Relevance to Theme: The growth of the data-driven digital economy poses significant opportunities and challenges for developing countries. More than 65 percent of the roughly four billion people in the world without internet access live in developing countries. Policymakers worldwide will face new challenges as these people come online, and harnessing the potential of new technologies for inclusive growth may require internationally or regionally coordinated responses. However, to date, much of the debate about data governance in international fora has been based on the priorities of richer nations. The workshop will be an opportunity to shift the debate to better reflect the point of view of developing countries. It will draw from results of a broad consultation with a diverse group of stakeholders working in low- and middle-income nations. The survey is being conducted by the Pathways for Prosperity Commission, which is chaired by Melinda Gates, Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, and African telecoms businessman Strive Masiyiwa. The Commission is hosted at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, and has been catalysing new conversations to make frontier technologies work for the world’s poorest and most marginalised people.
Relevance to Internet Governance: This workshop will discuss in which ways the debate around data governance has fallen short of the goals and priorities of developing countries in pursuit of technology-enabled growth. On the one hand, governments and private sector actors in developed countries have been developing rules and standards which apply beyond the borders of a single jurisdiction. For example, the United States and the European Union have recently adopted rules with extraterritorial provisions (US CLOUD Act and the EU GDPR) which restrict the set of regulatory options available to other jurisdictions. In addition, technical solutions developed by big tech companies (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google) are implemented globally. On the other hand, such propositions are often not tailored to the particularities of poorer nations who often do not have a sit of the table. Developing countries struggle to navigate the challenges of digitalisation and often lack enforcement mechanisms, technical capacities, and human resources required to fully engage in the global data economy. The result of this mismatch is likely to be missed opportunities for inclusive growth. This workshop will contribute to the internet governance debate in two ways. First, it will develop a more nuanced understanding of the key challenges and opportunities of data governance policy-making from the perspective of developing countries. Second, it will identify how international coordination can contribute towards ensuring that developing countries benefit from new technologies. Speakers will be invited to provide answers to the following questions: (1) What are data governance policy priorities from the perspective of developing countries? (2) What are the tools and instruments that the international community could deploy to help developing countries best engage with the global data economy?
