Policy Brief Submissions
IT for Change successfully submitted two policy briefs under Task Force 01: Trade and Investment and Task Force 02: Digital Transformation on pressing issues pertaining to labor protections in global AI value chains and universal meaningful connectivity.
1. The Invisible Layer: Protecting Data Workers in Global AI Value Chains
Authors:
Sadhana Sanjay, Lead – Research and Policy Engagement, IT for Change (India)
Fasica Gebrekidan, Content Moderator and Co-Researcher,,Data Workers Inquiry, (Kenya)
Srravya Chandhiramowuli, Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh, (United Kingdom)
Dr Mohammad Amir Anwar, Senior Lecturer in African Studies and International Development, University of Edinburgh, (United Kingdom)
About:
Data workers are indispensable to continually train AI models and enhance the accuracy of their outcomes. However, despite their vital role in AI value chains, these workers encounter serious decent work deficits such as exploitative wages, workplace surveillance, automated evaluation, absence of welfare benefits, poor mental health outcomes, arbitrary termination, and refusal of wages. They have remained invisible in public and policy discourse, despite numerous governance directives at national and global levels. The G20 Generic Framework for Mapping Global Value Chains is a useful starting point for investigating vulnerabilities in global value chains. This brief, submitted under Task Force 01: Trade and Investment, aims to build on this mandate to identify how workers’ rights are imperilled by fragmented and precarious AI value chains, and provide an evidentiary basis for policymaking in this regard. It argues for the development of a due diligence framework in AI value chains that ensures corporations and AI developers are accountable, and data workers’ human and labour rights are protected – a necessary step towards ensuring sustainability and inclusiveness in AI value chains.
Read the policy brief here.
2. Recentring Communities: A Participatory Approach for Connectivity
Authors:
Viraj S Desai, Senior Associate, IT for Change, (India)
Anuradha Ganapathy, PhD Researcher, University of Manchester, (United Kingdom)
Dr Becky Faith, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, (United Kingdom)
About:
Although gender and geographical gaps in mobile internet adoption across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have narrowed since 2020, progress is uneven. The growth in digital access and usage has not been matched by a concomitant increase in digital capabilities. At the same time, increasing burdens on individuals due to digital-by-default service delivery and welfare systems have contributed to new kinds of exclusions and marginalisation, even as connectivity increases.
The G20 Guidelines on Indicators and Metrics for Universal and Meaningful Connectivity identify ownership of one’s own devices as a proxy for meaningful connectivity. This overlooks the critical role of intermediated digital access, which often serves as an invisible yet necessary enabler of digital participation, particularly for marginalised communities. Through case studies from South Africa and observations from an agri-cooperative in a digitally sparse region in India, we show how community intermediaries leverage grassroots trust and effectively foster human-centricity by understanding and encouraging active participation to address community members’ specific needs. This brief, submitted under Task Force 02: Digital Transformation, proposes that G20 nations pay renewed attention to community intermediaries as valuable instruments to attaining meaningful and human-centric digital infrastructures. It provides specific recommendations that guarantee community intermediaries a seat at the table of multi-stakeholder ICT governance. By centring community-driven approaches, G20 nations can ensure the vicious circle of digital exclusion is broken once and for all.
Read the policy brief here.