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Digital Solidarity: Building a Better Tech Future, Together [1]

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Date: 2024-06 

Technology is increasingly interwoven into nearly every aspect of our society – how we work, how we learn, how we communicate, and more. Digital innovation is reshaping every industry, from health care to transportation; from finance to education; and from energy to agriculture.

These changes, of course, have considerable significance for our foreign policy. Technology innovation as a source of national power and influence is becoming foundational, more akin to geography or demography than to GDP or military capacity. In fact, traditional measures of strength are increasingly downstream of an economy’s ability to innovate and collaborate in key technology areas.

Tech is therefore right at the heart of the work of today’s diplomats, and the decisions we make today will shape the world for decades to come. The stakes could not be higher for our collective security and prosperity.

The United States’ International Cyberspace and Digital Policy Strategy, launched by Secretary Blinken at the RSA Cybersecurity conference on May 6, provides a road map to meet this moment with clarity, purpose, and a sense of what matters most. Two important principles inform our technology diplomacy.

First, a primary orienting point for the strategy, and our work globally, is advancing an affirmative vision for the role technology plays in our lives. America is the world’s leader in technology innovation, and, together with our allies and partners, we represent a global community of rights-respecting governments, companies, institutions, and individuals on the cutting edge of innovation – driving solutions to global challenges.

We welcome partners around the world to join in the pursuit of the fruits of technological innovation, in a secure, rights-respecting, and trusted manner. We’ll build as big a tent as possible that includes any country or actor that is committed to these principles.

This is at the heart of our second principle: “digital solidarity.” Digital solidarity is about locking arms with our partners and working together to create systems, policies, and norms that will help us maximize the promise of digital technology and build guardrails to address its risks.

Solidarity means leveraging shared values, like freedom of expression and open and fair markets. Solidarity means standing together, providing mutual support, building capacity, and investing in each other to work towards shared goals. Nothing generates advantage in the tech domain as much as a network of partners and allies with shared objectives.

The digital economy is already global, cross-border, and accruing outsized, tangible benefits from the open, free-flow of data and the interoperability we have long championed. When governments erect barriers to the free flow of data, for example, or fail to take advantage of global cloud services for the sake of protectionism, it demonstrably increases costs, slows innovation, and weakens cybersecurity. The task ahead is to make sure these data flows can seamlessly and securely cross borders on a backbone of trusted infrastructure to ensure their integrity.

Solidarity also means being the partner of choice for countries hoping to use technology to achieve their economic and development goals.

The Department’s new Cyberspace, Digital Connectivity, and Related Technologies (CDT) Fund will support strategically important technology-related foreign assistance programs, adding a crucial tool in the toolkit for building strong, resilient, and secure cyber and digital partners.

This affirmative vision for the role of technology in our lives, and our call for digital solidarity with partners, aim to connect, protect, and empower people using technology, fostering a more inclusive, secure, prosperous, and rights-respecting world.

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[1] Url: https://www.state.gov/digital-solidarity-building-a-better-tech-future-together/

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