Last week, during the Summit of the Future in New York, the United Nations adopted the Global Digital Compact, part of the Pact for the Future, an ambitious framework focused on digital cooperation and AI governance, aiming to shape a safe, sustainable, and inclusive digital future for all.
The Compact sets forth principles, objectives, and concrete actions to be done by 2030 to harness the benefits of digital technologies, support an open, free, and secure digital future, and uphold human rights while addressing critical challenges such as digital divides, sustainable development, and AI governance.
The key objectives of the Pact are stipulated as follows:
- Close all digital divides and accelerate progress across the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Expand inclusion in and benefits from the digital economy for all.
- Foster an inclusive, open, safe and secure digital space that respects, protects and promotes human rights.
- Advance responsible, equitable and interoperable data governance approaches
- Enhance international governance of artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity
The first objective is to be achieved by focusing on three key dimensions: Connectivity, Digital skills and Digital public infrastructure.
As for connectivity, the leaders recognize the importance of universal connectivity and commit to connecting all people, schools, and hospitals to the Internet by 2030. We in Martel Innovate actively support this objective through our SNS JU projects, such as 6G4Society, 6G-NTN, 5G Stardust, 5G Blueprint or ETHER.
In order for people to safely and effectively use the internet, there is a call for international cooperation and financing of digital capacity development, with an emphasis on providing access to digital learning opportunities for all, especially the marginalised communities. In Martel, we also work on increasing Digital Literacy, Skills, and Capacities globally through project INPACE, where we coordinate the digital skills expert group focusing on sharing best practices from Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
Building on that, the United Nations recognizes that resilient, safe, inclusive and interoperable digital public infrastructure has the potential to increase social and economic opportunities for all. This should be done through leveraging digital public goods, such as open-source software, open data, open artificial intelligence models, open standards and open content. We consider these aspects as well through our work on the NGI Commons project which set out to develop a strategic agenda for the EU to support the development of the Digital Commons.
In order to fulfil the second goal, the governments have committed to Support international, regional and national efforts to develop enabling environments for digital transformation, including predictable and transparent policy, legal and regulatory frameworks, and sharing of best practices.
As regards the third objective of fostering an inclusive, open, safe and secure digital space, the UN recognizes that internet governance must continue to be global and multi-stakeholder in nature, based on digital trust and human rights.
As for advancing data governance, the governments have agreed that by 2030 they will develop data and metadata standards designed to prevent and address bias, discrimination or human rights violations and abuses throughout the data life cycle. The data should also be used globally to help the world in achieving our Sustainable Development Goals.
Last but not least, the United Nations have agreed to establish a multidisciplinary Independent International Scientific Panel on AI with balanced geographic representation, and to initiate Global Dialogue on AI Governance involving Governments and all relevant stakeholders which will take place in the margins of existing relevant United Nations conferences and meetings.
The above analysed objectives have already been established in the European digital ecosystem. For example, the Horizon Europe programme requires projects to include among their activities a specific focus on ethics, with particular reference to projects with AI implementations, as well as to plan standardisation activities and to set up the project design and execution to follow European Union’s values and the European Commission’s Priorities. These are closely aligned with the ones of the Global Digital Compact.
Furthermore, the second objective of the Global Digital Compact to expand inclusion in and benefits from the digital economy for all closely resonates with 2020-2024 European Commission’s priority ‘An Economy that works for people’, also revamped in the Political guidelines for the next European Commission 2024-2029.
Also in terms of data governance, EU-funded projects are required to follow EU regulations and guidelines to ensure on the one side the protection of user data and intellectual property and on the other to ensure that data and research outputs generated during each project are made as accessible as possible, with particular attention dedicated to interoperability.
To summarise, the goals set out by the Global Digital Compact are already embedded in most of the research and innovation projects Martel participates in. We are fully committed to helping to achieve these ambitious goals globally.
