Key Issues in Digitalisation and Governance: Policy Note

Abstract

Digitalisation is perhaps the most important strategic challenge facing governance in the decade ahead. There are valuable opportunities that digitalisation provides to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 16 and 17, and particularly target 16.7 of ‘inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels’. At the same time, there are new governance challenges raised by digital disruption, including the loss of privacy due to mass surveillance, closures of online civic space, and the shift of governance power away from citizens and domestic institutions to unaccountable internet corporations in foreign capitals. The most important insight is that digital technologies themselves are neither good nor bad, nor are they ever neutral. Also, technology use tends to reflect the wider political and economic interests that are at play anyway.