Empowering Civil Servants for Digital Transformation | IGF 2023 Open Forum #60

Audience

The lack of digital skills and AI competencies in the public sector has significant implications for the adoption of AI. This is because the absence of necessary technical competencies can result in inhibitory legal measures. Without the required digital skills and AI competencies, it becomes difficult for the public sector to fully embrace and implement AI technologies, leading to prohibitory laws that hinder its adoption.

Similarly, the lack of technical skills within government teams poses challenges to the sustainability of AI projects and their transfer from the private to the public sector. The co-development and handover phases of project life cycles become difficult due to a lack of understanding and technical abilities. The absence of these skills hinders the successful implementation and continuation of AI initiatives in the public sector.

Public-private partnerships are seen as key for successful digital transformation, but achieving these partnerships has proven to be challenging. Donors insist on public-private partnerships to drive digital transformation, but the realization of these partnerships has been difficult. Despite the positive sentiment towards public-private partnerships, their implementation poses obstacles that need to be overcome.

Civil servants should be better equipped with digital skills to drive transformation in the public sector. Different skill levels are needed for different civil servant levels, as higher-level civil servants may require a different set of skills than the average government worker. Embedding digitally competent officers can help bring about digital transformation, which is viewed positively.

Before any government department embarks on digital transformation, a deep dive study on the impacts is necessary. Such a study, involving all stakeholders, can result in a nuanced understanding of the transformation process. It is important to ensure that the intentions are aligned with the execution to avoid falling short. The positive sentiment towards deep dive studies highlights the need for a thorough understanding of the impacts of digital transformation.

Synergy and buy-in from multiple levels of government are essential for successful digital transformation. In countries like India, where both the central and state governments implement digital transformations, synergy becomes crucial. Additionally, many civil servants may have pushback towards new technologies and processes. To drive successful digital transformation, it is important to demystify these technologies and processes for them. This is viewed positively as it emphasizes the importance of collaboration and cooperation in digital transformation.

A rights-based approach and end-to-end native language digital transformation are important considerations in the implementation of digital transformation. Often, rights are overlooked during the transformation process, and it is necessary to ensure that a rights-based approach is adopted to protect individuals. Furthermore, digital transformation should be end-to-end in native languages, including voice-based technology, to ensure inclusivity and reduce inequalities.

There is a significant lack of awareness and involvement in digital public infrastructure (DPI) issues in African countries. A survey conducted across 24 African countries involving the CSO community and members of parliament revealed a low level of involvement and understanding of DPI issues. This neutral sentiment highlights the need for increased awareness and engagement in DPI matters in African countries.

Addressing simultaneous issues in the public sector, such as data protection, blockchain, and digital ID, requires a multidimensional approach. It is necessary to curate solutions with a broad understanding of these issues. This sentiment suggests that a holistic approach is needed to tackle the multifaceted challenges in the public sector.

Tailor-made strategies for different audience types within the public sector are important. This includes tech experts, literate consumers, and decision-makers, who may require different types of capacity building. In addition, a gender-sensitive approach is necessary to ensure that digital capacity building is inclusive and addresses the specific needs of women. This positive sentiment emphasizes the importance of tailored strategies and gender equality in the public sector.

Cultural change, continuous assessment, and the development of collaboration skills are necessary alongside digital skills. Government resistance to change due to age-old systems can hinder digital transformation. Institutions like UNESCO can provide frameworks for reliable data and support in fostering digital skills, which is viewed positively.

It is important to address the fear and misunderstanding around AI in the civil service sector. The fear of AI in civil service can stem from misunderstandings, and there is a need for more clarity regarding the role and capacity of AI. This negative sentiment highlights the importance of addressing concerns and providing clear explanations about AI in the civil service sector.

Gaps exist in knowledge about the relationship between technologies and their human rights impact. It is important to consider human rights impacts in digital capacity building. This is viewed positively as it underscores the need for responsible and ethical approaches to technology implementation.

Digitalization should be seen as a tool to solve specific problems rather than just an end goal. The application of technology without understanding the problem it aims to solve can be disruptive and limit problem-solving capacity. This negative sentiment highlights the need for a problem-driven approach to digital transformation.

Technologies impact people and communities at risk differently, and such communities should be involved from the start. These communities have often been least effectively served by government agencies. This negative sentiment emphasizes the importance of inclusivity and involvement of marginalized communities in digital transformation.

Digitalization can also be useful for improving internal processes within organizations. The use of artificial intelligence, for example, can improve tasks such as searching legal text. This positive sentiment highlights the potential benefits of digitalization for organizational efficiency and effectiveness.

Receptiveness to feedback from civil society is vital for the successful implementation of digital transformation in the public sector. Involving public opinion and enhancing public engagement are essential for driving digitalization. Education reform and stronger cyberinfrastructure investments are also necessary. This positive sentiment underscores the importance of stakeholder engagement and collaboration in digital transformation.

Capacity building in the judiciary is required to handle issues related to administration and policymaking in digital transformation. This neutral sentiment highlights the need for specialized skills and knowledge within the judiciary to address legal aspects of digital transformation.

Complexity and uncertainty in digitalization can lead to fear and resistance. The fast-paced learning and constantly evolving nature of technology introduce challenges and uncertainties, which can discourage individuals from embracing digitalization. This negative sentiment points out the need for support and guidance in navigating the complexities of digital transformation.

Building capacities towards digitalization should be a collective effort rather than an individual one. The challenge posed by the literacy problem in societies highlights the need for community-wide initiatives to enhance digital skills. This neutral sentiment highlights the importance of collaboration and collective action in driving digital transformation.

AI can provide new approaches to learning and demystify digitalization. AI-based tools, such as simulation and studying behaviors in collective learning, have the potential to revolutionize education and facilitate understanding of digitalization. This positive sentiment recognizes the transformative potential of AI in the learning process.

Regulation needs to catch up with the fast-paced development of technology. The pace of technological advancement often surpasses the ability of regulations to keep up. Changes in regulations from GDPR to AI acts highlight the need for regulatory updates to effectively govern new technologies. This negative sentiment calls for increased regulatory agility.

Lifelong learning and adaptation are necessary in the digital age. The constant evolution of technology, such as the development of ChatGPT, and changing regulations require individuals to continuously update their skills and knowledge. This positive sentiment emphasizes the importance of continuous learning in the digital era.

In conclusion, the lack of digital skills and AI competencies in the public sector poses challenges to the adoption and successful implementation of AI technologies. Public-private partnerships, tailored strategies, and a human-centric approach are important for driving digital transformation. Deep dive studies, synergies, and a rights-based approach are necessary for effective digitalization. Addressing fears and misunderstandings, considering human rights impacts, and involving marginalized communities are crucial elements of digital capacity building. Receptiveness to feedback, capacity building in the judiciary, and regulating technology at an appropriate pace are vital for digital transformation. Overall, the multifaceted nature of digital transformation requires a comprehensive and collaborative approach to ensure its success in the public sector.

Nobu Nishigata

During the discussion, the speakers explored various challenges and opportunities related to technology in government services. One major issue that was highlighted was the difficulties in connectivity specifically with Zoom, compared to other platforms such as Webex and Teams. It was mentioned that there is a preference for Zoom over Webex and Teams for webinars specifically, however, there are still challenges in achieving seamless connectivity.

Another important aspect discussed was the need for better tech understanding among government workers. It was noted that there are differences in tech capabilities and requirements across various government sectors. In particular, there is a lack of understanding among “normal” people in the government who work on document creation. An expectation was expressed for AI technology to aid in their work, providing a solution to these challenges.

The risks associated with AI technology were also a concern. It was highlighted that allowing every government person to use Chat GPT, an AI technology, within the government network comes with certain risks. The speakers emphasized the need for more understanding and awareness of AI technology to mitigate these risks effectively.

The advantages and challenges related to cloud services were also discussed. The government has a preference for on-premises services due to security concerns. However, it was acknowledged that cloud services offer advantages in terms of cost and efficiency. The discussion touched upon the need for a better understanding of the benefits of cloud services and finding a balance between security and efficiency.

One significant conclusion drawn from the discussion was the expectation for UNESCO and its partners to aid in improving government services through a better understanding of new technology. The goal is to leverage this understanding to enhance the delivery of government services. This expectation reflects a positive sentiment towards the potential impact of collaboration between UNESCO and government agencies.

In summary, the discussion highlighted the challenges of connectivity with Zoom, the need for better tech understanding among government workers, the risks associated with AI technology, the advantages and challenges of cloud services, and the expectation for UNESCO and its partners to aid in enhancing government services through improved technology understanding. These insights provide valuable observations for addressing the technological needs of government services.

video

Artificial intelligence (AI) and digital transformation are predicted to contribute over $13 trillion to the global economy by 2030. These technologies are shaping societies and economies in a positive way. The adoption of AI and digital transformation has the potential to stimulate economic growth and improve productivity across various industries.

