President Macky Sall's candidacy for the office of UN Secretary-General argues for a digital world built as a common good. The basic building blocks of the connected world, proving one's identity, paying, exchanging data securely, can belong to all or to a few. That choice will decide who benefits from the digital revolution.
Open foundations. Free software, an open standard, public data are shared without paying each time. Built in common, these tools spare each country from reinventing everything and from depending on a single supplier. The digital public good is to the age of networks what the road was to the industrial age.
Infrastructure before applications. A trustworthy digital identity, an interoperable payment system, a governed exchange of data form the base on which thousands of services are built. The countries that laid these open foundations saw a digital economy emerge that no monopoly locks down.
Sharing rather than depending. Without common rules, a few companies set the standards and collect the rent. Digital public goods, interoperable and governed in common, return to states and citizens the control of their own tools. Sovereignty, in the digital age, is built by sharing.
What the Secretariat can carry. The Secretary-General develops no software, but can promote digital public goods, as the Global Digital Compact invites, support their financing and their spread, and recall that a shared technology serves peace better than a captured one.
Experience in multilateral negotiation. Twelve years as head of state and the chairmanship of the African Union in 2022 underpin these commitments. That experience explains why the vision statement filed with the United Nations frames its proposals as obligations: peace, security and development conceived together; a renewed multilateralism; stronger governance of the Organization.
Africa at its heart, the world in its sights.
The Global Digital Compact and the United Nations registries of digital public goods are public. Read all public positions at www.mackysall.net