G20 priorities: digital infrastructure, security, and skills

India’s G20 Presidency has highlighted digital public infrastructure (DPI), security, and skilling as areas where strong economies can help drive sustainable, inclusive development for the whole world.

Just as water and electricity enable vital public services, a society’s public infrastructure forms the backbone of digital transformation.

DPI – combining technology, transparent governance, and public-private innovation – can drive societal-level change at scale. Digital readiness creates local ecosystems that support the UN 2030 Agenda at a time when the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are off track.

India has set a pioneering example, sharing experiences to help other nations learn and benefit from its experiences.

We have a lot to learn from India, including from its historic achievement on 23 August as the first nation to land a spacecraft near the Moon’s south pole.

Unlocking the transformative power of DPI is at the heart of many initiatives by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), from Partner2Connect to Smart Villages and Smart Islands, or GovStack, where ITU and partners provide governments with open-source specifications for digital public services.

Connectivity must go hand in hand with confidence and trust in technology, especially in the era of artificial intelligence (AI).

Strengthening capacity building and trust, through a multi-pronged comprehensive global approach, is similarly key in confronting today’s digital resilience challenges, and for connecting the 2.7 billion people who are still offline worldwide.

Cyber capacity-building lies at the heart of work – from helping governments establish national cybersecurity strategies to providing resources for children’s protection online; from maintaining the Global Cybersecurity Index to establishing key international standards.

syber education and awareness toolkit and high-level principles to support businesses.

We look forward to continuing this engagement – and to working with governments, partners and future G20 presidencies – to build a robust and trusted global digital economy. This means ensuring secure access to an open Internet and equitable benefits from emerging technologies.

We’re at a moment in history where technology is moving very fast – and this can be unsettling.

Providing people with the right digital skills is the first and best line of defence. Yet fewer than half of the world’s countries track digital skills, constraining effective policy responses.

In all industries, everywhere in the world, jobs now require digital skills. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, over 200 million jobs will require digital skills by 2030.

Even basic skills training can be life-changing for people. This is especially true for vulnerable groups on the wrong side of the digital divide — like women and girls, who represent a disproportionate and growing share of the global offline population.

Creating a gender-equal, digital-ready workforce requires reskilling, upskilling, and investing in the capacity of these groups. It needs to happen in all countries, regardless of their development status.

ITU welcomes the G20 toolkit for digital upskilling and reskilling as an important step in building that future-ready workforce.

Online training through the ITU Academy network, our gender equality partnership with EQUALS, and the ITU-UNICEF Giga initiative to connect every school to the Internet are helping make digital skills available to all.

Under the Partner2Connect Digital Coalition, more than a third of the pledges received, worth almost USD 14 billion out of over USD 30 billion to date – relate to digital skills. As important as this is, much more remains to be done.

India has set priorities taking a comprehensive view on the digital economy. Let’s build on that momentum and create together an inclusive, thriving workforce that propels countries  in the G20 and globally confidently towards our shared digital future.