hen asked what could be the main challenge for Africans regarding digital human rights, and how the new trend of startups connected to the digital world can benefit from these Global Digital Human Rights?
Burianov and his partner Slava Mirovsky come up with additional research to help clarify what Global Digital Human Rights could mean for Africa and startups across the continent
They say, in summary, we can talk about the following digital problems for Africa. The human community faces an obvious challenge to bridge the global digital divide and inequality in relation to Africa. With regard to providing access to qualitative online and offline education that includes a fundamental component of digital literacy (which should be part of free primary education in schools). Also, it is necessary to create conditions for the fair provision of basic social services (in the field of health, nutrition, labor, and safety) and to provide access to the global Internet and digital infrastructure.
In order to solve these problems, we (Maksim Burianov, Slava Mirovsky and the Team) propose a new concept of human-centered digitalization – global digital human rights.
Project “Global Digital Human Rights for 4IR” (launched in 2020). The goal of the project is to develop and promote the Declaration of Global Digital Human Rights and Model Laws to regulate digitalization (including in Africa), which will ensure the preservation and implementation of digital rights of people around the world in the interests of sustainable development.
Let’s define a list of core digital human rights for Africa to consider for startups, innovators, politicians, civil society representatives and create legal regulation of this area.
Taking into account the analyzed statistics and the data of our survey, we propose the following components of digital human rights for the Africa region:
1. The right to the global Internet for everyone;
2. The right to information and access to digital infrastructure;
3. The right to quality digital education and digital literacy;
4. The right to equal access to the benefits of civilization mediated by modern technologies (health care, food, water, labor) incl. in the context of achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals;
5. The right to freedom from total surveillance and protection of personal data;
6. The right to participate in the management of social processes at the global and regional level, so that the voice of the African Communities is taken into account throughout the world;
7. The right to access digital transactions and digital assets;
8. Digital guarantees for the realization of human rights in the context of the development of artificial intelligence and industry 4.0.
In the development and implementation of these ideas, we unite the world community, involving youth organizations in their solution, the youth associations Global Shapers Moscow Hub (Russia), Global Shapers Maputo Hub (Southeast Africa), Global Shapers Port Harcourt Hub (West Africa), Global Shapers Durban Hub (South Africa), Global Shapers Praia Hub (West Africa). Also, on December 19 in 2020, the Russian-African Youth Public Forum was held online to discuss humanitarian interaction, youth cooperation, and volunteering. Davos Lab Moscow Hub, a Global Digital Human Rights for 4IR project supported by 50 hubs, became part of the event. Then the project was presented within the framework of the youth group of the CIS “Generation Connect” at the UN International Telecommunication Union (at the regional and global level).
In the near future, we view Global Digital Human Rights as new ESGs (Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance) for the era of Industry 4.0, so that the innovations that are created in startups around the world meet the needs of all humanity and expand the ability of a person to influence their lives.
Digital human rights are the foundation for the future development of Africa and humanity. We invite the entire African community to complete a survey on the impact of digitalization on your life, to support a global petition in support of global digital human rights. Call on everyone to become part of the global coalition for global digital human rights
With best regards,
Maksim Burianov, Slava Mirovsky and the Team.
