The Global Digital Compact: Promoting Sustainable Digital Innovation

Understanding the GDC
• A diplomatic instrument aimed at harnessing and regulating digital technologies for the common good.
• Not a binding law but a set of shared goals for governments, institutions, firms, and other stakeholders.
• Based on the idea that digital technologies are changing the world and pose challenges and concerns.
Realising the GDC
• A collaborative project aiming to ensure human oversight of technologies advancing sustainable development.
• UN member countries committed to establish two panels – an ‘Independent International Scientific Panel on AI [Artificial Intelligence]’ and a panel for ‘Global Dialogue on AI Governance’.
• Goals include closing the digital divide, including everyone in the digital economy, improving access to data, and advancing responsible and equable data governance.
Digital Goods and Services
• Proposals “digital public goods” including open-source software, open data, and open AI models, plus adherence to privacy and best practices.
• Partnerships, including with private entities, to deliver services.
Lacks of the GDC
• Openness within digital public infrastructure may be limited by contractual requirements.
• Calls for digital technology companies to self-regulate to keep their users safe and their trust.
• Recognizes interoperable data governance as essential to foster innovation and promote economic growth.
The GDC and the UN
• Makes wishful statements that bypass the complexity of underlying issues.
• Acknowledges issues in AI governance but has little to offer in terms of concrete solutions or strategies.