A Cooperation Based Regional Strategy
PANG’s report has emphasised the value of a digital development and data sovereignty strategy for the Pacific region that is based on cooperation, both South South and South-South-North, in place of the current Pacific E-commerce Strategy that will reinforce the dominance of technology companies and constrain Pacific Islands Countries through coercive trade rules. A second theme is the need for a regional strategy that promotes holistic digital development, recognising that e-commerce has social, cultural, economic, environmental and commercial dimensions.
This alternative approach relies heavily on Pacific Island Countries learning from and collaborating with developing countries that are at the forefront of digital development initiatives, without attempting to replicate them, along the lines UNCTAD suggested in its 2018 report on regional digital integration.
Implementation of this approach need not be as resource intensive as the current Strategy, especially if other developing countries and regions are prepared to include the Pacific region in their initiatives, share technology, and provide advice and training, and if time and resources are not wasted on negotiating free trade agreements. This section canvasses a sample of innovations that might be feasible and appropriate in the Pacific context.
Data, and more specifically control or sovereignty over data to enable its utilisation and protection, have been a central concern in PANG’s report.
Rwanda’s innovative “digital revolution strategy” shows what a least-developed African country with a population of 14 million can do. Some time ago Rwanda decided to transform its agriculture based economy to a digital one. Rwanda has a foundational principle of data sovereignty, “whereby structured and unstructured national data is entirely accessed by our own country and subject to the laws of the country in which it is located. Such data should also be hosted locally or out of the country upon agreed terms”.
Pacific Island Countries could develop a relationship with Rwanda to learn from their experience and identify strategies and technologies that can build the Pacific’s own capacity based on self-determination.
Data regimes: Rwanda
In the absence of holistic global rules to advance a development agenda, it makes sense for developing countries to build regional strategies that they can implement collectively and at a national level.
The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the African Union are both useful examples. ASEAN has been evolving a flexible regional strategy that can cater for its diverse membership that ranges from parties to the TPPA/CPTPP to LDCs to states like Indonesia that maintain data localisation requirements. The approach emphasises cooperation to explore options, without being locked into rigid constraints through enforceable trade agreements – a position also reflected in the non-binding e-commerce chapter of the ASEAN-led RCEP.
The African Union Digital Transformation Strategy (2020-2030) has a strong development focus; again it is regional to be implemented at a national level. While conditions in Africa are very different from the Pacific Islands, they face a similar lack of supervisory frameworks and data storage, processing and handling facilities. The strategy seeks to enable free flow of non-personal data, but also promotes the development of data centre infrastructure to achieve cost savings, as well as data sovereignty, that focuses especially on personal data.
Regional Strategies” ASEAN and African Union
An interesting model to reflect on is the Swiss government’s development of “data spaces”, which seek to balance diverse, and sometimes competing, interests in particular sectors - a goal that sits comfortably with the Framework for Pacific Regionalism. Switzerland currently operates data spaces in priority sectors that overlap with priorities for e-commerce in the Pacific: mobility/transport, energy, finance, health and education. Importantly, these sectoral data spaces do not operate in silos; there is interoperability between sectors, where relevant, and geographically.
The “data space” regulates access to, and processing and reuse of, data. This is supported by a data infrastructure that uses shared interfaces and standards. Its governance structure defines the conditions under which data can be exchanged and sets the roles, obligations and rights of all actors. Seeking to replicate this at regional and national levels in the Pacific would be unrealistic. But there is value in thinking cohesively about digitalisation in key sectors, taking a holistic approach to the principles and objectives in the Framework for Pacific Regionalism
Data Spaces: Switzerland
Digital Infrastructure: India
In 2022 the Indian government launched the pilot phase of its Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) that aims to promote open networks for all aspects of exchange of goods and services over digital or electronic networks. The ONDC offers a set of protocols and a technology-based solution that allows everybody to trade on a common platform. The platform will enable buyers and sellers to connect and transact with each other online, no matter what other application they use. It will feature apps in local languages for both buyers and sellers, with special emphasis on small merchants and rural consumers.
The Pacific region is not India. Nor does it have the resources India can call on to support this initiative. But India is at the forefront of innovations to build viable alternatives to the dominance of the big tech players, assert their sovereignty over data generated in the territory, develop non-proprietary source code, and create systems of inter-operability that are appropriate to the culture, society and economy. Fiji could propose a Pacific-India partnership on the ONDC as a pilot project for the digital trade pillar of the IPEF. Australia and New Zealand could even support and fund them.