By Kimberly Ramkhalawan
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley says big tech firms must be held accountable for the effects they are having on the smaller state economies.
Speaking at the final session of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 15 hosted by the Central Bank of Barbados on Thursday night, the Barbados PM who became UNCTAD’S President for the next four years says too many issues brought on by big firms in the world has led to unnecessary problems faced by Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which they cannot afford to foot the bill.
With just under a month since she became a sensation at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York for her hard hitting comments against world leaders and their failure to take action, the Barbados PM tackled big data firms for their role in the inequity faced by smaller states.
She said their effect on the region was the matter of private oligopoly which she likened to digital colonialism, topics which are all said to be part of the Bridgetown Covenant signed with the UNCTAD 15, held in Barbados this week, under the theme ‘From Inequality and Vulnerability to Prosperity for all’.
Noting while a large share of shopping from the region was done online from international retailers such as Amazon and Alibaba, she lamented that there was an absence of a proper framework that governed their functioning. And while she admits she does not understand the algorithms that such companies work on, which allowed what products to be on top and others never to be seen, Mottley says this has created for a disadvantage against the term ‘fair trade’, where persons producing goods do not have access to the powers of influence.
This kind of digital colonialism she adds had the power to erode democracies, as even media outlets in the region were now losing advertising revenue to social media firms.
Becoming the current President of UNCTAD, PM Mottley said she was confident in achieving the change through bringing clarity to other nations to make the much-needed decisions that would aid others. She would go on to slip in her other concerns of firms being accountable, and that there was something fundamentally wrong with five companies having a market capital of $9.3tr while school children lacked access to portable devices to help them learn in the middle of a pandemic.
Meanwhile Isabelle Durant, Deputy Secretary-General, UNCTAD added that while big data firms were behind what the PM described, most governing of data today was done within the US through the private sector and China by the state. Durant admitted the governance of how data is utilized was is something UNCTAD was working on, and noted that 90 percent of data harvested was utilized by China and the US, while the other 10 percent belonged to the rest of the world.
Durant added that UNCTAD was providing analysis on this data-use-issue to developing nations as a means of assisting them in understanding the business model of data in developing digital economies, and understanding how block chains worked as a means of equipping them to participate in global forums focused on discussing its regulation.
However, visiting Central Bank Governor from Kenya, Dr. Patrick Njoroge expressed his perspectives from the African Continent, to which he said Kenya has been working with Switzerland in learning to deal with the issues arising from Big tech firms, and highlighted the importance of smaller nations at the table when it came to regularizing data harvesting firms from around the world for their profit and gain.
He added that while there were risks, there were many benefits in terms of financial inclusion driven by technology which create ecosystems that lead to the democratization of financial services, where access to commodities are opened.
Njoroge says by doing this we equip the next generation with jobs and employment opportunities through new technologies developed.
Also present was Ambassador Gail Mathurin, Director General at the CARICOM Secretariat’s Trade Negotiations Office who says other significant areas of interest that call for this kind of cooperation on a global scale include the issue of concessional financing coming from International Financing Institutions which often points to vulnerability indices that reflect poorly on regions like the Caribbean for eligibility. She expressed hopes that a strong decision arising from UNCTAD15 speeds up bringing the change so long needed.
Mathurin noted that also on the front burner was the issue of climate change and ability of SIDS to transition from acute vulnerability to sustainable levels of prosperity is dependent on the region’s ability to adapt to the shocks coming from global climate change.
However, while most say the region must be prepared to adjust to the changes associated with climate change, PM Mottley questioned where would SIDS like the Caribbean islands get the funding needed to adapt? With an anticipated rise in global temperature by 1.5 degrees in the next decade, Mottley says there is need for much more than political will for change to happen, as the timeframe given is just too small for the necessary infrastructure to be built to safeguard islands from the effects of climate change.
She adds that while big countries like the United States might increase their contributions to the global fight of climate change, much more needs to be done on their part. Citing nations like China, which has gone on record stating it will no longer fund new coal plants outside of its own nation, Mottley says the problem lies in them continuing to increase their own production, as new plants continue to rise without the decommissioning of older plants. She adds that this poses a serious threat as this peak in coal mining will be seen in the coming years when the world can no longer sustain such levels.
Mottley says reasons like this where countries simply see it as climate change and not a crisis, is the reason why her administration fought for the word crisis in the declaration signed in Barbados this week.
However, while funding might be part of the issue small islands already have high debt ratios, making it difficult for them to absorb additional debt, the Barbados’ PM say money will have to be delivered as grants, despite the UN Secretary General stating that 50 percent of the $100bn should be used to adapt. But using the analogy of someone coming over to your home and does damage to it, and after leaving the cleanup bill for you to pay, while the money needed to spend to clean it up in no longer available to pay for the mortgage or buy food, Mottley says this leaves you disadvantaged by someone else’s actions, a move she describes as immoral and unjust and requires someone to stand responsibility for what they are doing.
Mottley added that while she knew companies were mandated to grow, earn, and maximize profits, it was governments’ interest and obligation to ensure fairness, equity and their already vulnerable citizens, were not exploited or their homes disadvantaged.
She says statistics arising from the last year showed that 73 percent of young people are unemployed as a result of the pandemic, the very same people countries need to be building up for the future.
PM Mottley says they are not asking them to act in a charitable way, but to act in their own self-interest and eventually they will see the need to move. The problem she fears is how many countries will fall when and before that happens, but remains confident the world will eventually do the right thing.
Under the Bridgetown Covenant, some 15 areas are said to have been recognized as dire need of urgent attention, a call the Barbados PM is confident she will bring change to as the new President of UNCTAD.