On behalf of the Global Digital Justice Forum, IT for Change submitted written inputs to the structural elements of the Global Digital Compact (GDC) on 8 March 2024.
The input emphasizes the need for an explicit and unequivocal call to global equity, justice, and well-being of all as the overarching goals guiding the key elements of the GDC. Business-as-usual cannot tackle the emerging challenges of digitalization. It addresses the structural elements of the GDC which are as follows:
- Preamble
- Principles
- Commitments and Actions
- Closing the digital divides and accelerating progress across the SDGs
- Fostering an inclusive, open, safe, secure digital space
- Advancing data governance
- Governing emerging technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, for humanity
- Follow up and Review
The submission calls for the preamble to explicitly recognize meaningful democratic participation as the foundational principle in multilateral processes for digital governance to enable a digital cooperation that does not perpetuate or consolidate existing inequalities among countries and peoples. And that the GDC should, in fact, recognize and address inequalities that are aggravated by digitalization. Within the specific language of the principles the submission calls for adherence to international human rights frameworks and structural justice through democratic economic regimes, as well as the urgent and immediate calls to take action with regard to the climate crisis. Within the commitments, the submission observes that it is significant for the GDC to note the baseline – the current status of the pertinent issue, and plot the necessary changes in relation to these concerns. It also recognizes that a democratically-negotiated, equitable data governance regime is the need of the hour to address current and emerging challenges of the digital economy and that development and governance of emerging technologies including AI must be oriented towards human-centric innovation, epistemic justice and regenerative development.
Read the full submission here.