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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On Wednesday 10 December 2014 06:30 PM,
parminder wrote:<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:548843E7.6010806@itforchange.net" type="cite">
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<p>The UN Secretary General has issued an important report on the
SDGs process titled "<em><a
href="http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5527SR_advance%20unedited_final.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">The Road to Dignity for All: Ending
Poverty, Transforming </a><a
href="http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5527SR_advance%20unedited_final.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">All </a><a
href="http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5527SR_advance%20unedited_final.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">Lives and Protecting the Planet</a></em>"
. It is now open for <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://ngosbeyond2014.org/articles/2014/12/6/call-for-civil-society-responses-to-the-un-secretary-general.html">responses</a>.
<br>
</p>
<p> <em><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.itforchange.net/Response_to_the_synthesis_report_of_the_UN_Secretary-General_on_the_Post-2015_Development_Agenda#comments">IT
for Change submitted these comments</a></em>, specifically
on ICTs and data issues. Here, we highlight the need to
especially recognise ICTs as a general purpose technology which
is transforming our societies today and the need to ensure their
universal availability as well as an open and equitable
technical architecture of all ICTs, including the Internet. We
also comment on some of the initiatives proposed by the
Secretary General on data for sustainable development, and
suggest some additional measures that will turn the face of the
digital revolution towards serving the public good from the
currently dominant trend of proprietisation of public data
resources and use of data for mass surveillance and social
control .<br>
</p>
<p>In this context, please do read the very significant report of
an SG's advisory expert group on employing the data revolution
for sustainable development, "<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.undatarevolution.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/A-World-That-Counts.pdf"
target="_blank"><em>A World that Counts: Mobilizing the Data
Revolution for Sustainable Development </em></a>" .<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">I consider this report to be of
outstanding significance. First time a global report deals with
big data as a public resource, an issue entirely missed in the
IG related civil society discussions and reports on data issues.
All these discussions and reports have just seen big data from a
privacy angle. However, the role of data as a resource, and its
(mostly, mis-) appropriations as a private resource while the
basic nature of much of it could actually be determined as
'public', is as important an issue. This report for the first
time, at least at this level, frames the issue of big data as a
public resource. It also calls for "building of a global
consensus, applicable principles and standards for data". <font
face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> <br>
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TO ADD<br>
<p>The above puts into focus how global IG discussions and
formulations have mostly taken place from a civil and political
rights - also called negative rights - stand point, and not from
the perspective of equally important economic, social and cultural
rights. The reason for this is simple - almost all active global
forums on IG are funded and supported by the North, and it is
within this geopolitical constraints that IG discussions and norms
development takes place. If there were a UN based space for these
articulations, things would begun to take a different turn, more
of an equity and social justice kind of considerations as well.
But as we know, any progress on developing UN based venues for
such normative activity are actively blocked, basically out of
geopolitical and geoeconomic considerations. Why civil society
joins in these blockades however is not clear. <br>
</p>
<p>So, to give a clear instance for better illustration, while the
OECD's Internet related body ( CCICP ) discusses economics of
private and big data, in an inter-governmental way, with
consultations and inputs from other stakeholder, proposals for
such discussions at the UN level in exactly the same format is
described as an attempt to takeover the Internet.<br>
</p>
<p>Economics of big data is one of the biggest geo-economic issues
of current times, as intellectual property was (and continues to
be) of the last few decades. (Sadly, this issue has not been
understood in its importance by the developing countries.) The
reason for keeping developing countries away from the processes of
formulation of initial norms, principles and policies of this all
important issue are obvious, as far as the interests of developed
country governments go. But why civil society? That always remains
the question. </p>
<br>
parminder <br>
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<p> </p>
parminder <br>
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