from member states and consultations with stakeholders. Fast forward to April 2024, we already had the Zero Draft of the Compact. No doubt, the unfinished agenda of digital cooperation has been at the heart of UN processes since the World Summit on the Information Society ((WSIS), 2003-05).
Yet, the breadth and depth of issues and the ambitious nature of the Compact did need much more time for wider deliberation and careful crystallization of issues. The reality is that the digital matters in core ways to the norms and rules in extant international regimes, and is at the heart of democratic futures that civil society aspires to in all its struggles. With technological leaps, such as Generative AI, one could even argue that a Phase-3 of the WSIS, with plenaries and issue-specific caucuses for broad-based civil society engagement and inclusive participation, was in order. However, it’s also true that the governance response to technological phenomena cannot be too delayed, as we are confronted each day with the social distortions of gaping governance gaps in the global digital domain.
“We could certainly have had better human rights safeguards for the most marginalized in the digital society and a bold new frame true to the UN Secretary-General’s ideal of a common future/future common for data governance.”
Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami, IT for Change
The GDC was a product of the wrestle for ideas against the backdrop of war and want. We could certainly have had better human rights safeguards for the most marginalized in the digital society and a bold new frame true to the UNSG’s ideal of a common future/future common for data governance. For now, even as we renew our struggles for emancipatory digital futures, the GDC, with all its imperfections, is here, and one of our agendas in civil society is indeed about a coordinated strategy to follow through on its mandate. We elaborate on some key agendas below. The relevance of diverse, context-specific, and multi-scalar strategies cannot be overemphasized, and these will need to come from bottom-up reflections.
Agenda 1. The Critical Role of Development Financing for Digital Infrastructure in the South
In its action commitments, the GDC recognizes the critical role of digital infrastructure development in furthering progress towards Agenda 2030. Notably, this is not just connectivity infrastructure, but equally, the creation of digital public goods, digital public infrastructure, data exchanges and standards, and open training data and compute for digital innovation towards inclusive digital economies. The GDC pushes for a market-first approach in this regard through private investment and new modalities, such as blended financing. This has been the new normal in development financing, post-Addis Ababa, but there is overwhelming evidence that such an approach exacerbates the debt crisis, as private investors lend to developing countries on far more unfavorable terms, with investment returns not keeping pace with the high costs of financing. Furthermore, in the specific context of digital infrastructure development, emerging evidence suggests that this route will only intensify the concentration of Big Tech power and entrench data-extractivist trajectories of innovation.
So, what is the ask for civil society?
Elements of a civil society engagement strategy:
- Engaging with the civil society mechanism on financing for development. Activists have demanded that the trillions in unmet aid/Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitments from the Global North be recognized as a debt owed to the Global South. Collectively, Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries’ contributions to ODA amounted to just 0.37% of gross national income (GNI) (half of the target) in 2023. This means for any semblance of digital development to become a material reality, theUN target for 0.7 GNI needs to be established as a floor on aid quantity. ODA should be earmarked to support non-market mechanisms for digital infrastructure as part of the ‘STI for SDGs’ strategy, with concrete targets and domain-specific aid coordination and tracking.
- Demanding that the GDC’s implementation roadmap include the mobilization of new sources of public financing to support initiatives such as the proposed Global Fund on AI. The Digital Development Tax, proposed by the UNSG as a mandatory contribution from transnational platform companies who have profited from the internet to close the connectivity gap, is one concrete option to build on. The global financial transactions tax proposed by civil society groups is another option to consider.
Agenda 2. Foundational Principles for an International Framework on Data Governance for Development
The GDC calls for the establishment of a multistakeholder working group by the UN Commission on Science, Technology and Development (CSTD) to evolve the contours of an international framework for data governance towards inclusive and equitable digital economies. The working group will table its recommendations at the 81st session of the UNGA discussion (in September 2026) on the following aspects: fundamental principles of data governance at all levels as relevant for development; considerations of sharing the benefits of data; and options to facilitate safe, secure, and trusted data flows, including cross-border data flows as relevant for development.
