CSOs and Governments Meeting on the Global South Digital Agenda

On September 21st and 24th, the event “Open Dialogue: Global South Alliance and Governments for an Inclusive Digital Agenda” will take place, promoted by the organizations Data Privacy Brasil, Aapti Institute, Paradigm Initiative and Platform Cooperativism Consortium (The New School). The event aims to provide an open conversation with diplomats about the international agenda for IPRs, AI, GDC implementation and G20 continuity.

The Global South Alliance was formed in 2023, after a long process of engagement between Aapti Institute, Data Privacy Brasil and Paradigm Initiative – which now make up the Alliance’s Steering Committee. In addition to them, 10 other organizations from Asia, Africa and Latin America are members: Asociación por los Derechos Civiles, Bolo Bhi, Center for Communication Governance, CIPESA, Derechos Digitales, Digital Rights Foundation, Internet Bolivia, KICTANet, Pollicy and Research ICT Africa. The Alliance was formed with the mission of unifying NGOs dedicated to promoting mutual learning and advancing digital rights with a Global South perspective that aims to create bonds of solidarity and dialogue between organizations.

The Alliance has been contributing to the text of the UN Global Digital Compact since the initial consultations and, with the conclusion of the process, we are very interested in closely monitoring its implementation and the possibilities of engaging in datafication processes that affect our societies – such as the establishment of national data governance policies; data as a common public good; the use and development of artificial intelligence, among others.

To this end, we propose this multi-stakeholder dialogue event involving representatives from civil society, academia and government. In addition to the organizations that make up the Alliance, we invited Prof. Trebor Scholz from The New School, Founding Director of the Platform Cooperativism Consortium, who studies issues of data governance and cooperativism in a new collaborative dimension that addresses social issues.

Through presentations on these innovative governance proposals, we also seek to hear from state representatives who negotiated the GDC and can share the state’s perspective on these policies and social demands. The topics of datafication and rights are increasingly prominent in high international politics, and understanding how social participation in these political developments will unfold is crucial to understanding how we can minimize the negative effects of this technological transformation imposed on our countries – considering that there are already informational, computational and power asymmetries between countries in the Global North and the Global South.

All of this aligns not only with the topics addressed by the GDC (digital public infrastructure, artificial intelligence, internet governance, human rights and data governance), but also with the G20 Digital Economy agenda, where Brazil has prioritized topics such as AI and the future of work in 2024. Our goal, as Data Privacy Brasil is the current lead co-chair of the T20 Inclusive Digital Transformation task force, is to ensure the continuity of these debates during the South African presidency in 2025, in line with other international policy processes, as data is a cross-cutting factor in several public policies.

Event Information

Event: Open Dialogue: Global South Alliance and Governments for an Inclusive Digital Agenda.

Date: September 21 and 24, 2024.

Venue: New York City, The New School – 5th Avenue.

Sign up using the link, here.