Ethics in IT
Universität HamburgEthics in IT
Lunchtime Talk @EITGovernance of Data and e-Commerce for Development: An African Perspective on the WTO’s e-Commerce treaty negotiations and contested plurilateral pathways
4 December 2019
Photo: GK von Skoddeheimen from pixabay
In today’s digital era, Amazon’s and Alibaba’s global value chains and Google’s and Facebook’s daily transactional values are larger than that of many middle income countries. These digital economy powerhouses have major implications for local development, trade and consumer policy. The GAFAM tech titans (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) form the most valuable corporations, with market capitalization at trillions, and their services affecting every area of social, economic, political and cultural life – and most importantly choices.
In this milieu, Ashraf Patel’s lecture will unpack the phenomena of plurilateralism which has emerged as a useful concept in international trade and multilateralism. Essentially it is an emerging trade strategy frequently being used by developing nations in large multilateral fora such as WTO to agree to some agreements and opt out or delay on others.
Ashraf Patel’s lecture will focus on the current robust WTO‘s e-Commerce treaty negotiations. The treaty is one of the most contested since the Doha Development round at the turn of the century. What’s at stake is the very structure of national, regional and local economies. For e-commerce is not merely about web-based online commerce. It affects the very structure of national economies such as taxation, trade, labour, agriculture, innovation, data ownership, local value chains and the potential negative impact on millions of small and medium enterprises.
Ashraf Patel also attended the UN Internet Governance Forum held last week in Berlin, and will also report from these discussions.
Ashraf Patel’s lecture will focus on the current robust WTO‘s e-Commerce treaty negotiations. The treaty is one of the most contested since the Doha Development round at the turn of the century. What’s at stake is the very structure of national, regional and local economies. For e-commerce is not merely about web-based online commerce. It affects the very structure of national economies such as taxation, trade, labour, agriculture, innovation, data ownership, local value chains and the potential negative impact on millions of small and medium enterprises.
Ashraf Patel also attended the UN Internet Governance Forum held last week in Berlin, and will also report from these discussions.
About the speaker:
Ashraf Patel is digital society and development associate at the IGD. The Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD) is a think tank based in South Africa, with focus on promoting a developmental foreign policy with a focus on Africa, SADC and the UN Sustainable Developmental Goals 2030. Ashraf Patel is a graduate on the Masters in Management (MM) Public Policy and Regulation Management (ICT) from the Graduate School of Public and Development Management (P&DM), University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He has got extensive experience in ICT policy, regulation, development and innovation in developing nations and regions. Data and human rights is another key area of his interest. He is currently active in the several high-level policy-program platforms that have policy impact at local, regional (SADC, AU) and global level, among them the G20 and T20 working groups on ICT's and the Knowledge Economy, and the world of working the 21st century skills. He is part of a multilateral group of think thanks in Africa contributing to this working group during the G20 Presidency and working on similar topics within the BRICS framework.
When: 4.12.2019, 13:00 - 15:00 Uhr
Where: Universität Hamburg, Department of Informatics, EIT (Ethics in Information Technology), Room G-123, Vogt-Kölln-Str. 30, 22527 Hamburg