Global Digital Compact
The Global Digital Compact we need for people and the planet
by Anita Gurumurthy, Nandini Chami, Shreeja Sen, Merrin Muhammed Ashraf of IT for Change
The Zero Draft of the Global Digital Compact (GDC) to be adopted at the Summit of the Future is crucial to international digital cooperation under a transformative vision of global digital governance. It should identify the means for achieving equitable participation, sustainable development, gender equality, increased local capacity, public ownership of core digital infrastructure and address the concentration of power in the digital economy. This SouthViews considers some of the shortcomings of the draft GDC, particularly in attaining equitable international data governance and democratic participation in a digital multistakeholder scenario to avoid data monopolies and ensure inclusive policy-making processes, while recentering the objectives of Internet governance for inclusive and development-oriented information societies.
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A Dialogue with the G77+China Countries
Summit of the Future: risk and opportunities for developing countries
Co-organised by South Centre & Transnational Institute
11 April 2024, 13:00-15:00 (CET)
Geneva, Switzerland
Venue: International Environment House II, Chemin de Balexert 7-9, 1219 Vernier
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Panel During the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) e-Week
“Overcoming the fragmentation of digital governance: what role for the Global Digital Compact and e-trade rules?”
Co-organized by the South Centre (SC) and the University of St. Gallen
7 December 2023
Geneva, Switzerland
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The Global Digital Compact: opportunities and challenges for developing countries in a fragmented digital space
By Carlos Correa, Danish, Vitor Ido, Jacquelene Mwangi and Daniel Uribe
The adoption of a Global Digital Compact (GDC) as one of the outcomes of the Summit of the Future opens up the opportunity to address in a systematic manner issues that are of critical importance for the digital global governance. It also poses a challenge to developing countries, as most of them lack the infrastructure and capabilities to fully participate in the digital transformation. Many inequalities, including a deep digital divide, do exist and would need to be addressed by the GDC for it to become a real instrument of change and improvement in the living conditions and the prospects of a better future for most of the world population. This paper examines the current fragmentation in the digital governance and some of the issues raised by the proposals made by the UN Secretary-General for adoption of the GDC.
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Inputs – Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development
“Role of businesses in realising the right to development”
South Centre
June 2023
The Human Rights Council, in its resolution 33/14 of 29 September 2016, established the mandate of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to development. In 2023, the Special Rapporteur will present a report on “the role of business in realising the right to development in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other relevant international human rights instruments” to the United Nations General Assembly in October 2023.
With the objective of collecting information regarding the role of businesses in realising the right to development, Prof Surya Deva, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development, made an open call for inputs from various stakeholders such as States, international organisations, national human rights institutions, civil society organisations, and others.
In line with its programme of work, the South Centre is keen to submit the following information to the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development considering the need to achieve progress on the fulfilment of social rights, in particular the Right to Development (RtD) and its interface with issues such as climate change, corporate responsibility, food security and small farmers’ livelihood.
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Submission to the Global Digital Compact
Apply Human Rights Online
South Centre
Geneva, April 2023
The South Centre’s Board approved in September 2022 its Programme of Work 2023-2025 where the policy dimensions of digital transformation are highlighted as one of the priority areas for developing countries, including the need to harness digital technologies in education, health and the production of goods and services, support the development of a domestic digital industry, improve their digital infrastructure, advance digital equity and inclusion, effectively tax the digital companies and contribute to shaping the digital governance architecture to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Following the call made in the Declaration on the Commemoration of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the United Nations (A/RES/75/1) for improved digital cooperation, the United Nations (UN) Secretary General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation and his report ‘Our Common Future’, the South Centre submits the following written contribution to the UN Secretary General ahead to the Summit of the Future with the objective of providing support to developing countries in the intergovernmental process concerning the digital transformation.
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