Policymaking plays a crucial role in ensuring sustainable development amid the impact of AI and digital transformation. It is important for policymakers to consider the needs of different social groups and the environmental implications of these technologies. By implementing appropriate policies, governments can leverage AI and digital transformation to achieve sustainable development goals.

However, there is a significant issue of readiness among civil servants for the digital revolution. Many countries lack strategies to improve digital skills, and siloed decision-making prevents the effective implementation of digital transformation schemes. This lack of preparedness hinders the full potential of AI and digital technologies in the public sector.

To overcome these challenges, it is important to ensure that the adoption of digital technology and systems is inclusive and tailored to the unique context of each organization. Competency gaps in digital adoption, data analysis, IT, and AI skills need to be addressed, with particular attention given to the inclusion of women. Low levels of investment in digital adaptation create disparities and hinder progress towards reducing inequalities.

Upgrading government organizations for the digital age is crucial. Cultural and organizational barriers, along with data and infrastructure issues, pose challenges to digital transformation in the public sector. However, by addressing these barriers and investing in the necessary resources, governments can enhance their ability to deliver services efficiently and effectively.

The introduction of the Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transformation Competency Framework is a positive step towards equipping public sector officials with the necessary skills and knowledge. This framework, based on extensive research, outlines the essential digital competencies required in the digital age.

In addition to the competency framework, the Digital Planning and Design, Data Use and Governance, and Digital Management and Execution domains are established to improve understanding and address complex problems associated with digital transformation.

To achieve successful digital transformation, a particular mindset is necessary. Trust, creativity, flexibility, curiosity, and experimentation are essential for embracing and adapting to the changes brought about by AI and digital transformation.

In conclusion, AI and digital transformation have the potential to significantly impact economies and societies. Policymaking, inclusivity, and the competency development of civil servants play important roles in ensuring sustainable development. Although challenges exist, upgrading government organizations and embracing the right mindset will enable successful digital transformation, with the potential to drive economic growth and improve overall societal well-being.

Gianluca Misuraca

There is a growing recognition for the need for a global digital governance framework. This call has been made by influential figures such as Kofi Annan in 2002, who highlighted the urgent need for Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to bridge the digital divide. This need for a framework continues to be pushed by current UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who advocates for a human-centric digital transformation strategy.

The importance of AI governance in the public sector is a central focus. The use and management of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in this sector are deemed crucial and require the incorporation of human-centric principles. The AI4Gov program has been launched to equip civil servants with the necessary skills to handle AI implementation and governance. This program aims to enhance the understanding of AI technology, its ethical use, procurement systems, and the need for interdisciplinary skills. The program also emphasizes the importance of teamwork in dealing with complex issues.

Addressing the multidimensional and complex issues linked to digital transformation is of utmost importance. It has been reported that only 20% of UK civil servants are currently equipped with the skills needed to manage the digital future. This indicates an urgency to upskill civil servants to handle the challenges and opportunities brought by digital transformation. The development of a comprehensive national framework is crucial in ensuring that countries are digitally ready and capable of effectively managing the digital landscape.

UNESCO has been actively working towards operationalising the guidelines and principles they have provided. Efforts include the development of a self-assessment methodology for policymakers and civil servants to improve their capacity. Additionally, principles have been designed for an open educational resources repository, and a proposal for a short-term curriculum for the training of policymakers has been put forward.

The creation of a digital competence framework, addressing areas such as digital planning and design, data generation and user governance, and management and implementation, is underway. This framework aims to provide a toolkit for inclusive digital planning and design. Furthermore, the idea of establishing a knowledge-sharing community in the realm of digital governance and AI competence is being explored.

Overall, the need for a global digital governance framework remains evident. The use and governance of AI in the public sector are central in this regard. Efforts to equip civil servants with the necessary skills, operationalise guidelines, and develop inclusive digital planning and design tools are crucial steps towards effective digital governance. There is a clear emphasis on the importance of interdisciplinary skills, teamwork, and a human-centric approach in addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by digital transformation.

Prateek Sibal

A joint convening by UNESCO and GIZ’s Fair Forward team highlighted the importance of capacity building for civil servants in the context of digital transformation. The meeting aimed to encourage communication and learning between ongoing capacity building initiatives. Collaboration and knowledge sharing were identified as crucial for effectively preparing civil servants for the digital age.

The formation of a coalition model for sharing good practices and developing new content was supported. This coalition has the potential to create new knowledge products that can benefit organizations globally, contributing to digital transformation efforts. The need for practical implementation of competency frameworks, such as the one focused on AI and digital transformation, was emphasized.

The impact of AI and digital transformation on societies and economies was acknowledged, with a projected contribution of over $13 trillion to the global economy by 2030. However, a recent survey revealed that most civil servants are not adequately equipped for digital transformation. This is attributed to the lack of strategies to improve digital skills and barriers caused by siloed decision-making processes.

UNESCO proposed solutions to overcome capacity barriers related to culture, organization, data, infrastructure, and human resources. A comprehensive approach that addresses multiple dimensions of digital capacity building is needed. Public sector officials were also identified as requiring a solid understanding of digital technologies for effective transformation.

Trust, creativity, flexibility, curiosity, and experimentation were highlighted as crucial qualities for successful digital transformation. These qualities enable individuals and organizations to embrace new technologies and navigate the ever-evolving digital landscape.

Prateek Sibal advocated for capacity building in government organizations, emphasizing the use of digital solutions, new technologies, tools, and strategies to solve complex problems. This highlights the role of digital capacity building in enabling governments to address the challenges of the digital age.

The complexity of digital capacity building was recognized, emphasizing the need for continuous learning and literacy about evolving technology. Digitalization necessitates rapid learning and adaptation to technological advances. Lifelong learning was identified as crucial due to the pace at which technology and related regulation evolve.

A dynamic coalition on digital capacity building involving civil society, academia, governments, and the private sector was proposed. This coalition would serve as a community of practice for knowledge sharing and collaboration. It would also focus on developing assessment methodologies for civil servants, enhancing their preparedness for digital transformation.

The gap between technology and regulation was highlighted as a concern. With technology advancing at a faster pace than the creation of related regulation, individuals may feel uncertain and fearful about rapidly developing digital technologies. Proactive regulation that keeps up with technological advancements is crucial.

In conclusion, the joint convening by UNESCO and GIZ’s Fair Forward team emphasized the critical role of capacity building for civil servants in the context of digital transformation. Collaboration, knowledge sharing, and practical implementation of competency frameworks were highlighted. Additionally, the impact of AI and digital transformation, challenges faced by civil servants, and proposed solutions were discussed. A comprehensive, multidimensional, and global strategy for digital capacity building is essential.

Prateek Sibal:
So, good morning, everyone. I think we’ll start now. I’m receiving WhatsApp messages of people who are late, but let’s be on time. So welcome to this open forum on capacity building for civil servants on digital transformation, which is co-organized by UNESCO and GIZ’s Fair Forward team. Some of our GIZ colleagues are also online. And welcome to all of you who’ve made it this early in the morning. The idea is really to have an open conversation, to learn from you. We’ve shared with you some of the guiding questions on what this open forum seeks to achieve. The first idea is to really convene a diverse group of experts from different parts of the world who are working on capacity building initiatives so that we can explore whether a coalition would be a sustainable model to go forward in terms of sharing good practices of capacity building initiatives. I’ve been here since the past two, three days, and we’ve heard about so many wonderful initiatives, but they don’t seem to be talking to each other. For instance, I was talking to Mark from Kenya in GIZ, and they’re doing some great work. And then I was talking to Risper, who’s also here from Nairobi, and they’re doing some great work. But we need to kind of learn from this work and then also share these practices with different parts of the world. So this is just one of the reasons. The second is, of course, we want to also develop new content and create new knowledge products which can then be used by partners and organizations around the world. So just as an example, we launched the competency framework on AI and digital transformation with the UN Broadband Commission, which is itself a multi-stakeholder group composed of the private sector, civil society, governments, academia, and UN entities, of course. And we developed this framework through a year-long process of regional consultations and then through a working group. And now we have the framework, which has identified a wide range of competencies, and some of you have the copies in front. Now the point is about how to operationalize this. And UNESCO alone cannot do it, or GIZ alone cannot do it. We need to work with partners and build these coalitions, and then eventually support governments with your expertise. So this is the kind of the broad theme of the conversation today. I’ll invite our technical team to play two short videos to kind of set the stage, and then my role will be really to facilitate conversation. We’ll be taking notes, and then I’ll walk you through some of the final objectives for this session. May I request the host to play the video, please?

video:
Artificial intelligence and digital transformation competencies for civil servants. We stand on the cusp of a digital revolution brought by artificial intelligence and other digital technologies. These technologies are shaping societies and economies, and are predicted to add over $13 trillion to the global economy by 2030. Given how significantly AI and digital transformation is affecting different social groups in our environment, policymaking plays a crucial role in ensuring sustainable development. The question is, are civil servants ready? Unfortunately, the answer is no. A recent survey of 198 countries found 47% had no strategy to improve digital skills, and 51% of government chief information officers said they were blocked from implementing digital transformation schemes by siloed strategies and decision-making. This needs to change, and UNESCO has been working on how. Beyond funding constraints, there are three key challenges to address. Cultural and organizational barriers. Many governments see opportunities in changing their traditional way of working by encouraging experimentation and innovation to deliver better services to people. Data and infrastructure barriers. This includes limited access to datasets, inefficient data organization, management and governance, and a lack of IT infrastructure investment. These issues need to be addressed. Human resource capacity. Related competency gaps grow when there are low levels of investment in digital adaptation, data analysis, IT, and AI skills, particularly for women. The adoption of digital technology and digital systems needs to be inclusive and fit each organization’s unique context. Fortunately, while these issues might be challenging, they aren’t impossible to address. Watch the next episode to learn more about it.

