Addressing development in the data economy
In the data economy, both promises and perils co-exist. Just as new digital technologies promote productivity, dynamic growth returns, sectoral change and help achieve a large number of sustainable development goals ranging from energy, to health care, to infrastructure, they bring new challenges. Widely discussed amongst these are the perils of data extraction, rising costs of innovation, predatory firms and the loss of privacy. It is now increasingly clear that left to the market, automation might result serving the needs of large companies, knowledge brokers, the highly-skilled and already empowered segments of the society, leaving the rest underserved. The good news is that policy makers, agencies, technologists, firms and practitioners are all engaging to resolve the gamut of issues this raises. There is wide scale experimentation at all levels, with responses, ranging from the articulation of digital strategies, to data localization laws, to new rights definitions, to new technological architectures, to collaborative models of engagement for data use and re-use. Lighter approaches to data governance are now being overhauled in many parts of the world, and the focus is shifting slowly to more serious deliberations on regulatory approaches that encompass competition, innovation and social change.
But as we begin to unpack what this might mean for governance, and how best to address the income and skill disparities that will continue to widen globally, a glaring question remains: can the data economy address the development imperative in a holistic way? Can there be solutions, governance-based and data-enabled, that promote inclusive change for all at the global level? The preliminary answer to this is not entirely evident for two reasons. To begin with, there is no real consensus on how to articulate the elements of a successful digital transformation, particularly from the perspective of developing countries. This is worsened by the fact that there are several limitations in the current discourse stemming from narrower perspectives of data, or development, leading to an implicit assumption that all countries and contexts can be made to fit into existing discussions.
Avoiding age-old pitfalls and making the data economy work for development calls for a thorough deliberation on how data extraction, data use and re-use can foster the creation of competitive advantage, enable local businesses, create jobs, and promote structural change in developing countries, much like in other parts of the world. But it also calls for a new discourse that factors in development as a central component of the data economy, taking into account the different starting points of countries as they enter, and engage with data. Some key questions that need to be addressed are:
(a) In what ways can digital technologies help improve performance of local firms, and possibly, enable local firms to recapture markets, in order to leverage what was previously viewed as a lack of advantage in developing countries?
(b) Are current forms of business collaboration and data trade at the global level recognizing the plurality of data needs, cultures of appropriation, preservation and use? If not, how can these be addressed?
(c) Can new institutions that promote data sharing, use and re-use through instruments such as data cooperatives, data trusts, or global data pools also appropriately address the marginalization and loss of autonomy of the kind we see in developing countries?
(d) What other tools may be needed to leverage data for local development, and how we might be able to envision alternate data models?
(e) How can we create fair data markets and promote level playing field within developing countries? What lessons can be learnt from the regulatory approaches being considered in many parts of the world, especially the European Union?
Acknowledging the urgent need for such a discourse, a One Day High Level Workshop on Development in the Data Economy will be hosted by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University, on the 13th of September 2019. This meeting will address the issues outlined here, focusing on how comprehensive digital transformation strategies that are based on a better, and more nuanced understanding of data-policy-institutions interfaces for development can be envisioned. Attendance to the workshop is by invitation only: To express interest, use this link.
