hroughout the pandemic we have seen the extent of our global reliance on digital infrastructures. With the continued need to convene, plan, and strategize, digital tools have become critical to keeping the wheels of world affairs turning. The unprecedented incorporation of these tools by international organizations, forums, and multilateral organizations in the wake of the pandemic has marked a new age in digital diplomacy—expanding the mutualism of government, private sector, and international affairs.
The pandemic brought on its own blend of new challenges and obstacles for private, governmental, nonprofit, and education sectors alike. The new emphasis on social distancing and increased concern over inter-personal contact in poorly ventilated spaces wrought a massive exodus from classrooms, boardrooms, and halls of government. Our global response to the pandemic, however, did not absolve the need to conduct business, educate students, run governments, or manage world affairs. Instead, the result was a digital overhaul of every facet of our lives.
If we consider the rise in stock prices for digital meeting platforms like Zoom for example, we can conclude quite confidently that the demand for pandemic-friendly meeting, organizing, and collaborating alternatives was extremely apparent. Zoom alone experienced a ten-fold increase in its service usage during the pandemic. Regarding tech sales, the PC market grew by nearly 13% in its third quarter in 2020 reaching roughly 79.2-million-unit sales. This was also accompanied by internet service increases internationally from 40% before the pandemic to 100% following widespread lockdowns. It is quite clear that the digital sector within the span of two years, has made leaps and bounds in response to pandemic pressures.
Now when considering digital economies, policies, regulations, and diplomacy, it is a self-producing phenomenon. The increased mobilization of the digital sector begets newer policies, which in turn facilitate greater growth and mobilization of the sector. In this case, the growing use of technology across the board has come to affect new digital policies and regulations such as the EU’s Digital Services Acts (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) or the more recent creation of the U.S.-E.U. Trade and Technology Council (TTC) earlier this year. At the multilateral level, we can also consider the UN’s Declaration at the commencement of UNGA75 as an affirmation of the inherent role that diplomacy and policy must play in shaping the growth of the sector as well. The declaration to improve safe, affordable, and equitable digital access reflects the hard-learned lessons from the pandemic about the importance of effective digital transition.
Internationally, digitalization has followed a generally steady trajectory increasing our technological capacities across sectors. However, prior to the pandemic, these digital tools were rarely preferable to in person correspondence, communication, and collaboration. The pandemic whiplash finally necessitated a more fundamental incorporation of digital technologies across sectors.
One of the perhaps more salient examples of this is the 75th Annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) held virtually in September of 2020. While not in person, the 75th anniversary of the UNGA operated with fully digital programming which allowed for world leaders to provide their remarks virtually, both ensuring their own health and safety, but also arguably increasing general access to assembly programming.
Civil society advocates such as CIVICUS have both lauded this virtual transition and simultaneously advocated for continued virtual access to UN programming in the future to better promote UN-civil society communication and collaborations.
Additionally, this unprecedented degree of incorporation of digital tools and technologies has become the means of survival in an era of social distancing. Sectors that fail to fully incorporate a comprehensive digital policy will be unable to meaningfully engage internationally in the economic, political, and trade relations. This sink or swim facet of digitalization drives rapid incorporation of digital tools into our means of doing business. However, our fast-paced digital deep dive also raises ethical concerns regarding ethics, business practices, cyber security, trade, supply chain resiliency, and disinformation to name only a few.
Many of these concerns have been long-standing since before the pandemic, but what in terms of diplomacy is different? Digitalization and forecasts of doom, gloom, and boom have been subjects of much conversation and analysis for the past five years, but what has changed in terms of diplomacy?
To an unprecedented degree, we are witnessing a profound confluence of diplomatic, governmental, private, and civil society sectors through digitalization. This growing sectoral interconnectivity is the direct result of widespread digitalization. However, this growing coalescence is also leveling the playing field in terms of lines of communication. Through the pandemic, we have witnessed a surging willingness of leaders in all sectors to convene and discuss policy and diplomacy. With business leaders and diplomats and nonprofits alike operating remotely and virtually, there has been a boom of new opportunities to create engaging and exciting virtual forums and programs. Pre-pandemic, effective and productive convening and programming has always been constrained by physical, geographic, and logistical constraints. The greater operational freedom created by widespread digitalization has bridged many of these gaps.
Even as pandemic restrictions and safety protocols begin to loosen gradually and intermittently, the pandemic has taught us how to work effectively in the digital sphere. Moving forward, we may begin to see the formation of a hybrid diplomacy. The benefits of in-person interactions and communications are common knowledge, but the newfound value in digital diplomacy cannot be so easily dismissed even with a return to traditional diplomacy. This hybrid approach that borrows from traditional and digital diplomacy can help continue bridging gaps between the private, governmental, non-profit, and other multilateral sectors. While we are still very much in the full current of digitalization, we have a long way to go before we can fully maximize the benefits of this hybrid diplomacy. However, through greater digital fluency education and training as well as cross-sectoral collaboration on digital policies and regulations, it is achievable.
a global affairs media network
Digital Diplomacy Is the Next Normal
Image via Pixabay.