Prateek Sibal:
So that’s a short overview of the challenges that we’ve mapped over the past years. And I would, before we go to some of the solutions that we are proposing, actually like to open the floor and invite our host country here, Mr. Nobuo Nishikata, to also say some opening remarks and welcoming words. Over to you, sir.

Nobu Nishigata:
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Kyoto on behalf of the Japanese government and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, who hosts this IGF. We are very much proud of it, and a warm welcome to everybody. And just as I saw the video, there’s great work. Most of them I agree, even in the Japanese government, and we always appreciate the work of UNESCO, the wide range of the work stream on the capacity building. And let me give some words on the capacity building that the Japanese government is facing. Just some of the programs that you already showed, and for example, like we are having a hard time connecting with Zoom. It’s more like a network thing. We can use the Webex and Teams, but some different network structure provided by Zoom. So we are still working on it, and of course, the company with Zoom is also working to get us more connectivity to the Japanese government so that we can use them, particularly for the webinars. I mean, for the video conference, then the Webex and Teams are okay, but once we want to have the webinars, then Zoom is some advantage right now. So we are working on that thing. Or maybe like some challenges, the government is more like a procurement, I would say. It’s a big issue, like for the government perspective, I mean, there are a bunch of the different kind of the people working in the areas. So for example, the people who are working on the research and development side, we don’t much worry about their capacity or capability of doing their job, because they know what the technology is, and they know how to cope with it. But on the other hand, the normal people who usually, you know, they’re making the documents, like for me, like make some documents to the minister, documents to the other ministries, and some speech for the minister, et cetera, these people, we are not very good at a computer. I mean, of course, we can use the computers, but we know more. We want to know more about what the technology is built on, and those kind of things. Once, particularly when it comes to the AI, like a chat GPT is a great solution, and we have very big expectation on the technology within our work, but still there are some risks in it, and it is not easy to allow every government people to use the chat GPT within our network within the government. I mean, if you can use a stand-alone PC or your smartphone, then it could be okay, but there are some risks, and we have to identify the right risks. We don’t have to worry too much, but still we have to, I mean, then the UNESCO can come in to help us understand better what the technology is, or like, for example, maybe before that the AI came in, there were some challenges in the cloud services. You know, like the government is more like prefer to have the data within the building in the government, on-premise type of services, but of course there are some advantages in the cloud services in terms of the cost and some efficiency and et cetera, but still we have to know more about the security or like SLA type of things to know better about the cloud service, so that we can get the best advantage of the cloud service in our service. So there are many, many things that we are expecting that the UNESCO and your partners in working harder to help us to do the better service in Japan. So I mean, it goes to everybody, I think, I hope, so I think we are just up here.

Prateek Sibal:
Thank you. Thank you for sharing those examples, and actually these are some of the challenges across governments around the world. It’s not only in Japan, it’s in different countries, and I’m hoping that we’ll hear more about that also today. We’ll play the second video, and then I’d like to move also to the online. I know that a lot of people have connected on Zoom as well, so may I invite the technical team to play the second video, and then we’ll go online.

video:
To strengthen government organizations for the digital age, we need to meet the challenges of digital transformation. This doesn’t mean public sector officials have to become specialists, but they do need a solid understanding of how technologies work and of their impacts. This is where the Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transformation Competency Framework comes in. Built on exhaustive global and regional research, it articulates essential digital competencies that public sector officials need. There are three competency domains that are interlinked and complementary. Digital planning and design. This enables better understanding of the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous problems policymakers face. It will allow policymakers to identify opportunities, to use digital solutions and strategies, and to handle possible unwanted consequences. Data use and governance. This competency provides a deeper understanding of the data lifecycle. It will support policymakers in addressing governance issues and public expectations while using data effectively and ethically. Digital management and execution. This empowers policymakers to apply new management and collaboration tools in government. It will enable them to harness data, new technologies, tools, and approaches to solve complex problems and foster civic participation. In addition, digital transformation also requires a mindset that enables trust, creativity, flexibility, curiosity, and experimentation. Digital transformation is everywhere, and the knowledge and skills divide across governments is expanding. Let us leave no one behind. Those who are prepared are the ones who will benefit the most and create the most benefit.

Prateek Sibal:
I’d encourage you to check out the report at a later point. I’d now open the floor and really start with the conversation today. I’d like to invite Dr. Jhanluka Misuraka, who’s joining us online at 1.30 a.m. in Seville. Jhanluka, if you can take the floor and share some of your thoughts around what kind of work you’re doing, what kind of capacity building are you doing with your AI4Gov program, but also what are the skills and knowledge we need in today’s age in the public sector? So, over to you, Jhanluka.

Gianluca Misuraca:
Thank you, Pratek, and good morning. I hope you can hear me well. Yes, loud and clear. Yes, it’s true. It’s almost 2 o’clock in the morning. I’m actually calling from Rome today, but yes, I’m normally based in Seville when I’m not traveling, so it’s a pity I could not make it to IGF. That was the plan when we discussed with Pratek, so sorry for that, and I hope you’re enjoying the forum and I’m following it from remote. So, I will just share. I prepared a few slides, if you allow me to share and try to be brief, but yes, that’s something that I want to share with you is exactly the topic of the day, whether we are able as civil servants and policymakers actually to master the digital governance and especially AI, that is now artificial intelligence is what everybody is talking about. I know there are a lot of sessions at the IGF on this topic, also closed-door meetings like this morning that was discussing about the global governance issue of AI. So, if we are actually ready for disruption, that’s something more than what already the video showed and what Pratek was saying. I’ll try to go brief on a few issues. So, basically, why we are still lacking after more than 20 years of the global digital governance framework that we are in much need for this topic, and maybe we should also be a bit back to fundamentals. Everybody is talking about charge EPT and generative AI. That’s very exciting, but maybe we still have to fix some of the basics in our public administrations, and that’s why we propose, and I’ll show a bit of what we’re doing with the AI4Gov master. We need what we call functional specialists for supporting, let’s say, the governance of AI, and that’s what we are also trying to do with the colleagues of UNESCO that we partner with to build a compass for digital governance and AI capacity. So, briefly, I was working for the UN General Secretariat back in 2002. At the time, Kofi Annan was the Secretary General, and he was pushing very hard on the fight against the digital divide and showing the sense of urgency that we had already at the time very, very clear, and as ICTs, as we were calling at the time, were actually already about to change the world, and they did so, but 20 years later, the Secretary General Antonio Guterres is still calling for the need to really make sure that we can manage this digital transformation, and we basically need to do this in a human-centric way, and that’s why probably, I mean, for next year, there’s the need to propose something, let’s say, concrete to make sure that we can have still the open, free, inclusive, and secure digital governance that we deserve, and that’s a very important role for governments in addition to all other stakeholders. So, this shows also the need and the urgency for equipping the civil servants and policy makers with the skills and the capacity, as it was mentioned before, needed to also address these big challenges. Now, going back to the fundamentals, as I said, we need to really rethink a bit the way we address public sector innovation, I mean, in a data-driven society, so data is fundamental, that’s one of the key competencies that was mentioned before in the video, and clearly, we need to address the multidimensional complex issues that are linked to the digital transformation. It’s not just digitalizing or putting some computers in the room, it’s really completely reframing and changing the way we address the digital transformation strategy. I mean, I won’t go into details, but I just want to mention that when I was still working for the European Commission JRC, the Joint Research Centre, we did a comprehensive review of literature and practice on this, with a specific focus on the European Union, and we saw that despite the quite big rhetoric on this topic and the claim many governments have done over the years, there’s still a lot to be done, and at the policy level, it’s important to be really clear on what is the objective of these transformational strategies we want to, let’s say, you want to unleash. And so, the question is, if we are ready for it, I think this was also one of the questions in the video, and actually, the answer is yes, because data shows actually the very not rosy picture, and the latest data from ITU shows in their dashboard, and actually, for instance, despite there is an effort to prepare to have digital-ready countries in the world, only a few actually have a mature national framework, and even, let’s say, advanced countries like the UK, that notably quite always been a pioneer in this topic, they showed in recent data from the National Audit Office that only 20% of their civil servants actually are equipped with the skills needed to manage the digital future, as they say. So, this shows that we need a lot of this capacity building, and this is not just the technical skills that are needed, and actually, what we did with the I4Gov program, that is a program implemented by the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid and Politecnico di Milano, also in collaboration with other partner universities in Estonia and Germany, is to design a master that actually addresses what we call specialist role, based also not only on teaching and training theoretical issues or technical work, but actually based on real project and concrete cases. And at the same time, we’re trying to build, and that’s why the… collaboration with UNESCO, an ecosystem that of course started from the European Union, but actually has a global outreach and a mission to create a network worldwide. So the master in particular that I have the pleasure to direct is actually training, at the moment we are in the third edition, we have trained 120 executives from all over the world, more than 40 countries are represented, and here the idea is really to focus on the governance aspect of AI that are fundamental, the human-centric principles for service design and the AI systems, and that’s very important because while we of course have experts from the AI and data science, we also have specific complementary skills from the design department of Politecnico di Milano, so the question here is not what kind of AI to use or what techniques or what methodology or technology, but is rather if we really need to use AI for instance on a specific service, and now we can redesign the entire process to make sure that we use the best technology, the more appropriate technology. So we of course focus on the use of AI in the public sector, but also there is the importance of public procurement that was actually mentioned in the intervention from the host representative. So to get to the conclusion…

