[digital.global] im Dialog
The [digital.global] network brings together more than 100 stakeholders from politics, the private sector, civil society and academia in Germany, our partner countries and our multilateral partner system.
As a platform for all stakeholders driving a socio-ecological and feminist digital transformation, the network thrives on its strong partnerships and continuous exchange. Its aim is to harness the innovative power of the digital economy for development policy goals by responding to the needs of partner countries. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is in constant dialogue with its initiatives and partners to adapt technical and financial cooperation to the constantly changing challenges of the ongoing digital transformation in all areas of life.
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Blockchain & Women’s Financial Inclusion
The topic of the webinar was the financial inclusion of women. What added value can blockchain and digitalization offer here? Peer-to-peer lending, microcredit for women’s savings groups, or community inclusion currencies – blockchain offers a range of use cases to reach people who have been largely excluded from the formal financial system. But can these technological solutions also help change gender norms and strengthen women’s financial inclusion and economic participation?
We discussed theese questions with partners from CGAP, WFP Innovation Accelerator and GIZ Cameroon, who presented projects from development cooperation and humanitarian aid.
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Roundtable: Towards a feminist digital development cooperation
Towards a feminist digital development cooperation, the betterplace lab organized the online roundtable “Towards a feminist digital development cooperation” as part of a trend study on feminist digital development cooperation.
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Women in Tech, Twin Transition, and an Alliance for MSMEs: some of the themes presented during the Regional Forum for Digital Transformation in Mexico
The Forum organized by the BMZ Digital Transformation Center Mexico in close collaboration with the Ministry of Economy of Mexico, brought together a diversity of national and international stakeholders.
The Regional Forum for Digital Transformation was a hybrid space for dialogue and networking to exchange experiences on Digital Transformation, Digital Policy, Data and Public Policy, Digital Economy, Climate Action and Sustainable Development. During the three days of the Forum, almost 5,000 virtual attendees participated from 18 different countries such as Germany, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru; and nearly 700 people attended in person. There were 58 sessions, including expert panels, keynote speakers, multi-stakeholder dialogues, and five workshops. The Forum, held in the Ministry of Economy in Mexico City, featured the participation of 120 speakers from 40 different public, private, and social sector institutions.
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Sovereign Cloud Stack Summit
Organized by the Open Source Business Alliance (OSB Alliance), the Sovereign Cloud Stack Summit aimed to promote exchange on open source technologies, especially in the cloud space. The focus was on digital sovereignty and European core values in the digital space, which were significantly advanced by SPRIN-D. For the panel discussions and speeches, the broad ecosystem of open source stakeholders from politics, the private sector, academia and civil society was included. The BMZ highlighted the international perspective on digital sovereignty and open source through the policy initiative GovStack and the [digital.global] Network.
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Global Solutions Summit
The Global Solutions Summit is the world’s leading forum for translating research-based evidence into policy recommendations for the G7/G20. Its goal is better global governance for the common good. The meeting brought together high-level government officials with academic researchers, NGO leaders and international CEOs. The BMZ participated in several sessions of the Global Solutions Summit, including the Advisory Board meeting and the High-Level Forum on Climate and Digital Architecture for the Public Good sessions.
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Visit of the Egyptian Minister of Digital at the BMZ
With the aim of exploring strategic priorities for digital cooperation between Germany and Egypt, a strategic dialogue took place between the BMZ and Khaled El-Attar, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, Automation and Administrative Development.
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Strategic Dialogue UNDP in the BMZ
The United Nations Development Programm (UNDP) is a long-standing partner of German development cooperation, while UNDP and BMZ share a longtime cooperation in the digital sector. The aim of the exchange in May was to highlight synergies in the field of innovation and digitalization. The United Nations Development Programme, represented by Robert Opp, Chief Digital Officer and Gina Lucarelli, Team Leader Accelerator Labs, met with the following representatives of the BMZ: Dirk Meyer, Head of Division Global Health, Economy, Trade and Rural Development; Martin Wimmer, CDO; Noemie Bürkl, Head of the Digitalization Unit.
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World Bank GovTech Global Forum in Washington
The event was organized by the World Bank’s Governance Global Practice and was entitled “Governance in the Digital Era.” BMZ participated in the forum as a co-host through a logo partnership. A recorded video message from Dirk Meyer, Department Head, Global Health, Economy, Trade and Rural Development was broadcasted during the first plenary, which addressed the guiding question of how GovTech implementation can contribute to economic and social development.
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Transform Africa Summit (TAS2023)
The Transform Africa Summit (TAS2023) took place for the sixth time this year. The venue was the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Government representatives, companies and organizations from over 100 countries met under the motto “Connect, Innovate, Transform”. The aim of the summit was to accelerate the digital transformation of the participating African countries. This is to pave the way toward competitive, agile, open and innovative smart societies.