January 23, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in an emphasis on digital infrastructure and for diplomacy, the digital appears here to stay, writes Meridian International Center's Puru Trivedi. This shift could make diplomacy more accessible, but there remain ethical concerns that must be faced.
T
hroughout the pandemic we have seen the extent of our global reliance on digital infrastructures. With the continued need to convene, plan, and strategize, digital tools have become critical to keeping the wheels of world affairs turning. The unprecedented incorporation of these tools by international organizations, forums, and multilateral organizations in the wake of the pandemic has marked a new age in digital diplomacy—expanding the mutualism of government, private sector, and international affairs.
The pandemic brought on its own blend of new challenges and obstacles for private, governmental, nonprofit, and education sectors alike. The new emphasis on social distancing and increased concern over inter-personal contact in poorly ventilated spaces wrought a massive exodus from classrooms, boardrooms, and halls of government. Our global response to the pandemic, however, did not absolve the need to conduct business, educate students, run governments, or manage world affairs. Instead, the result was a digital overhaul of every facet of our lives.
If we consider the rise in stock prices for digital meeting platforms like Zoom for example, we can conclude quite confidently that the demand for pandemic-friendly meeting, organizing, and collaborating alternatives was extremely apparent. Zoom alone experienced a ten-fold increase in its service usage during the pandemic. Regarding tech sales, the PC market grew by nearly 13% in its third quarter in 2020 reaching roughly 79.2-million-unit sales. This was also accompanied by internet service increases internationally from 40% before the pandemic to 100% following widespread lockdowns. It is quite clear that the digital sector within the span of two years, has made leaps and bounds in response to pandemic pressures.
Now when considering digital economies, policies, regulations, and diplomacy, it is a self-producing phenomenon. The increased mobilization of the digital sector begets newer policies, which in turn facilitate greater growth and mobilization of the sector. In this case, the growing use of technology across the board has come to affect new digital policies and regulations such as the EU’s Digital Services Acts (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) or the more recent creation of the U.S.-E.U. Trade and Technology Council (TTC) earlier this year. At the multilateral level, we can also consider the UN’s Declaration at the commencement of UNGA75 as an affirmation of the inherent role that diplomacy and policy must play in shaping the growth of the sector as well. The declaration to improve safe, affordable, and equitable digital access reflects the hard-learned lessons from the pandemic about the importance of effective digital transition.
Internationally, digitalization has followed a generally steady trajectory increasing our technological capacities across sectors. However, prior to the pandemic, these digital tools were rarely preferable to in person correspondence, communication, and collaboration. The pandemic whiplash finally necessitated a more fundamental incorporation of digital technologies across sectors.
One of the perhaps more salient examples of this is the 75th Annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) held virtually in September of 2020. While not in person, the 75th anniversary of the UNGA operated with fully digital programming which allowed for world leaders to provide their remarks virtually, both ensuring their own health and safety, but also arguably increasing general access to assembly programming.
Civil society advocates such as CIVICUS have both lauded this virtual transition and simultaneously advocated for continued virtual access to UN programming in the future to better promote UN-civil society communication and collaborations.
Additionally, this unprecedented degree of incorporation of digital tools and technologies has become the means of survival in an era of social distancing. Sectors that fail to fully incorporate a comprehensive digital policy will be unable to meaningfully engage internationally in the economic, political, and trade relations. This sink or swim facet of digitalization drives rapid incorporation of digital tools into our means of doing business. However, our fast-paced digital deep dive also raises ethical concerns regarding ethics, business practices, cyber security, trade, supply chain resiliency, and disinformation to name only a few.
Many of these concerns have been long-standing since before the pandemic, but what in terms of diplomacy is different? Digitalization and forecasts of doom, gloom, and boom have been subjects of much conversation and analysis for the past five years, but what has changed in terms of diplomacy?
To an unprecedented degree, we are witnessing a profound confluence of diplomatic, governmental, private, and civil society sectors through digitalization. This growing sectoral interconnectivity is the direct result of widespread digitalization. However, this growing coalescence is also leveling the playing field in terms of lines of communication. Through the pandemic, we have witnessed a surging willingness of leaders in all sectors to convene and discuss policy and diplomacy. With business leaders and diplomats and nonprofits alike operating remotely and virtually, there has been a boom of new opportunities to create engaging and exciting virtual forums and programs. Pre-pandemic, effective and productive convening and programming has always been constrained by physical, geographic, and logistical constraints. The greater operational freedom created by widespread digitalization has bridged many of these gaps.
Even as pandemic restrictions and safety protocols begin to loosen gradually and intermittently, the pandemic has taught us how to work effectively in the digital sphere. Moving forward, we may begin to see the formation of a hybrid diplomacy. The benefits of in-person interactions and communications are common knowledge, but the newfound value in digital diplomacy cannot be so easily dismissed even with a return to traditional diplomacy. This hybrid approach that borrows from traditional and digital diplomacy can help continue bridging gaps between the private, governmental, non-profit, and other multilateral sectors. While we are still very much in the full current of digitalization, we have a long way to go before we can fully maximize the benefits of this hybrid diplomacy. However, through greater digital fluency education and training as well as cross-sectoral collaboration on digital policies and regulations, it is achievable.