Prateek Sibal:
Gianluca, we can’t hear you for some reason. Can you try again? No, sadly we don’t hear your conclusion. Okay, now you’re back. Okay, I don’t know what happened, so maybe we were, I don’t know, we were banned from the conclusion. I don’t know. Okay, so just, can you hear me? No? Yes, yes, please. Okay, so I hope I’m not taking too long.

Gianluca Misuraca:
So basically, yeah, just getting to the conclusion. So yeah, the work that we are, I mean, we are doing with Pratink and colleagues at UNESCO is actually, I would say, quite ambitious and it was very interesting because we’ve been trying to develop a comprehensive approach to operationalise exactly the framework that has been developed by UNESCO, that of course provides the principles, the guidelines and the specific, let’s say, orientation. But now we need to design and develop, and that’s what we’ve been doing with colleagues, a self-assessment methodology for making sure that policy makers, civil servants, both at individual level but also organisational level, can actually be empowered, if you want, because by first assessing the needs and then developing specific tools that can help them, let’s say, improve their capacity. At the same time, we are supporting UNESCO on designing and defining what are, let’s say, the principles for an open educational resources repository that could support also the digital capacities navigator that UNESCO and partners are actually developing. And at the same time, we have proposed an outline of a short-term curriculum, I mean, curriculum for a short-term training for policy makers that, based on this compass, could actually be immediately operationalised. And in fact, I mean, I don’t know if Pratink we can say that there will be a first pilot training soon in Africa, and others, I guess, will follow. So just to, I mean, without going into details, what we have been doing, of course, we started from the work UNESCO and the Broadband Commission with IQ data of this competence framework. We’ve been, I mean, re-conceptualising certain issues, but we also engaged some of the participants in the AI4GO Master and other experts in validating some of the proposals we made for having, you know, a self-assessment methodology. And then we, of course, proposed this based on questionnaires and some tools that could be then piloted and further developed into this digital governance and artificial intelligence compass or competence compass. So just to mention, and also we are trying to align with the canvas, we call it the functional specialist canvas of AI4GO that we are also developing, because here the difficulty is to create some, probably some new professional roles or some new figures that we need, some new profiles that we need in the public administration in particular, is not the super data scientist, the super expert in AI, but is rather someone that understands how this technology can be used, how to procure, let’s say, systems that are ethical and appropriate and context-based. And of course, we have three areas here. One is the management, the technology also, and the policy and legal and ethical aspect. These are all in, let’s say, embedded into what we call digital governance, basically. And we’ve been doing this with a number of colleagues and through some expert peer review and validation. Also to underline the importance not just to be the best technical expert, but actually this is a multidisciplinary field. So we need to really combine hard and soft skills. And some of these soft skills are what is sometimes making the difference. And it’s not enough, I mean, it’s not so important or not important for all, especially at the highest level of the hierarchy to be technically a super expert, but rather it’s important to have this interplay between soft and hard skills that is fundamental. And of course, what we have to also understand, this is a teamwork, it’s not just the individuals that need to be empowered, but it’s rather the team, the organization, the department that deal with these complex issues. And so to conclude, this is the first sketch of the work we’ve been doing over the summer, basically to exactly try to personalize the three main areas that was mentioned in the video that are included in the digital competence framework of UNESCO. So the digital planning and design, the data generation, the user governance, and also the management implementation part. So here we have a self-assessment toolkit that is being developed with this initial training that will be tested and piloted with the idea, and this is more forward looking to have also as part of these digital governance and the high competence compass, a kind of knowledge sharing community that could also be instrumental to the work that UNESCO and partners are actually doing in these digital capacities navigators. So I will stop here and thank you for the attention. And of course, if there’s any question or comment, happy to take on board. Thanks.

Prateek Sibal:
Thanks so much, Gianluca. And thanks for joining us in the middle of your night as well. Feel free to stay, but I understand that you’ll have to leave and sleep at some point as well. So we’ll open the floor now. Actually, the first prompt is really around what kind of digital skills and competencies that you have seen are needed in governments from your perspective in different parts of the world. What are these areas and how can we as a global collaborative coalition work towards this? I’m also glad that we have some members of parliament here. So it’s a really multi-stakeholder grouping today. So I’ll open the floor. We don’t go by any particular order. So anyone who wants to take the floor, just raise your hand and we’ll pass on the mic.

Audience:
Yeah, thank you. I’m Odas, CEO of Digital Muganda. So I’m coming more from a private sector perspective. I think a lot of the discussions around AI this week has gone around balancing regulation and also innovation. I think I’ll touch more on the innovation, but in terms of regulation, I think the discussion we’ve had even earlier this week with the parliamentarians is around the fact that the lack of competencies around the digital skills and the AI skills leads to prohibitive measures or prohibitive laws instead of permissive and assistive laws. So I think in terms of regulation, that lack of those competencies could hinder the adoption of AI in the public sector. But speaking on the innovation side, I think that on all levels, if there are no skills in terms of understanding, identifying the benefits of what artificial intelligence could bring, but also balancing and identifying also the risks that it could also pose hinders the adoption, obviously, starting from the first cycle, which is the managerial buy-in. So if you go to a government institution and it’s working with a private sector company, I think the first phase is the buy-in from the management. And the misunderstanding of this technology first and foremost hinders either by overlooking the benefits or by not putting in safety nets that really could make sure that these technologies are safe to use. And also moving past that, I think one thing that we’ve seen is that from the private sector and moving now from the buy-in to the co-development of these projects and handover, one of the things that we see is that once we start co-developing with the public sector and then we reach a phase where we have to hand over these projects is that the lack of these technical skills of the teams hinders this project sustainability, making it hard for the developers who are mostly in the private sector to hand over to a public institution to take over the projects and internalize and fully operationalize them. So I think across all the spectrum of development, the life cycle coming from the buy-in and the co-development and the handover, it’s really important for these skills and also knowledge advancements, which is one of the competencies that is in this framework, to be able to fully digitize or have a true digital transformation. Thanks for that. Anyone else would like to take the floor? Yes. Okay, that’s wonderful. So we go with Miriam first. Please feel free to introduce yourself and then we’ll come from here and then to you. Okay, so my name is Mimi Stankovic. Nice meeting you all. I am a principal digital policy specialist with the AI. Piggybacking on the previous comments, I would like to also stress the need. I work with different governments and we work on capacity building. We work in Southeast Asia, we work in Africa, and I have worked with different civil servants, different managerial levels, etc. What I scheme through is the AI and digital transformation competency framework, and I agree with the previous discussions that we need to have competencies along the lifecycle of digital technologies. So this is really important, and especially in the context of AI, I think these should be even more granular. So you talk about digital planning and design, data use and governance, and digital management and execution. I would add another phase, and this is monitoring, evaluation, and learning, so the mill phase. And then with respect to government, working with the private sector, I have seen in Eastern Europe, in Southeast Asia, in Africa, everywhere I go, donors, they insist on public-private partnerships, but this is really important. This is very challenging, very difficult to achieve, and what we need is digital champions within government. We need a more contextual, more granular, more targeted approach to these competencies. We need one approach when addressing digital transformation and AI issues for higher echelons of civil servants or the managerial echelon, and then normal people working for the government. So there is another type of skills and competencies that we need for this type of civil servants. So what else? And a model that used to function in practice with respect to digital champions in government is the model of digital transformation officers in Ukraine. So you could take a look at it and see how these officers have worked. Those are basically appointees from the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine that are embedded in different teams throughout different ministries and agencies in Ukraine, and this is really important to have champions within different agencies and ministries that are going to champion the cause of digital transformation, and how digital transformation can be, how digital services can be improved, and what does this mean? And I want to put the focus on simplifying things, because what I have seen is that we come up with all these wonderful terms, so algorithmic transparency, algorithmic accountability, ethics, but when you work with civil servants, governments, different government entities, public officials, they say, oh, these terms are wonderful, okay, so ethics, accountability, and transparency, but what do they mean in practice, okay? So we talk about human-centric approaches, but then try working and, you know, institutionalizing capacity-building programs in different countries around the globe, and, you know, equipping civil servants with different digital skills, it’s not easy at all. Okay, just putting it out there. so

