The UN Secretary-General’s call for inputs on the Global Digital Compact as part of the Common Agenda is a great opportunity for the African region to make a strong case on the deal that the continent wants in this new global process.
Hence we are sharing here the latest draft of Research ICT Africa’s input on the Global Digital Compact, as well as a summary of it to respond to the input survey form as published by the co-facilitators of the intergovernmental consultation process (Rwanda and Sweden).
RIA’s input was developed through a two-fold process. First, we gathered policy evidence from our past and ongoing research to make proposals on addressing the digital divides within Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world. The second process involved reaching out to stakeholders through a consultation process that included a public seminar, direct email responses, and a call for input through our website forms with English and French versions.
With this submission, we are responding to six of the seven themes as outlined by the co-facilitators as well as one additional theme:
- Connecting all people to the Internet, including all schools;
- Protect data;
- Apply human rights online;
- Introduce accountability criteria for discrimination and misleading content;
- Regulation of Artificial Intelligence
- Digital commons as a global public good; and,
- Public data as statistics, as an “other”’ identified theme by RIA.
We are circulating these drafts for another round of consultation. Please send your feedback to lorembo@researchictafrica.net (and cc info@researchictafrica.net).
If you would like to give endorsement to this draft either as an organisation or as an individual, please send your name, country and stakeholder type to lorembo@researchictafrica.net
For the French version of the submission, please follow this link.