While the attempt to initiate steps to evolve a global constitutionalism that brings together economic and non-economic considerations in data governance is laudable, there is one unfortunate shortcoming: the GDC’s calls for the promotion of interoperable data governance as a key objective. There is a conflation, here, of data interoperability, as technical terminology that refers to the use of common data formats and protocols to enable computer systems to communicate with each other with the political idea of interoperability of data governance frameworks. Extending the technical interoperability approach to the entirety of data governance is fraught with risks.
Data governance, as a systemic framework, maybe described as a techno-political regime, incorporating constituent elements of “data handling rules, consumer rights, oversight institutions, and enforcement mechanisms that jointly enable the safe and trustworthy exchange of data flows across jurisdictions.” Needless to add, there can be no monolithic approach to determining the most effective techno-political regime of data, as this is a strategic policy choice that each country must make independently based on political, cultural, and economic realities of its context. Here is what needs to be done by digital rights constituencies.
Elements of a civil society engagement strategy:
- Centering ‘data justice’ rather than the narrow idea of ‘interoperability’ as the framing idea for the multistakeholder dialogue on data governance for development.
- Defending the WSIS spirit of democratic digital multistakeholderism in the proposed CSTD working group, including its composition and terms of reference. Civil society must ensure that there are suitable guardrails to both prevent Big Tech capture and ensure inclusivity of diverse constituencies, especially from the majority world.
Agenda 3. Human Rights as the Centerpiece of ‘Governing AI for Humanity’
The GDC identifies the international governance of artificial intelligence (AI) for the benefit of humanity as a key objective. It proposes a range of actions in this regard, most notably: the establishment of an international scientific panel on AI for risk and opportunity assessments; a global multistakeholder dialogue on AI governance at the UN level; and collaborations between standards development organizations to guide the development and adoption of interoperable AI standards which center safety, reliability, sustainability, and human rights.
“The right to privacy cannot be claimed without personal data protection and the right to encryption…and the right to science requires the right to benefit collectively from the data commons and the right to scrutinize AI innovation.”
Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami, IT for Change
Civil society organizations have an urgent and immediate task before them, especially considering the fact that the Compact does not go all the way to unequivocally articulate the human rights basis of emerging AI developments. As Julie Cohen argues, human rights norms need to account for the new constraints (e.g., panspectronic surveillance) and affordances (e.g., synthetic media produced by AI generators) that network, data, and AI technologies have made possible. The right to privacy cannot be claimed without personal data protection and the right to encryption; the right to decent work requires explicit rights to transparent and accountable algorithmic work management; and the right to science requires the right to benefit collectively from the data commons and the right to scrutinize AI innovation.
Our work in digital rights activism is cut out for the long haul.
Elements of a civil society engagement strategy:
- Monitoring and engaging with the International Scientific Panel on AI and the Global AI dialogues to infuse human rights principles with data/AI justice norms. A campaign for a UN HRC resolution that lays down an integrated digital human rights agenda and a dedicated action line in the WSIS+20 review in this regard, would be in order.
- Resisting the hegemonic, neoliberal doctrine of rights that limits the idea of human to a narrow, legalistic imaginary, disembedded from socio-economic structures. As Biraj Patnaik argues, “Instead of moving towards a world where all people are entitled to all rights, all of the time, we now have a world where there are only some rights, for some people, some of the time.” The digital human rights agenda that civil society proposes should overturn this state of affairs by illuminating the connections between international economic law regimes and digital injustice.
About IT for Change
IT for Change is a research and advocacy organization based in Bengaluru, India, that aims for a society in which digital technologies contribute to human rights, social justice, and equity. We are an organization at the forefront of Global South-led digital and data policy, and a local-to-global footprint. Our work spans research, advocacy, education and field initiatives.
About GDIP
The Global Digital Inclusion Partnership is a coalition of public, private, and civil society organizations working to bring internet connectivity to the global majority and ensure everyone is meaningfully connected by 2030. GDIP advances digital opportunities to empower and support people’s lives and agency, leading to inclusive digital societies.