Action 4 Digital Inclusion (A4DI) provides pro-bono consulting services to developing countries to help promote digital inclusion of people towards advancing the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Knowledge partners:
International Bar Association - Pro Bono Committee | Orrick LLP | Morgan Lewis
LexEcon Consulting Group | UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
Digital Inclusion (DI) means empowering people through information and communication technologies (ICTs). DI strengthens the capacity of all people either individually or collectively to use ICTs to improve their lives and to alleviate or escape poverty.
Our service
As a global initiative, Action 4 Digital Inclusion (A4DI) advocates and campaigns for promoting digital inclusion of people living in developing countries as a universal means of realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In doing so, we continue to explore and introduce effective and innovative solutions, for instance:
a) The “SDG Temple of Justice” - a blueprint that seeks to promote the progress of the 2030 Agenda by leveraging the human rights foundation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through economic, legal and technological empowerment of people including digital inclusion. LEEG-net has adopted the working definition for 'technological empowerment' as "the actions or process of strengthening the capacity of all people either individually or collectively to use the technology including information and communication technologies to advance their rights and interests; to improve their lives and livelihoods; and to alleviate or escape poverty".
For more information, click on the infographic below or visit https://www.leeg-net.org/sdg-temple-of-justice/ , and
b) A4DI provides pro-bono consulting services to national legislatures and government institutions of developing countries to help undertake the revision and reform of ICT laws aimed at promoting digital inclusion of people. For more information about our law reform service, please visit the SDG-enabling Law Reform Drive.
The work of A4DI helps advance the following SDGs and targets:
Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
1.4: By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance.
Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
2.a Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries
Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
5.b Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women
Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
9.b Support domestic technology development, research and innovation in developing countries, including by ensuring a conducive policy environment for, inter alia, industrial diversification and value addition to commodities
9.c Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020.
Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development
Technology
17.6 Enhance North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation and enhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms, including through improved coordination among existing mechanisms, in particular at the United Nations level, and through a global technology facilitation mechanism.
17.7 Promote the development, transfer, dissemination and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries on favourable terms, including on concessional and preferential terms, as mutually agreed
17.8 Fully operationalize the technology bank and science, technology and innovation capacity-building mechanism for least developed countries by 2017 and enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology
Multi-stakeholder partnerships
17.16 Enhance the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in all countries, in particular developing countries.
(Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. United Nations, 2015)
Instances of situations that warrant effecting SDG-enabling ICT law reforms:
(a) The Global ICT Regulatory Outlook - 2017 including the ICT Regulatory Tracker of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) maps where regulation is currently helpful (enabling) or unhelpful (blocking) for digitalization of a country’s priority sectors – or where necessary policies and regulations are missing.
(b) The Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) spearheaded by the World Trade Organization entered into force on 22 February 2017. As of 06.10.2017, 122 countries out of the 164 members of the WTO have ratified the TFA (TFA Facility). This Agreement encourages cross-border exchange of electronic information which would entail reforming electronic transaction laws to promote legal uniformity and predictability, and facilitate electronic commerce across borders.
