Citi Bank on Thursday launched its latest Global Perspectives & Solutions (Citi GPS) report titled Holistic Digital Policy- Nation States Must Lead in Building Equitable Human-Centric Digital Economies, which urges governments to take decisive steps to close the gaps in digital skills, infrastructure, and research and development.
The report sets out a number of focus areas designed for countries and governments to assist in the process of moving to a more digital economy, including artificial intelligence (AI), inclusive finance, digital infrastructure, private-sector incentives, and regulations.
It suggests that each nation-state develop and implement a Holistic Digital Policy that complements monetary and fiscal goals and facilitates sustainable economic growth and inclusion.
It goes on to explain that Holistic Digital Policy also seeks to incentivise and align other stakeholders such as corporates, financial institutions, civil society and individuals to achieve the collective economic and UN Sustainable Development Goals. It outlines five focus areas that are adopted alongside digital policy including digital infrastructure, data, AI and biotech, technology monopoly, and digital finance.
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Naveed Sultan, chairman, Institutional Clients Group, Citi, commented: “We believe that we are at a unique point in time where there are major transitions underway, driven by varied and complex externalities and the rapid development of a broad range of general-purpose technologies. We, therefore, need new policy tools and business approaches to address the challenges and opportunities presented by these externalities. We believe that a Holistic Digital Policy is a new tool that will complement monetary and fiscal policies, which are currently showing signs of stress, and also improve their efficacy.”
Sultan continues: “There is evidence that countries which have established a holistic approach to digital policy and execution have realized significant economic, social, and political benefits. These countries have also seen a thriving public-private sector collaboration. That’s in addition to continuing to engage in cross-agency, cross-government, and private sector collaboration on topics such as the development of central bank digital currencies, cybersecurity, and data privacy.
Ultimately, forward-thinking governments need to take decisive steps to close the gaps in digital skills, infrastructure, and research and development.”
The report goes on to highlight that to successfully adopt Digital Policy, governments should establish frameworks for global collaboration whilst pursuing long-term visions, inspired by the ESG concept of cross-stakeholder collaboration to achieve sustainable and equitable economic growth.
Dalibor Vavruska, Founding Partner, Digiteccs Associates commented: “The technological revolution is improving the efficiency of organizations across sectors and countries, is empowering economic inclusion, and could provide solutions to systemic challenges such as climate change.
However, it also presents risks such as job displacement together with other adverse impacts and a breakdown of global governance. Therefore, It is important that countries and governments work together to shape these technologies to optimize the outcome and manage the risks.”
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