Prateek Sibal:
Thanks, Mimi, that al complements a lot, I think we have a strong private sector, without us setting the stage, on the need for the public sector to be able to, for digital transformation along the life cycle. Okay, so, okay, we go, I would first like to pass the floor to some women speakers, because we have been a lot of men speaking first, so perhaps I go to Amrita, and then to Risper. Thank you, Pratik,

Audience:
and thank you, and apologies for being late. I think, my name is Amrita Chaudhary, I represent a civil society organization, CCUI, from India, and looking at it from the civil society lens, and I agree with what, Odison, you just mentioned, a few more things, obviously capacity-building is important, but before any government, or any department of a government goes in for a digital transformation, I think they need to actually do a deep dive study on the impacts, that’s very important, and having a multi-stakeholder discussion at that point of time, not only the private, public, but even the individual, the end-users into consideration, would have a more nuanced understanding of what the ultimate product would be, because many times, intentions are great, but the execution at the end is not seamless, so I think that is very important, buy-in between, like, if I’m looking at countries such as India, you have state, you know, you have the center, which implements something, but states also implement something, so there has to be synergy between the state, there has to be a buy-in from the civil, civil servants in the state to that, it should not be, and for that, the capacity-building is important, that this is going to help you, it’s not going to take away, you know, it’s not going to harm you, many times, civil servants, you know, different age categories, think new technologies, new processes, you know, they have a pushback in their mind, so I think that needs to be demystified, similarly, just as, you know, capacity-building on technology is important, having a rights-based approach while implementing is important, because many times, those are overlooked, as in, it’s not a conscious thing, but unconsciously, those are not looked in, so I think those are important, and countries such as us, which is multilingual, having it in different languages, end-to-end is important, for example, I’ll give you, many of our websites are on different Indian languages, but if a citizen wants to do something end-to-end, some parts, for example, the payment gateway is in English, so if you can have an end-to-end in a particular language, even voice-based, because not many people read, they don’t like to read, I would say, many people don’t read emails too, so I think, you know, using those kind of innovative technology, what people will adopt, because at the end of the day, anything you bring in is for people to use it, if it’s not used, it would not work, and thank you.

Prateek Sibal:
Thanks, Amrita, for that insight. Risper, you wanted to do something?

Audience:
Can you just go this way? Yeah, thank you, Prateek. My name is Risper Onyango, from the Lawyers Hub Nairobi, Kenya, and I think just to echo, you know, the sentiments in the room, recently we ran our annual conference, which is called the Africa Low-Tech Festival, and for this year, we were focusing on the digital public infrastructure, and we kind of tend to look at the different facets, you know, the interlinkages with either AI, technology issues, and all that, and so one of the projects that we were running, together with co-developers, trying to look at how we can first do an assessment, and then also create awareness, particularly for policymakers and CSOs, and so we ran a survey, we did a number of workshops, and it was very interesting, the same things that we are finding in the room, whereby first the level of involvement and awareness on most of these issues was actually really low for many of the participants, so we tried to run it across 24 African countries, with representatives both from the CSO community, and some members of parliament, and a higher percentage of them actually had no involvement in, say, in the case that you are looking at, DPIs, so they don’t really have conversations or understandings around, you know, whether it’s data governance, whether it is digital ID, you know, and getting into having that as a starting point, I think is actually very important. Like she was saying, the assessments would come really key. But I think what I’d like to emphasize also is the multidimensional aspect of it. And that’s what you find in the public sector. So you find that there are very many arising issues or conversations. And sometimes we try to have like a linear line to it. And yet we are facing very many simultaneous issues. So for instance, in Kenya, we are having so many cross-cutting conversations. We are looking at blockchain, we are looking at digital ID, we are looking at data protection. And sometimes we want to be rigid and kind of have a straight jacket approach to it. But I think it’s very important that we actually consider that the public sector actually operates cross-cuttingly, you know, on these issues. So that even as we are trying to curate solutions around it, then we are actually informed of how they operate, yeah. Thanks, Paola. And then we go to the gentleman there. Good morning and well, good afternoon to everyone online. My name is Paola Galvez. I’m from Purdue, former strategic advisor to the presidency of the Council of Ministers. And that’s where I provided my service to develop the Digital Talent National Strategy. And as a bottom-up process in a multi-stakeholder way, we came to the conclusion that we could not have the same strategy for everyone in the public sector. So we divided this in three different users or audiences. First, we have in the public sector, methodologies or geeks. I mean, people who know about technology, who are in the IT area and definitely need different kind of capacity building. Then we have the users who need to be literate consumers, but not really, they don’t need to be experts. They need to understand the technology that are using, why it is important and also super important here, grab some capacity building on the ethical aspects and privacy. Because we received many concerns from academia and civil society that sometimes when they use the technology that were offered by the Peruvian government, they would ask too many information in the forms, for instance. And when we ask them, hey, and why are you asking the ID here? No, because we’re used to this. So yeah, actually, that’s when we need to also engage the Ministry of Justice to talk about the Privacy Data Act, for instance. And then the third layer is decision makers, because they need to know enough about technology to make decisions and to bring this culture that was very well explained in the video, Pratik, and we were all talking about. Digital transformation is not using tech, it’s actually the shift in mindset. And also for that, and while we were developing the national strategy, we created the Digital Talent National Platform where we tried to make it easy for Peruvian public servants to develop these skills. But what we noticed is that female public servants were the least consumer, sorry, servants, enrolling on these courses and finishing these courses. So what is happening here? Of course, there are not enough motivations and female servants have other tasks at home that don’t allow them to have the time to complete these courses. So here, what I would like to stress is, first, let’s think about our different audiences when we’re thinking about capacity building in the public sector. Second, always wear gender lenses when we’re thinking about these policies. And third, create motivations. I was discussing with friends from the UAE and Colombia. They have fantastic motivations. For instance, very briefly, in the UAE, they have badges that will be earned only when they finish their certifications and when they apply the certifications to their roles, which will be counted in their annual evaluations. So this will make them eager to have this. In the Peruvian case, for instance, and I believe now in the government they are working on it, is how to create these motivations so they can create more time because this is something apart from the daily tasks they have, right? So yes, this is just my main three points. Thank you.

Prateek Sibal:
Thanks so much, Paola. Over to you, sir. Okay, do we have a mic there? If we can just pass one around.

Audience:
Thank you. Good morning. My name is Rudolf Griedel. I’m Director General for Central Affairs that encompasses HR, IT, and other things in the German Ministry for Digital Affairs. First of all, I want to thank you for organizing this open forum and also to say that everything I’m hearing here and everything that has been presented, it is very clear that these issues and these challenges are the same everywhere. Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, I think we are all more or less in the same situation that we have vested civil servants structures, public service structures that have been functioning in one way or another for decades. And now that we are at this point where we want to go to the digital transformation, I think that has been said in several interventions before, and I want to emphasize this also from my personal experience in our administration. At the beginning, the transformation has nothing or very, very few to do with digitalization. It has to do with a cultural mindset and it has to do with looking at administrative processes. How do they work? What are the layers of administration that we have created over the decades for ourselves and are they really necessary? And only if we look at these processes, at these internal ways how we operate, and only once we have optimized those ways, we can then go into digitalization. Because if you take the old way of doing it and you put a computer on it, you still have a very poor process behind it and it won’t create good results. So people will say, oh, you see, this digitalization, it’s worth nothing and it brings only harm and it brings work. So that’s one point. The second point is we are trying to always have a double gain when we introduce new digital tools and this double gain has to be for the customer, for the citizen, for the user. That is very important, but it has also to be on the administrative side. So because then you have a chance to take the civil servants on board and to convince them that it’s a good thing to do. I mean, in Germany, other than perhaps other countries, we have a very poor demography and so we are older and older. We do not have so many young people again on the employment market. So we need these computers and machines to help us to provide the same services and the same quality as we did before with like 100 persons, now with 80 or 60. So we have to have a gain on the administrative side in order to take people on board and in order to start this cultural mind shift. So thank you very much for this and I’m really learning a lot here from all of you and I’m looking forward to continue the exchange. Thank you.

Prateek Sibal:
Thank you. I see there are several more hands and I will come back here first and then go back again this side. And yes, so Peter, over to you.

