Just-in-Time Reporting
Coverage of digital issues
in the G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration
Today (9 September), G20 leaders adopted the New Delhi Declaration. India’s diplomacy made a major success by fostering consensus and avoiding falling back on ‘Chair summary’ as it happened in a few previous G20 meetings when it was not possible to reach a consensus on the text about the war in Ukraine.
The digitalisation agenda was not controversial at the G20 summit. India has been building digital momentum throughout the G20 presidency with a series of meetings and consultations.
Therefore, it is not surprising that, with 11 out of 83 articles in the lengthy New Delhi Declaration, digital issues received proportionally higher relevance than other diplomatic issues.
The Declaration places more emphasis on digital development than on the ‘cyber’ agenda on security and crime (the prefix cyber was only used eight times).
Use of prefixes in the G20 New Delhi Declaration
The Declaration contains the following relevant prefixes: Digital – 69 | Data – 14 | Crypto – 11 | Cyber – 8 | AI – 6 | Online – 2 | Tech – 1 |
The G20 digital agenda’s main novelty during India’s presidency is a set of proposals for digital public infrastructure. They aim to bridge the digital public infrastructure gap in many developing countries while leveraging India’s cutting-edge technology and expertise.
With a set of concrete proposals and initiatives, the Declaration also places a strong emphasis on the gender digital divide.
AI has received’ regular’ coverage, with calls for global discussion on AI governance.
Data is mostly mentioned in the context of achieving the SDGs.
Concerns over cryptocurrency have brought renewed attention to issues relating to the security of financial systems.
