The Working Group on Southern Perspectives on Digital Governance and Democracy aims to critically engage with global governance processes, grounded in the belief that digital transformation must enable everyone to enjoy the potential benefits of our shared digital condition, with equal opportunity to shape the idea of technological progress and human flourishing. From an explicitly Global South and Global Majority perspective, the Working Group will expose and challenge the structural injustices embedded in the digital economy and society—concentration of economic power, political authoritarianism, erosion of the public, and pillage of the people’s commons—all at the root of inequality, oppression, violence, war, and ecological destruction today. Its work will be anchored in the Global Digital Justice Forum’s four-point agenda Call to Action covering human rights, the internet as a commons, digital non-alignment, and intergenerational sustainability. A core strand of the Working Group’s efforts will be to examine the growing power of corporations, the weakening accountability of both states and corporations, and the erosion of public institutions, all of which contribute to the democratic deficit in global digital governance. Beyond critique, the Working Group will also seek to develop and advance alternative visions of digital governance rooted in structural justice.
We advocate global justice
principles for the digital.
We advocate global justice principles for the digital.
Who we are and what we stand for
The Global Digital Justice Forum is a dynamic coalition that represents a diverse array of civil society stakeholders, including sustainable development organizations, digital rights networks, feminist groups, corporate watchdogs, communication rights campaigners, trade unions, and cooperatives. Members of the Forum come from across the Global South. We also work with alliances and like-minded organizations in the North.
We advocate global justice principles for the digital. Digital freedom is only possible if we go beyond liberal conceptions of rights. Digital transformation must enable everyone to enjoy the benefits of our shared digital condition, with equal opportunity to shape the idea of technological progress and human flourishing. Our fight is against structural injustices in the digital economy and society—economic and political authoritarianism, erosion of the public, and pillage of the people’s commons—all at the root of inequality, oppression, violence, war, and ecological destruction, today.
Civil society and social movements are pivotal players in shaping digital policy, from global to local levels. Their perspectives and voices must be put at the center of policy-making. A truly equitable, inclusive, and development-oriented digital society hinges on democratic and meaningful forms of participation that enable agile, accountable, and people- and planet-centric policies. The policy process must aspire to harness the potential of digitalization as a positive force, enhancing the well-being and dignity of all individuals.
At the heart of the Global Digital Justice Forum lies the promise of reinvigorating international cooperation in response to the transformative shifts in digital technology. We see development justice and digital justice as two sides of the same coin. We believe that a decolonized digitality is possible and seek to build bridges between the digital standpoint and action for justice in all development domains.
IT for Change acts as the secretariat of the Global Digital Justice Forum.
Working groups
To engage with sectoral policy conversations on digital, data, and AI governance through an interdisciplinary lens, the Global Digital Justice Forum formed the following Working Groups.
The Working Group on Corporate Power and Accountability aims to examine how digital technologies function as a new frontier of capital accumulation—through both the growing power of technology corporations and the wider digitalization of all sectors of the economy and the major impacts on workers, well-being, human rights, and climate change. Reining in corporate power and ensuring public accountability are foundational to digital justice—and essential for tackling pressing challenges facing humanity and nature.
The Working Group on Food Sovereignty and Climate Justice aims to strengthen political analysis and collective action within the GDJF around how digitalization is restructuring food systems and shaping climate action. The Working Group focuses on the ways in which digitalization exacerbates dispossession and extraction through issues such as the digitalization of food production, distribution, and consumption; biopiracy and the undermining of peasant and Indigenous knowledge; AI as a (false) climate technology; and the intersections between AI and biotechnologies, among others. Furthermore, it challenges techno-determinist narratives in the context of food and climate, and supports community-led innovation and uses of technologies that support autonomy, self-determination, food sovereignty and climate justice.
The Working Group on Digital Health aims to track the global and multi-purpose landscape of health data technologies to advocate for an equitable, inclusive, and publicly accountable digital health ecosystem. The Working Group includes in its ambit questions of the unequal political economy of health data, bioethical harms emanating from AI technologies, the role of multilateral bodies (like the WHO and the WTO) in regulating digital medical trade, and the powerful influence of transnational corporations in both technology and healthcare sectors.
The Working Group on Education aims to advance the right to education in digital governance discussions by examining how the growing influence of Big Tech in public education is reshaping education systems, including through the commercialization of public education, surveillance of teachers and students, and threats to privacy and the public character of education. It aims to challenge these trends by highlighting how grassroots experiences are being developed under a different framework, grounded in human rights, digital sovereignty, teacher empowerment, publicly owned digital technologies, and genuine appropriation of technology by teachers and students. The Working Group advocates for a critical and rights-based approach to digital education that places the rights of students and teachers at the centre of digital transformation.
