“Everybody should have a digital ID; everybody should have a bank account; everybody should have a smartphone. Then, anything can be done. Everything else is built on that.”
This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 728 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page, which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card or PayPal or our new payment processor, Clover. Read about why we’re doing this fundraiser, what we’ve accomplished in the last year, and our current goal: rewarding our guest bloggers
The main talking points from the past weekend’s G20 Leaders’ Summit include the struggle to reach consensus on the Ukraine war, a proposed rail transport corridor connecting Europe with India via the Middle East, the role of BRICS founding member India in hosting the event, the participation of the African Union’s 54 member states, and the conspicuous absence of Chinese Premier Xi Jinping. One issue that undeservedly garnered a lot less attention was the interest expressed by the G20 leaders in harnessing the power of “digital public infrastructure.”
“Digital public infrastructure,” or DPI, is an increasingly common buzzword in development, governance, financial and tech circles whose actual meaning is not entirely clear. The G20 Leaders’ Declaration itself describes DPI as “an evolving concept” that denotes “a set of shared digital systems, built and leveraged by both the public and private sectors, based on secure and resilient infrastructure.” DPI, it says, “can be built on open standards and specifications, as well as opensource software, and can enable delivery of services at societal-scale.”
For the sake of accuracy, I would argue that there is an additional “P” missing in the acronym. After all, as the text above acknowledges, these systems are “built and leveraged by both the public and private sectors” — and what’s more for the benefit of both, with the private sectors arguably benefiting more. As such, I would call these systems “Digital Public-Private Infrastructure,” or DPPI.
This year’s Leaders’ Declaration consists of 83 paragraphs, over 50% more than last year’s 52. Of those, seven had to do with “technological transformation and digital public infrastructure (DPI).”
Of course, many of these statements of intent will never come to fruition. Despite the seniority of its participants, the G20 ultimately functions as an informal club with no decision-making powers, and it appears to be losing rather than gaining relevance and influence on the global stage.
That said, the section on DPI in the Leaders’ Declaration is, I believe, worthy of close attention, for three reasons:
- The summit’s host nation, India is, as I will explain later, a major player when it comes to developing and implementing transformative DPI, and is now looking to export its experience, know-how and the DPI platforms and applications it has developed to other countries around the world, particularly in Africa;
- The G20’s statements of intent on DPI are backed up by a 78-page report on the subject from the World Bank, which has spent more than a decade financing digital identity programs — a key form of DPI — in parts of Africa and Latin America, with varying degrees of success;
- The US and its partners are now looking to expand and bolster the World Bank’s role in delivering “inclusive” (such a lovely Orwellian buzzword) economic growth around the world. According to the White House, it will be a “bigger, better, more effective” World Bank. As for World Bank President (and former Mastercard CEO) Ajay Banga, he says that DPI will play a key role in “governance and access” in the future.
“Access” is the key word. As the even the World Economic Forum, one of the world’s biggest supporters of digital IDs, admits, while verifiable digital identities “create new markets and business lines” for companies, for individuals (emphasis my own) they “open up (or close off) the digital world with its jobs, political activities, education, financial services, healthcare and more.”
Digital Vaccine Passports
One example of a full-fledged DPI that has already had far-reaching repercussions in Europe and far beyond was provided by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during her speech at the Summit:
“The trick is to build public digital infrastructure that is interoperable, open to all and trusted. Let me give you one example that is reality today. Many of you are familiar with the COVID-19 digital certificate. The EU developed it for itself. The model was so functional and so trusted that 51 countries on 4 continents adopted it for free.“
As readers may recall, digital vaccine passports were already championed at last year’s G20 Summit in Bali…
Read the full article on Naked Capitalism
Nick Corbishley 