POLICY BRIEFS

Global Solutions Journal G20/T20 Italy 2021 Edition

The Global Solutions Journal G20/T20 Italy 2021 Edition focuses on Italy’s G20 priorities, overcoming the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Digital Governance and New Measurement. 

Authors from various sectors – politics, research, academia, business, and civil society – have contributed to this multifaceted edition. 

S20 Saudi Arabia Communique

S20 Saudi Arabia 2020: Read the Communique here.

B20 Summary of Recommendations

B20 Summary of Recommendations: Realizing Opportunities of the 21st Century for all: Transforming for inclusive Growth

Read more.

G20 Global Pandemic Preparedness: Attending to Access to Education & Employment

Joint statement from B20, C20, L20, T20, W20 and Y20: Attending to Access to Education and Employment

New Approaches to Economic Challenges

The OECD has invited Nobel laureates and many of the world’s leading thinkers from government, the private sector and academia to debate innovative approaches to the major questions facing humanity. This series summarises their analyses and proposals on the interlinked challenges facing our societies, environment and economies: from the climate emergency to inequality, the digital economy, or the financial system. The OECD’s New Approaches to Economic Challenges (NAEC) initiative was launched in 2012 to investigate the roots and lessons of the financial crisis, and renew and strengthen analytical and policy approaches with fresh thinking, engaged research and dialogue.

Read the report here.

The present challenges for an inclusive, dignifying and sustainable future of work

The purpose of this paper is to help understand some of the challenges associated with accelerated digitalization and automation and, in this way, attempt to contribute to the path for a fairer, more inclusive, dignifying and sustainable future of work.

Read Global Solutions Fellow Beatriz Nofal‘s paper here.

T20 Statement on Reskilling Employees for the Future of Work

Read the statement here.

L20 Statement to the G20 Labour and Employment Ministers’ Meeting, 9-10 September 2020

In a current statement, the L20 demand from G20 leaders a new social contract that rebuilds trust and security for the world’s people and takes health, social and economic impacts of the Covid-19 crisis equally into consideration.

Read the statement here.

G20 Japan: AI Principles

The G20 supports the principles for responsible stewardship of Trustworthy AI in Section 1 (of this document) and takes note of the recommendations in Section 2 (of this document).

G20 Japan AI Principles

Cyber Risk, Market Failures, and Financial Stability

This paper considers the properties of cyber risk, discusses why the private market can fail to provide the socially optimal level of cybersecurity, and explore how systemic cyber risk interacts with other financial stability risks. Furthermore, it elaborates on information asymmetries and inefficiencies in the management of cyber risk and proposes policy measures that can increase the resilience of the financial system to systemic cyber risk.

Cyber Risk, Market Failures, and Financial Stability; by Emanuel Kopp, Lincoln Kaffenberger, and Christopher Wilson

Key Issues for Digital Transformation in the G20

Digital technologies may be disruptive, with far-reaching effects on productivity, employment and well-being. While new technologies create opportunities for businesses (especially SMEs), workers and citizens to engage in economic activity, these technologies are also likely to displace workers doing specific tasks and may further increase existing gaps in access and use, resulting in new digital divides and greater inequality.

OECD Report: Key Issues for Digital Transformation in the G20

Is Modern Technology Responsible for Jobless Recoveries?

This paper is examining the relationship between recoveries from recessions and employment growth. The main conclusion derived from the findings is that in developed countries outside the US, modern technologies are unlikely to be causing jobless recoveries.

Is Modern Technology Responsible for Jobless Recoveries?; by Georg Graetz and Guy Michaels

The Rise and Nature of Alternative Work Arrangements in the United States, 1995-2015

This paper serves to evaluate of some leading explanations with regard to factors that have contributed to the large increase in the incidence of alternative work arrangements for American workers from 2005 to 2015.

The Rise and Nature of Alternative Work Arrangements in the United States, 1995-2015, Lawrence F. Katz / Alan B. Krueger

Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and the Economy

Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology and related fields have opened up new markets and
new opportunities for progress in critical areas such as health, education, energy, economic inclusion,
social welfare, and the environment. The analysis and recommendations included herein draw on insights learned over the course of the Future of AI Initiative, which was announced in May of 2016, and included Federal Government coordination efforts and crosssector and public outreach on AI and related policy matters.

Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and the Economy; by the Executive Office of the President of the U.S., 2016

Noahpinion: Is Twitter a dystopian technology?