Audience:
Good morning, everybody. And indeed, very interesting conversation. My name is Peter Marien. I’m working for the European Commission and DG Intpa. I’m team leader for digital governance. A few comments from my side. So at Intpa, digital became a priority a few years ago. And when we started looking at that, we of course were in the middle of the COVID, post-COVID situation when there was this huge shift, even more than before one could argue towards having society moving online in many aspects of society. So as we worked with our partner countries, because that’s part, that’s a lot of our mandate to work with partners outside of Europe, we wanted to make sure, let’s say, that we’re all together seeing the benefits of this digital shift, let’s say, but also that we managed the risks. So both were important. And also we looked at this from, let’s say, a global perspective. So we were not focusing only at national digital transformation, for example, within certain administrations or other aspects of society, which is important, but also how do we see the global aspects of this when you talk about data transfers, privacy, and eventually also sovereignty of nations, information, access to information, those things. So of course, to have these kind of discussions, and I fully agree, we need them as much internally in our organization as anywhere else, we need this capacity to be increased. And that’s, so there, I just wanted to share a few things that we’ve been doing. So just a few more things before I go into some examples. So we, as I said, we wanted to make sure that we reap the benefits, but also avoid the risks. And these risks, to be blunt about it, are also geopolitical. So we wanted to also make sure that the capacity is there, that ourselves and our partners avoid being captured, captured by states, methodologies, and also by companies. And their value sets that go with that. And I heard already the term human-centric here. So for us, this is very important, this human-centric approach, where we put the individual at the center and not the company and not the state. So when we thought, okay, so how do we go about this? We linked this also to our objective to support and work with our multilateral institutions. So this is just for context, so we put this in the context also of working with multilaterals, and specifically also with the UN, United Nations Agency, and again, based on the principles of the UN charters and this human-centric approach. So what have we been doing concretely, just to give a few examples? We have an agreement ongoing with UNESCO on the topic of AI, so this is a few million euro, I won’t go into too much details, but a large objective here is also to work on these topics of, if I can call them capacity building, you can call it more or less, but let’s say it includes capacity building on the topic of artificial intelligence and working with partner countries around the world. We also have an agreement with ITU and UNDP together, so jointly, so it’s a few million euro, it’s just recently been signed, and the idea there is to train a few thousand civil servants around the world, so it’s global, I mean, UNESCO is also global, and that is training, we can argue for years about this, but it’s training online and offline, so it is online and different types of online training, but it also includes offline training, and that training, I would call it like digital diplomacy type training, and it includes training on AI, and for that, ITU and UNDP will work also with UNESCO. We also have another project that just started recently where we are working, and this is specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa, with regulators. I also heard the regulator question coming up, so that’s about 34 million euro at the moment, where we’re also working with other EU member states, and the idea there is to work with regulators in Sub-Saharan Africa, and indeed, this approach will be much more based maybe on the notion, I could say, of working with champions, and with working with the notion of change management, and I completely agree with what was said before about this not just being about digital and computers, but indeed about what was said by my predecessor. Also to emphasize that we have absolutely realized that we need capacity building in-house. This is in our own unit, in our own DG, in the commission, also in our delegations around the world. We have many delegations around the world, offices, embassies, and everybody needs to be skilled, and again, it’s not about using computers, but about all these other aspects, and so we are trying to do that actively, and then maybe just to respond, because of course we have many partners here and the session today was about civil servants, but of course I think civil society there is key, and we also have under the same general umbrella a program that we’re just starting with two consortia of CSOs globally to work on capacity building for digital, and that includes for them to be able to join discussions like this one, so we are explicitly asking them to join discussions at IGF, ITU, ICANN, IETF, and so on, so that they are part of this whole discussion. Thank you very much. Thanks, Peter, for sharing the multilateral dimension and what kind of global work you’re doing. I think we move to some parliamentarians, so over to you, the gentleman, and then to you, sir. Yeah. Thank you very much. My name is Sam George. I’m a member of parliament from Ghana. I think that in having these conversations, we need to appreciate that the different demographics, especially in different sectors, when we look at the public service, for example, if I use Ghana, the public service is made up of the civil service, and then you’ve got the executive government machinery, you’ve got the judiciary, and then you’ve got parliament. Now, the approaches to introducing digital tools in all of these various sectors of the public service cannot be the same. When we try to approach this with a one-cup-size-fits-all, you have challenges. Ghana’s demographic is different from Germany, but we have the same problem, where we have a very aged civil service. In fact, many of them will tell you they are BBC, born before computers, and so the approach to digital uptake is different from if you were talking, for example, to the private sector or if you were talking, for example, to parliament, where you’ve got a mixed demographic. Now, the challenge with parliament, where I sit, will be that a lot of the capacity building is tailored for members of parliament, and that’s fine, but then that is just half of the solution. Members of parliament face attrition. In many African parliaments, your longevity is maximum eight years or maximum two terms, so when you invest a lot of capacity building in just the members of parliament and not the parliamentary service, which is the technical bureaucracy that survives longer than the members of parliament, because there are technical persons in parliament who’ve been there for 25 years and 30 years. They see various iterations of parliament. That is a cater that we need to focus on because they provide the technical support for members of parliament in pushing legislation and all the technical work, so I think that that’s an area we need to look at. Same happens with the judicial service. There is more longevity there for a judge who gets appointed to the bench. If you give them the requisite training, then they’re able to have better interpretation of legislation and all of that, and I get the benefit of having worked in the civil service and then transitioning into the government machinery, working in the office of the president before finding myself in parliament now, and so I see the various iterations there. The last point I want to make is the fact that we need to understand the life cycle of introducing digital, especially on the African continent. A lot of governments in Africa are talking about digitization because that’s the in thing. A lot of European and Western funding is available for digitization, but digitization is just literally us moving from our analog systems to digital systems. The main concept of digitalization itself, which is the next phase of digitization, is lost on many African governments, and many governments, frankly, across the world, and then the whole concept of digital transformation, so being able to have that complete life cycle established for the public sector, that digitization is just one step of it, is just one small minutia of the whole process. We need to get to the digital transformation through digitalization. It’s a critical part of getting this actually implemented so that we just don’t have check boxes that are ticked so that our countries appear to be compliant, but implementation is actually zero, and that’s why I think a lot of the focus must be on. Thank you. Thank you, sir. So I just, I think this conversation will go on, but we have about half an hour left, and I would, so please take the floor. We have time, and I would not totally stick to the script because I like the conversation is flowing. We are learning from each other. We’ll keep it, but keep the remarks as brief as possible so that everyone can have a chance. Hi, I’m Damien Cepeda. I’m a senator from Mexico, and while thinking of the topic, I think when you want to push an agenda in civil public service. and government and parliamentary, you need to look at two specific things. We need information and we need resources. Resources, access, funding, or whatever costs, benefits. In information, we need information for the scope of opportunity of the technology. In specific topics, because most of the countries that are underdeveloped or like not fully developed, the members of Congress or the government’s servants are thinking about health issues, security issues, education issues, specific problems of the people right now. Not in like 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. So, what we need to do, I think so, is to put the information that makes reasonable to take an agenda in pushing internet, artificial intelligence, technology, in all these areas to make specific benefits to the people. And you need to identify key players, not everybody, key players, key members of Congress, key members of government that you need to convince that if you invest in this technology, it will make a specific benefit for the people. That’s one thing, information of opportunities. The other thing is information on the risks, because all the people that are making the decisions are always worried about what can happen if you open up all the technology without correct regulatory measures. Things of personal data, information, biometrics, and all of that stuff. Things of the right to privacy, for example. What about public and private security surveillance? So, I think when you do these gatherings, or if I was UN, UNESCO, or whatever, I would give specific information to how to use it safe. And the third thing I think we need to get into it is specific costs. We need infrastructure, we need to make investments in schools, public places, whatever, to get access to everybody. But if you don’t do that, for example, in internet, what happens is that you open the breach between the people that has access to technology information and the people that doesn’t have it. So, I think if we give the information to policymakers and to key decision players, we can get the objectives done. Thank you, sir, for those thoughts. I’ll come here to Mr. Tarada, and then we come here. And then we go there, finally. And this, oh, please come here, don’t stay at the back. Please come in the front on the table, please. Sir. Thank you very much. First of all, I’d like to express my sincere gratitude for being invited here as a speaker. My name is Takeo Harada, and I’m a CEO and a representative of the Institute for International Strategy and Information Analysis, located in Tokyo in Japan. Before I have founded my own think tank, this institute is a total independent think tank in the private sector. But before having founded this think tank, I was a career diplomat. So, in the capacity between bureaucracy, civil servants, on one hand, on the other hand, the private sector, I’d like to make three very short proposals. While I’m very pessimistic in terms of the digitalization or digital transformation, particularly in the Japanese bureaucracy, just after our Japanese civil servants’ friends had left the room, I’d like to make a very short statement, very honestly. First of all, I think by nature, the bureaucracy is very reluctant to be digital, because the civil servants are working on politics. And politics, by nature, needs intransparency to make deals with all the possible