Towards Equitable and Inclusive Digital Futures: Reflections from the Think20 Task Force on Digital Transformation is a collaborative reflection written by members of the T20 Task Force on Digital Transformation. The piece draws on the collective experience of researchers and think tanks who participated in the T20 process over the course of the G20 cycle, and complements the official T20 Communiqué by capturing the wider debates, priorities and points of tension that shaped task force deliberations.
Dr Alison Gillwald, former Executive Director and now Research ICT Africa Distinguished Fellow, served as Co-Chair of the T20 Task Force on Digital Transformation, helping to steer discussions across a diverse group of think tanks and researchers from G20 countries and beyond. Under her co-leadership, the task force foregrounded issues of equity, public value, rights-based data governance, digital public infrastructure, and the regulation of emerging technologies. As the reflection emphasises, “bringing Africa’s experiences to the global stage not only shapes more public interest governance frameworks aimed at mitigating systemic risk but also promotes a development-oriented agenda that views digital transformation as a driver of social and economic justice for all, particularly those in the Global South.”
RIA has been closely engaged in the T20 process throughout South Africa’s presidency, building on its longstanding contribution to global and regional digital policy debates. As outlined in RIA’s previous piece on leveraging the G20 and T20 for an African digital transformation agenda, the T20 has provided a critical platform to bring African research, experience, and priorities into global governance discussions, particularly at a moment when digital and data-driven technologies are reshaping economies in profoundly unequal ways.
The reflection underscores the importance of sustained, inclusive and evidence-based engagement in shaping global digital governance, as fragmentation, geopolitical competition and commercial interests continue to shape our collective digital future.