Open-sourcing DeepMind Lab

DeepMind Lab is a fully 3D game-like platform tailored for agent-based AI research. It is observed from a first-person viewpoint, through the eyes of the simulated agent. Scenes are rendered with rich science fiction-style visuals. The available actions allow agents to look around and move in 3D.

Open-sourcing DeepMind Lab

Quill – Advanced natural language generation platform

Quill creates applications that use natural language generation or NLG software to ingest data and then completely mimic the steps an analyst would take to write a report. Users of Quill have complete control over the language, analytics and formatting to customize just about anything they want.

Quill – Advanced natural language generation platform

OECD and the Future of Work – Skills for a Digital World

Ensuring that everyone has the right skills for an increasingly digital and globalised world is essential to
promote inclusive labour markets and to spur innovation, productivity and growth. This OECD policy brief presents four key priorities for skills policies to meet the challenges of a digital world.

OECD and the Future of Work – Skills for a Digital World

Skill measures to mobilise the workforce during the COVID-19 crisis

This policy brief investigates how countries responded to immediate shortages of workers during the COVID‑19 crisis. It first identifies which jobs were in demand using online vacancy data and describes the skills profiles of those jobs. By comparing them with the skills profiles of similar jobs in low demand, it considers the viability of redeploying unemployed adults to jobs where hiring is increasing. The brief shares examples of innovative ways in which countries retrained and redeployed their labour force to meet immediate demand during the health crisis. Lessons can be learnt for medium-term retraining efforts that will be needed to help workers transition to the post-COVID 19 economy, and to address ongoing skills shortages.

Read more.

Productivity gains from teleworking in the post COVID-19 era : How can public policies make it happen?

The ongoing health and economic crisis related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the required physical distancing measures force many firms to introduce telework (working from home) on a large scale. This may catalyse wider adoption of teleworking practices also after the crisis, with a wide range of impacts and uncertain net effects on productivity and other indicators. Public policies and co-operation among social partners are crucial to ensure that new, efficient and welfare-improving working methods emerging during the crisis are maintained and developed once physical distancing is over. To maximise the gains for productivity and welfare inherent in the use of more widespread telework, governments should promote investments in the physical and managerial capacity of firms and workers to telework and address potential concerns for worker well-being and longer-term innovation related in particular to the excessive downscaling of workspaces.

Read more.

The Digital Response to the Outbreak of COVID-19

In every major disaster response, there’s a mobilization of hopeful, well-intentioned actors who try to leverage their professional skills as part of the effort — and among them, there is arguably no industry whose work is more potentially invasive or dangerous during disaster than technology. Undeniably, we need to use technology as part of disaster response, but the regulatory immaturity of the industry has made technology companies risky allies, even in the best of circumstances. And these are not the best of circumstances: more than 200 governments are facing active COVID-19 cases and are using every power, resource and argument at their disposal to advance their interests — only some of which are directly related to COVID-19.

The Digital Response to the Outbreak of COVID-19

By Sean McDonald (CIGI)

Networks and Technologies to Assist the Vulnerable During the Pandemic

Developed countries can use advanced social security systems to protect households from the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, but developing countries face a bigger challenge. They typically have a large informal sector and limited social security coverage, which hinder the delivery of assistance at short notice. Yet, developing Asia is better equipped to cushion the economic impact of the current crisis compared to the global financial crisis of 2008. Over the past decade, governments in Asia have expanded social protection, although the established social security systems for the poor remain limited. Networks and technologies are in place to identify the vulnerable and deliver assistance to them. These include citizen registration, cash transfers to bank accounts, e-benefit cards, microcredit, and others. Governments can use these mechanisms to identify and deliver assistance to the economically vulnerable during this crisis. We highlight several mechanisms.

Networks and Technologies to Assist the Vulnerable During the Pandemic

By Matthias Helble and Paul Vandenberg (ADBI)

Cybersecurity and Privacy in the COVID-19 era

COVID-19 and remote working have resulted in a surge in demand for digital intermediaries, such as Zoom. Most of these are U.S.-based, with some having servers in China, which has aggravated privacy concerns. IT companies have responded quickly by fortifying themselves internally through a range of measures, but it is now time for India’s highly accomplished tech industry to devise secure, scalable platforms with India-based servers.

Cybersecurity and Privacy in the COVID-19 era

By Ambika Khanna and Sagnik Chakraborty (Gateway House)