stakeholders. So I think before getting into the discussion in detail of the competencies, we should differentiate from the easy, DX-friendly tasks done by the civil servants from others. For example, as I said, I was a career diplomat. But in diplomacy, I cannot imagine that, for example, generative AI will make a final statement for the foreign minister or prime minister. So we should be very realistic. Yeah, we should be very, very realistic. So first point is, we should differentiate different tasks done by civil servants. And maybe there are some fields which are very relevant to the DX and AI, but others are not. So the second thing is, we should enhance the public engagement. Because I’m terribly sorry, but I’m a newcomer to this forum. But UNESCO’s splendid works in terms of DX and artificial intelligence is invisible enough, particularly in the Japanese society. So we should involve much more public opinions so that we can boost this movement in terms of the introduction of artificial intelligence and DX to the civil servant world. For example, in Japan, maybe all the friends and colleagues coming from the emerging markets, emerging countries, cannot imagine how acute the declining population issue is, especially in Japan. All the Japanese social sectors are now urged to introduce AI or the DX because of lackness of the human capacity. So this sentiment shared by the public opinion should be mobilized in connection with our works done by this forum. And last but not the least, I’m still wondering, what is the AI? I myself am a global AI specialist. And I’m still pessimistic because the AI technology is just pattern matching, just calculated by the computer. So we need much more elaborated AI technologies so that we can maybe predict civil servants cannot rely on very sparse outcomes of the calculation done by the AI in the current status. So I would say the UNESCO and our DC alliance should help all the endeavors done by the academia and also the private sector and industries to make much better AI and DX technologies. That is. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. We have to go over there. I’m sorry, if you can please keep it very brief. Thank you. Thank you, Brad. Yeah, it was my turn. Thank you, Patrick, for inviting me to speak in this open forum. And first of all, I would like to thank UNESCO for putting this together. I know you have put in a lot of work to bring this for discussion. Number two, I would like to raise my hand. And as you can see on the screen, my fingers are not the same. So all governments are not created equal. So we really have to know this as we begin this discussion. And I would like to add that we don’t have to discuss this as if we are concluding it today. We have just begun. And this is a conversation. And I believe what we have to do is to create partnerships with the government locally for them to be able to express what the needs are in terms of capacity, digital capacity building for the civil servants. I think that is very critical in terms of achieving what we want. Because the issue is, the question is, and your question that you asked was, are there really need for what sort of skills and competencies that we need? I believe that to be able to get a set of skills and competencies that you need will vary from one government to another, from one public sector entity to another. I’ll try to share what is happening with my government in Tanzania. Tanzania has been implementing what we call digital Tanzania. And you will find they have created a Zoom-like platform. It’s called Imi Kutano, where internally they organize meetings using this Imi Kutano platform. So there are a lot of things that are happening with governments around the world that we need to learn from them as we create these sort of partnerships to implement this capacity building as a coalition. I would like to say one of the skills that we’ll need in the governments is the issue of data governance training. Because many governments are now implementing data protection acts in Africa. And I believe handling data is very important. Number three is the issue of digital customer service. In 2020, I write about 50 emails to different government agencies. And what do I get? Some of the agencies reply to my emails, some don’t. So some reply within a few hours, others reply after maybe several days. So what does it mean in terms of capacity building? The issue of attitude change. And that has been previously alluded by a friend from Germany. So I think there is a lot that will go into this in terms of making sure that we also create capacity in terms of attitude change for the government officials to learn about digital customer care and whatnot. And lastly, I would like to say that as we move forward with this, it is very important, number one, we create partnerships so that what we are doing does not appear as though it is an imported menu that is being shoveled into the governments in terms of their capacity building. So with that said, again, thank you for what you are doing for the capacity. Thank you. And I think it’s all of us doing, not us alone. And it’s just the start of the conversation. To the gentleman over there in white. And then I come to the lady here. And then Mike. Thank you very much and good morning. I’m Honorable Alhaji Mbo from The Gambia. And also the Vice Chair of the African Parliamentary Network on Internet Governance. I’m a member of Parliament, but I came from the tech sector to be in Parliament, which is really a very different world than from what I used to know. In any case, digital transformation, personally, I think is a must for all governments now. So there is no going back, so we need to move forward. And in doing so, governments actually must take the bull by the horn in trying to understand the capacity gap that they actually have. And to do that, first, you know, we talk about the civil servants, which is crucial. Because at the end of the day, the policy making rests in their hands. Even though there’s a big debate whether parliamentarians do policies, you know, it’s debatable. But at the end of the day, what makes the policies work also rests in the hands of the members of Parliament. So I think the two need to really work very closely just to ensure that we have what it means to get those policies to work. Now, in doing so, for me, I think there are multiple approaches we can use to ensure that we bridge this gap. First, let’s look at our education system, the curriculum that we actually have in our schools. I think this is a key area that we can start to build now for the future. Because like you said, we have, you know, civil servants or the public sector, actually, the age gap also is really, in many countries, actually, it’s not really very good. So to do that, we need to start building the younger generation to move up. Then, the civil servants that we currently have, I think there needs to be a study to understand the various gaps they actually have. Because it cannot be one gap fits all. Like, me personally, when I interact with some of them, I can easily tell that sometimes you have a very, very big gap in some of them. But then, in the other way around, you see some also that are up there, that they just need to go to the next level. So I think chairing them, knowing exactly their level of competency also is going to actually help in terms of the capacity building. And the last one, actually, is also what we are doing in the Gambia. I’m sure my colleague is also going to say something about that. The government actually now is on a very rapid transformation. In fact, just last week, they transformed one high education of learning called Manningham Development Institute into a college for the civil service. That will actually help them to train them so that they can actually move to the next level in terms of developing the needs of the country. Thank you. In fact, I was in the Gambia earlier this year for training of the judiciary, and we had about 50 magistrates and judges on AI. And it was a very fascinating discussion. Sir, if it is also from the Gambia, can we wait a bit? And- It’s a different approach. OK, OK. But very quickly, please. Yeah, very quickly. Yeah, I’m Pons Light from the Gambia NRI. My approach, I’m looking at it from the perspective of being a computer scientist, looking at it being technology people and processes. Now, if you look at most countries, especially in the global south, taking the view from Africa, who are the nearest civil servants that deal with the people? Are those in the municipalities? So the strength of any digital transformation process must start with the municipalities. If you look at Seoul, the capital of South Korea, you look at their municipality, what they have done with digital transformation is amazing on how the common person can get services who reside in Seoul. And I think if we focus on building the bottom top from our municipalities, a big change will happen. Thank you. Thank you, sir. That’s extremely important. Ma’am, the floor is yours. I’m truly impressed. This room is a field with wisdom. And I wish I could have a time to talk to you individually one for an hour. So my name is Jingbo Huang. I’m from a United Nations University. So I don’t know how many of you have heard of UNU. The headquarter is in Tokyo. And we have, thank you, 13 research institutes in 12 different countries. Every institute has its own specialty. And the one that I’m leading, the institute in Macau, is specialized in digital technologies. So right now, our research training and education portfolio is mainly related to AI, governance, modeling for disaster management, online child protection. So digital technology is our bread and butter. So we have actually different types of challenge because we are an interdisciplinary research team. Like this gentleman just said, we have a room full of computer scientists specialized in AI. And we have been just launching a series of generative AI plus series, talking about the impact on education. Actually, we’re going to work on a series with UNESCO on education, on the environment, and the future, the responsible way. So we have a series of generative AI plus. So our challenge is to have a, we have a computer scientist and psychologist economist. But we want to hear about the real country context so that our knowledge can make sense. So we also have a training catalog ranging, you know, very, I can share, I’ll be happy to share with you. But we do need a context from you. So I would like to call for collaboration, and both for training that we’re offering, but also for the next conference that we’re going to run in Macau in April as a UNU AI conference. And we’re going to be 10 times smaller than IGF. But our approach would be very focused, problem-driven. You have a specific issue. We bring private sector, our academic research network together just to focus on one specific issue. Hopefully, everybody goes home with something concrete. So I would like to call for participation and collaboration. And please come to me. I would love to talk to you for one hour each with each one of you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Mikey, you wanted to take the floor, and then the lady next to you. And so let’s keep it to one minute. I know it’s hard, but there’s a lot. to talk about. I’ll be quick, I promise. Thanks, Prateek. I’m Maikki Sipinen, and I’ve worked in AI policy for, I think, five or six years now. So I can bring the perspective of people drafting their national AI strategies or working on AI regulation. And I’d just like to bring up that it’s very easy and everyday work to write plans and strategies and how to develop skills for workforce or citizens or universities or really anyone else than yourself. And when it comes to this part on competencies of AI policy officers, it’s actually kind of difficult and can be scary. Because starting this discussion means inviting everyone to analyze, like, can I do my job? And can our team actually do what we are supposed to do? Or do we have the skills? So it can be really hard. And I feel like maybe this pressure comes actually from a misunderstanding. And it’s really clear that we would need to put more effort into clarifying that this is not really about turning civil servants into technical AI developers. And not everyone needs to have a PhD in AI to write AI regulation, for example. And we should really stop saying things like, let’s bring the real technology experts in, or we don’t need to be experts on AI. Because AI policymakers are also experts. It’s just a different emerging field of expertise. And I think this is what the Competency Framework is all about. So that’s going to be a really good tool for encouraging these discussions. Thanks.

