UNESCO Welcomes G20 Digital Economy Working Group’s Focus on Artificial Intelligence for Inclusive Sustainable Development and Inequalities Reduction

Maceió, Brazil 13 September 2024 - The Digital Economy declaration makes significant progress in promoting information integrity and ethical AI governance, ensuring a digital ecosystem aligned with human rights, freedom of expression and access to information.

UNESCO places particular emphasis on the chapter addressing artificial intelligence for inclusive sustainable development and inequality reduction.

The ministerial declaration underscores that safe, secure and trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI), when applied in a transparent, ethical, responsible and reliable manner, may act as a catalyst for achieving economic growth and inclusive sustainable development within its three dimensions: social, economic and environmental, aligning fully with UNESCO's Recommendation on the ethics of AI.

Mariagrazia Squicciarini

The instrument reaffirms the G20 AI principles and Our global normative instrument, the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI and its methodologies, like the Readiness Impact Assessment which is advancing the implementation in over 60 countries, with RAMs underway in Indonesia, India, Brazil, Türkiye, and concluded in Saudi Arabia, Mexico and South Africa.

Implementing ethical governance frameworks are crucial for meeting all Sustainable Development Goals and implementing commitments from the forthcoming Pact for the Future and the WSIS Summit review.

In this sense, it is important to emphasize the commitment assumed in the declaration to work together to promote international cooperation and further discussions on AI for inclusive sustainable development and inequality reduction. To do that UNESCO welcomes the document "Enabling resources for the development, deployment, and use of AI for good and for all" leveraging the work of and in collaboration with UNESCO.

Shizuo AlvesMCom

Furthermore, and noting with concern the potential risk presented by AI in widening digital divides within and between countries, the declaration calls for the promotion of inclusive international cooperation in this domain, notably on capacity building, joint research and voluntary technology transfer and knowledge sharing, on mutually agreed terms, in order to expand participation of all countries, in particular developing countries, in digital transformation to harness the benefits and effectively participate in the development, deployment and use of safe, secure and trustworthy artificial intelligence systems, in a responsible and ethical manner.

In that sense, the Declaration underscores the importance of enhancing the ability of all countries, in particular the developing ones, to develop technical expertise and capacities, harnessing data and compute resources and realizing the potential of open-source technologies and systems and open data in delivering AI benefits at scale.

In this context the importance that the Brazilian presidency presented a Toolkit for Artificial Intelligence Readiness and Capacity Assessment, produced with the support of UNESCO.

We are proud to see this outcome and how the declaration is yet another sign that in major leadership spaces, UNESCO's Recommendation continues to inform global debates!

We will continue working to promote innovation-friendly AI policies and governance approaches that uphold human rights, and that are consistent with applicable legal frameworks on security, privacy and protection of personal data, and intellectual property rights and we also look forward to working closely with the 2025 South African presidency, the first time Africa hosts the G20.

South Africa intends to build upon the achievements of past presidencies to bridge the digital divides, promote equality, and support inclusive sustainable development to improve people's lives. We therefore welcome South Africa's plans to further work on the topics of Artificial Intelligence, in line with our mandate.

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