Our policy initiatives were represented at TAS2023 with the following workshops:
- Digital for Development (D4D) Hub: ”Global Gateway: Building trusted connectivity between Africa and Europe”
- SADA & Gig Economy: ”Better policymaking for fair, safe, inclusive and sustainable digital transformation – The case of platform work”
- Data Economy: ”Building an Enabling Environment for Data-Driven Value Creation”
- GovStack: ”Digital Leaders Forum on Digital Public Infrastructure and Secure Data Flow”
- #SmartDevelopmentFund: ”Female Empowerment – the compass of the Twin Transition”
- FAIR Forward: ”Leveraging AI to adress climate change challenges in Africa”
- SADA: ”Network of Women Digital Ministers for inclusive digital policy and digital gender equality”
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UN World Data Forum 2023: Innovative ways to utilise data for policy makers
The UN World Data Forum aims to drive innovation in the use of data, foster partnerships, mobilise high-level political and financial support for data, and develop a sustainable approach to data use.
Against this backdrop, the United Nations Development Programme, in collaboration with GIZ’s political initiative Data4Policy, has developed a Data-to-Policy Navigator for policymakers to use new data sources to support policy and decision-making processes.
The navigator focuses on the needs of policymakers to shape more inclusive, effective and sustainable policies and empower them digital public infrastructure (DPI). The beta version of the Navigatorwas launched at the fourth UN World Data Forum, which wich took place in Hangzhou, China, in April 2023.
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bitkom Digital Sustainability Summit: Conference for the digital and green twin transition
Climate change affects us all. How can we use innovative digital solutions to combat climate change? And how can we connect the global South and North to jointly develop innovative solutions for climate goals?
These questions were addressed by Svenja Schulze, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, at the bitkom Digital Sustainability Summit. Through the newly created [digital.global] network, new paths and partnerships can emerge with the aim of developing digital solutions to one of the most pressing questions of our time: how do we shape a climate-just future in the global South and North?
In addition, Noémie Bürkl, Head of Digitalization at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), discussed digital solutions to the climate crisis directly with companies from the MAKE-IT Alliance, bitkom, and local businesses in a side event.
About the side event by [digital.global]
Roundtable: “Green Tech for Climate Action: advancing digital green solutions between North and South“
Collaboration with the private sector is essential to solving the global challenges of our time. This is especially true for climate change: on the one hand, our economic activities contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and biodiversity loss. On the other hand, innovative ideas and digital solutions can help conserve resources and build a sustainable digital and green society and economy.
In particular, innovative SMEs and startups offer digital green tech solutions to decarbonize supply chains and shape the transformation to a more sustainable economy and society. A dialogue between the private and public sectors, and between companies from the global South and North, can help promote green and sustainable technologies and approaches worldwide.
In the panel discussion, initiators and participants discussed the limits of their supply chain management and compensation mechanisms. The focus here was on innovative digital solutions. On the other hand, green tech solutions from climate adaptation were presented, which could be used especially in the global south. How can such solutions be scaled to maximize impact?
The following speakers discussed at the round table for interested companies:
- Noémie Bürkl, Head of the Digitalisation Department of Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
- Lara Obst, Co-Founder & Climate Officer of THE CLIMATE CHOICE
- Marco Christ, Managing Director of DEG Impulse gGmbH
- Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Rams, Co-Founder & CFO of Africa GreenTec
- Werner Neubauer, CEO of albis-elcon
- Robert Heinecke, Founder & CEO of Breeze Technologies
In addition, selected international startups gave us an insight into their work, including IoTeamVN, winner of the Green Tech Incubator Vietnam.
Host: Stella Deppe, BMZ digilab
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Keynote by Federal Minister Svenja Schulze at the Bitkom Digital Sustainability Summit
In April, the German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development participated in bitkom e.V.‘s Digital Sustainability Summit. In her speech, she emphasized the crucial factor of digitization for achieving the SDGs and the importance of framework conditions for the digital transformation of partner countries in the Global South.
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Handelsblatt GovTech Summit
As part of the GovTech Summit Nele Leosk, Estonian ambassador for digital affairs, and Yolanda Martinez, global head of the GovStack policy initiative and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), joined BMZ to discuss digitization in development cooperation.
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Side event: GovStack – a lighthouse project of the digital strategy
The GovStack side event, hosted as part of the Handelsblatt GovTech Summit, aimed to present GovStack as a lighthouse project of Germany’s digital strategy and to connect the international GovStack ecosystem with the German GovTech community, including policy makers, GovTech companies and startups, as well as networks, think tanks and civil society.