Prateek Sibal:
Thanks, Maike. I move to Alexandre, and then I come back. Alexandre. You can take, OK.

Audience:
Thank you, Patrick. And good morning, everyone. I’m Alexandre Barbosa, head of CETIC, which is a UNESCO Category 2 center based in Brazil. We are a regional center for Latin America and the Caribbean and also Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa. Well, I don’t have much to say after all this wonderful debate. But I would like to mention that we are involved in measuring the socioeconomic implications of the ICT adoptions by different sectors, including public sector. And we do run surveys every year with government to see the level of adoption. And it is really clear that having data, we give visibility to the problems and to the issues that we have to face and to address. Without data, we don’t have visibility. But more than have data, like UNESCO is really making a very wonderful job in making assessment and to revealing the state of the adoption among civil servants. But we need, as our colleague from Ghana and also from Tanzania has mentioned, government is not a homogeneous body. So we need to have segregated data so that we can understand the different inequalities in terms of digital skills among civil servants in the government. We have different structures, like central government, state or provincial government, local governments. Within those levels, we have different powers, like legislative, judiciary, executive. And the level of skills development is very different. I would say that among all countries here represented, we can say that it’s not the same. So we don’t have one solution that will solve the whole problems. But it is clear that when we start to discuss what are the challenges in empowering civil servants in engaging in the digital transformation, we need to have disaggregated data. We need to understand what are the differences among civil servants. And besides the lack of digital skills that I guess all of us agree that we have an issue to be addressed, I would like to also mention three other things that was already mentioned in terms of cultural change. Governments are the oldest type of organization and the only type of organization that touches every us in the society. So the cultural resistance to change is really enormous. And besides that, I think that we need to develop a culture of continuous assessment, many of you has mentioned the need of assessment. And I think that we need to rely on institutions such as UNESCO to help member states to really put in place effective frameworks able to capture, able to measure, and to produce reliable data. And last but not least, I would say that we have to work on a set of skills, not only digital skills, such as collaborations and best practice sharing. So those are a few points that I would like to address. And once again, Pratik, I would like to congratulate UNESCO for this initiative, really very important. Thank you.

Prateek Sibal:
Thanks, Alexander. I think the point of measuring digital skills is extremely important. Actually, we don’t have a global measure of this. And the kind of proxies which are still being used are not very sure they measure education. I think we’ll continue, but I think we can extend by five minutes if the folks in the technical team allow us to. So we start while I figure out. Yeah?

Audience:
OK. Well, thank everyone for a rich discussion. My name is Carolyn. I am with a human rights organization called Access Now. So we work at the intersection of human rights and technology. And just there’s a lot of shared sentiment in this room, I think. But just to highlight on a few things, one, when we’re talking about digital capacity building, I think we just cannot overlook the major gaps that still exist and just knowledge about the relationship between those technologies and their human rights impacts and how human rights law applies to those particular technologies. So I think just making sure that we’re keeping pace between the technology itself and also the human rights framework that it needs to operate inside of. I think when we’re talking about a human-centric approach to digitalization, we also need to really understand that that’s not just about end users versus governments or private sector, but about people versus the technology itself. Just the language of digitalization or digital transformation, I think, lends itself to moving in a direction of seeing implementation of the technology as the end goal or the point. And it’s just really not. And it can be disruptive to a design process and can limit our capacity to really understand the problem that we’re trying to solve in the first place. So I think really keeping people’s experiences and, to the senator’s point, being very specific about the problems we’re actually trying to address to avoid overreach and misapplication of certain technologies. And I think just as a final point, really understanding the way that these technologies impact people and communities at risk in ways that are very different than they apply to end users in general. And those people and communities at risk are also the people who have been least effectively served by so many of these government agencies. And so really centering those communities’ perspectives from the very beginning of the process and not seeing it as something to be tacked on at the end, and really thinking about co-creation, accountability, and co-design with those communities who perhaps have the most to be gained in some cases, but also stand the most risk of harm. Thanks. Actually, we… OK, so it was not cut. Can you speak loud? We don’t have a microphone. Hope you can hear me well. Yeah. Ah, OK. Very shortly, I’m Hugo Cordova. I’m a civil servant, so I feel very… very affected by what we are discussing here. And I work for the European Parliament. My only thought is, like, I see a lot of focus on how the utilisation is used for access and services from the public, but there is other aspects that are important for the utilisation, at least from my perspective, is how the utilisation help us to provide or to do new things. And I’m thinking, just an example, I work with legal text, and sometimes we have to see how something has been done somewhere else. So, for instance, I would love to have artificial intelligence who helps me to say, OK, how this particular problem has been solved around the world, in all these relations. Something very stupid, but maybe, but I think it would be very useful, and it’s part of the conversation. So, not only access to public services, but how we do business inside the house.

Prateek Sibal:
I think that’s very important. We go to José, José, José.

Audience:
Well, thank you very much. My name is José Renato, I am from civil society in Brazil, from the Laboratory of Public Policy and Internet, and also from the Federal Administration Central Committee on Data Governance, representative of civil society. And just to share a thought on, how can we even be more productive when thinking about digitalization, digital transformation of the public sector, and resounding the voices that mentioned communication and feedback also. Be attentive to the feedback of civil society, of people who are using the systems. This is fundamental, otherwise all the work can be counterproductive. And in Brazil, we have many cases that went to the judiciary to question issues related to ethics or to the compliance with, for instance, privacy and data protection issues that could have been solved just with a further dialogue with civil society and specialists. And just to finalize, something that was not touched that much today here is also on the capacity building of the judiciary, because judges are the ones that are responsible for when something goes wrong in the administration and policy making, they’re the ones that tackle the issue when rights are being violated. So thank you very much indeed.

Prateek Sibal:
Thanks Jose. We have a judge from Tanzania here joining us also. Professor Amal, and then I come to the lady there.

Audience:
Thank you. I will be very brief. I think many things have been said. I’m wondering about, my question is why people are scared from digitalization? And I think we have to think in multidimensional level. The first is that people have to learn too much new things, very quickly and fastly, in a global world, because when you now, when you have to deal with regulations, you face regulations coming from Europe, from the United States, from China, from everywhere. So building capacities, I will just think very quickly about complexity and uncertainty. And this makes building capacity something very difficult in this new moving world. My experience is that in Morocco, which is a part of Africa, we have also to face the problem of literacy. Civilians will deal with people that cannot read, that cannot write, etc. So something that could be very interesting to study and to put in the framework, we don’t talk a lot about this, but I think that building capacities is not individual matter. It’s collective one. And we should put frameworks that we can bring together techniques and methodology to learn individually and also at the group level. And AI can bring also tools that are not very well known, but tools based on simulation. We can also study the behaviors of people in collective learning setting. And we can provide new approaches to learning because for most people digitalization means tracing, means surveillance, means that everybody will know what I am doing, etc. So I think it is very important to demystify what does it mean. In fact, if we master these tools, we can be a lot more comfortable with using them. So just to be very brief, because I don’t have time, I know, I think that technology is going very fast, regulation is going very slow. And this distortion is putting people in very uncomfortable situation. So there are three things, I think, very important, if I want to summarize. The first is rise awareness and demystify at all levels. The second is lifelong learning. People should learn all the time because the technology is moving. If you remember November 22, everybody was surprised about the tsunami of ChatGPT. Even people working in academia were very surprised about this huge tool. And the third thing is adaptation and agility to all these things. Regulations, we started with GDPR and now we put we developed executive master to learn about governance of AI. Two years after, we have to change the curses because we are not dealing with GDPR anymore. We have to deal with AI act. AI act means you have to learn about how to qualify the risk of tools. And I agree with you. If you don’t master the technology, you cannot understand what’s going on with this regulation. So there are a lot of things to debate but I know I have to stop.

Prateek Sibal:
Thank you, everyone. I think just as some very quick concluding remarks I know there are more people We will now explore really proposing a formal dynamic coalition on digital capacity building to the IGF. With kind of three broad objectives which can be defined with the community and what we would try to serve is more a secretariat to facilitate that cooperation. First would be a community of practice for knowledge sharing. So what all civil society, academia, governments, private sector experiences that they are having we can share those around the world as someone also mentioned the experiences in Germany to the experiences in Tanzania are quite similar. And this is a real chance for all of us to learn from each other. There is also perhaps a need for developing knowledge tools so this is not only a forum for discussion but also collaboratively working on some products which could be for instance an assessment methodology for civil servants which whatever UNESCO will produce is of course available for free for everyone to use contextualize and so on but we can collaboratively work on tools which then everyone can take forward and then also to have a network of experts which can actually support governments provide technical assistance and this will be useful to learn from Brazil to learning from Ghana and facilitating that exchange. We don’t have much more time but what we will do is follow up with an email and with the formal processes of the IGF and open this up for people to join the coalition and then we will follow up with more discussions. But thank you so much for your insights. It was a pleasure hosting this discussion this morning. Have a wonderful day. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. People to settle down. And we’re waiting for one on-site speaker to join but other than that we’re good to go. Could I request the organizers to help us see the speakers on the screen? The two speakers joining online. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.