VI. Principles and Functions of Digital Cooperation
VI. PRINCIPLES AND FUNCTIONS OF DIGITAL COOPERATION
In the course of our outreach, many stakeholders suggested principles to which digital cooperation mechanisms should adhere and functions they should seek to serve. Drawing also on work of previous initiatives in these areas, this annex summarises the principles and functions we suggest are most important to guide the future evolution of digital cooperation.
KEY PRINCIPLES OF DIGITAL COOPERATION
- Consensus-oriented: Decisions should be made in ways that seek consensus among public, private and civic stakeholders.
- Polycentric: Decision-making should be highly distributed and loosely yet efficiently coordinated across specialised centres.
- Customised: There is generally no “one size fits all” solution; different communities can implement norms in their own way, according to circumstances.
- Subsidiarity: Decisions should be made as locally as possible, closest to where the issues and problems are.
- Accessible: It should be as easy as possible to engage in digital cooperation mechanisms and policy discussions.
- Inclusive: Decisions should be inclusive and democratic, representing diverse interests and accountable to all stakeholders.
- Agile: Digital cooperation should be dynamic, iterative and responsive to fast-emerging policy issues.
- Clarity in roles and responsibility: Clear roles and shared language should reduce confusion and support common understanding about the responsibilities of actors involved in digital cooperation (governments, private sector, civil society, international organisations and academia).
- Accountable: There should be measurable outcomes, accountability and means of redress.
- Resilient: Power distribution should be balanced across sectors, without centralised top-down control.
- Open: Processes should be transparent, with minimum barriers to entry.
- Innovative: It should always be possible to innovate new ways of cooperating, in a bottom-up way, which is also the best way to include diverse perspectives.
- Tech-neutral: Decisions should not lock in specific technologies but allow for innovation of better and context-appropriate alternatives.
- Equitable outcomes: Digital cooperation should maximise the global public interest (internationally) and be anchored in broad public benefit (nationally).
KEY FUNCTIONS OF DIGITAL COOPERATION
- Leadership – generating political will among leaders from government, business, and society, and providing an authoritative response to digital policy challenges.
- Deliberation – providing a platform for regular, comprehensive and impactful deliberations on digital issues with the active and effective participation of all affected stakeholders.
- Ensuring inclusivity – ensuring active and meaningful participation of all stakeholders, for example by linking with existing and future bottom-up networks and initiatives.214
- Evidence and data – monitoring developments and identifying trends to inform decisions, including by analysing existing data sources.
- Norms and policy making – building consensus among diverse stakeholders, respecting the roles of states and international organisations in enacting and enforcing laws.
- Implementation – following up on policy discussions and agreements.
- Coordination – creating shared understanding and purpose across bodies in different policy areas and at different levels (local, national, regional, global), ensuring synchronisation of efforts, interoperability and policy coherence, and the possibility of voluntary coordination between interested stakeholder groups.
- Partnerships – catalysing partnerships around specific issues by providing opportunities to network and collaborate.
- Support and capacity development – strengthening capacity development, monitoring digital developments, identifying trends, informing policy actors and the public of emerging risks and opportunities, and providing data for evidence-based decision making – allowing traditionally marginalised persons or other less-resourced stakeholders to actively participate in the system.
- Conflict resolution and crisis management – developing the skills, knowledge and tools to prevent and resolve disputes and connect stakeholders with assistance in a crisis.
Recent Comments on this Site
5th July 2022 at 5:37 pm
Paragraph 2: Mentioning standardisation bodies in one line with industry deployment seems like a mix-up/mistake.
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5th July 2022 at 5:33 pm
Paragraph 2: It is unclear what the actual message is.
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5th July 2022 at 5:32 pm
Paragraph 1: It is unclear what the actual message is.
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5th July 2022 at 5:30 pm
Here, ‘relentless testing’ is not necessarily connected to consumers but to consumer organisations’ testing programmes and to societal organisation of responsible disclosure.
Also, it is unclear what procurement has got to do with lower-level standard bodies (who are they?).
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5th July 2022 at 5:12 pm
The following should be included: “The multi stakeholder involvement in the standards development process is needed, as is the value of a collaborative process to address identified problems and or issues, including the engagement of policymakers in the process so they gain a better understanding of what standards exist and how they are intended to be applied. Governments are critical to encourage development, adoption and standards implementation rather than mandate or regulate solutions.”
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5th July 2022 at 5:11 pm
Here the messaging does not capture the focus of the discussion on the need to implement standards once they have been finalized. That an implementation framework is important to address national cybersecurity issues and at the international level cooperation is important for effective implementation.
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5th July 2022 at 5:02 pm
The following should be included:
The multi stakeholder involvement in standards development process is needed, as is the value of a collaborative process to address identified problems and or issues, including the engagement of policymakers in the process so they gain a better understanding of what standards exist and how they are intended to be applied. Governments are critical to encourage development, adoption and standards implementation rather than mandate or regulate solutions.
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5th July 2022 at 5:00 pm
The multi stakeholder involvement in the standards development processis crucial, as is the value of a collaborative process to address identified problems and or issues, including the engagement of policymakers in the process so they gain a better understanding of what standards exist and how they are intended to be applied. Governments are critical to encourage development, adoption and standards implementation rather than mandate or regulate solutions.
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2nd July 2022 at 10:46 pm
Alternative wording:
The European vision of digital sovereignty could (should?) be used to increase competition and foster economic growth for the EU and its member states.
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2nd July 2022 at 10:44 pm
comment on paragraph I don’t see this paragraph related to the Digital Sovereignty discussions. I suggest deleting it.
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