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This event took place on March 24, 2021

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00:02 [Raj Kumar]: Well. Welcome, everyone.
00:03 I'm Raj Kumar, the President and Editor-in-Chief of Devex. Really honored to
00:08 help moderate this conversation today. This is always a moment in the calendar when we look to
00:13 the publication of the World Development Report. Right? Every year this report comes out of the
00:17 World Bank Group and it hits on a key issue in development, probably an issue we talk about, but
00:22 it brings it to a new level in the conversation and that's what we're here to do. Today,
00:26 the topic is data and we've got an incredible group to help guide this discussion. It would be
00:33 an insightful conversation with any of the four of you. We got all four, which is a real treat.
00:37 [Raj Kumar]: I want to welcome President Kersti Kaljulaid,
00:40 who's the President of Estonia, David Malpass, of course the President of the World Bank Group,
00:44 President Brad Smith of Microsoft and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is now the Director-General,
00:50 I don't have to say nominee anymore, the new Director-General of the World Trade Organization.
00:55 Fantastic to be with all of you to talk about this important subject. We've all become armchair
01:01 epidemiologists during the pandemic, we're quite used to looking at data and charts. Those of us in
01:06 journalism, you see our stories now replete with charts, but this report is telling us something a
01:12 little bit different. In fact, it's a big idea around data, which is why it's so important.
01:16 [Raj Kumar]: The idea is this, that
01:18 we are not taking advantage of the enormous opportunity that data provides
01:23 to serve the lowest income countries and the poorest people. That there is this
01:28 yawning gap of inequality in the world. We've all seen it, it's gotten worse during the pandemic
01:33 and data, both hold some promise and some peril that there's opportunities here, if we focus on
01:38 it and think about it in the right way. So, it's an important report, it's got a really big idea
01:43 in it and we're going to get into that today with this group. So I'm excited to do that. I
01:48 wanted to just start with you David, if we could, you focus on low and middle income countries,
01:53 you're looking at this growing gap, this growing inequality, the heightened extreme poverty and
01:59 you're thinking about many tools that the bank has to address it. Where do you see data fitting in?
02:04 [David R. Malpass]: Yeah, thanks Raj and I'm
02:07 very interested in the views of the others on the panel. What we've done with this report is,
02:13 and it's been two years in the making, it goes through and shows that data is
02:20 very positive and has huge potential but then how do we fill in the gap?
02:25 So, if I can give one aspect of that is the actual digital systems in developing countries are behind
02:33 advanced economies. And so, how do you create the infrastructure that allows more data to be used
02:40 by the people of the country? That's a very positive side and a challenge. Then, on the-
02:47 [crosstalk]: I think he's not connecting or something.
02:50 [David R. Malpass]: Another-
02:51 [Raj Kumar]: We got a little crosstalk
02:53 from somebody who didn't turn off their mic, but they'll go ahead and do that, you continue, David.
02:57 [David R. Malpass]: Okay. So then, another aspect is to apply data to
03:04 the immediate challenges. We're trying to do that with vaccine, with the vaccine effort, that means
03:11 for example, simply the systems in countries to keep track of who's been vaccinated. Those
03:17 are very important because then you can move more quickly through the population. We're doing that.
03:22 We were able to do assessments on 100 countries, developing, many of them very poor countries of
03:30 what do they need in order to be able to vaccinate their population when those vaccines
03:37 become available? One other timely importance of data is we're in the process of rolling out
03:47 our climate change action report and one thing I hope we can do this morning is talk about
03:54 what actions would be most useful for various countries in terms of expanding their data?
04:00 [David R. Malpass]: With regard to climate then one of the key things
04:04 is to prioritize efforts so that they have the most impact. In order to do that, you have to have
04:10 a lot of data about what emits carbon, what are the ways to slow that down or reverse it? I know
04:21 Microsoft's been very involved in that effort. Those are some of the things that we're looking
04:26 at and the report gives this important baseline for people to study or to read as far as both the
04:39 very positive story of data, of big data, of small data, of useful data for farmers. Then,
04:47 also some of the challenges or the drawbacks or the dangers that are inherent in these areas.
04:54 [Raj Kumar]: Yeah, we're going to get into all of that. For
04:56 those who are following along, the report is out, it just came out 30 minutes ago. You can follow on
05:02 Twitter, #WDR2021. Tell us what you think of this conversation. We're also getting questions in the
05:08 chat that we'll try to integrate as we go through. President Kaljulaid, maybe we can just start with
05:12 this focus on the pandemic. Right? We've all started to see data in a new light due to it.
05:18 Your country and you personally are known for digitization, for thinking about
05:23 data as a key tool in governance, in public policy, decision making.
05:27 Has anything shifted for you due to this pandemic? Have you had a new realization about how to use
05:31 data or do you think we're in a different place in policy making, in governance due to the pandemic?
05:37 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: Well, not really. Two things had to
05:42 change immediately when the pandemic started. First thing was that previously in Estonia,
05:47 you had to go to a doctor when you fell sick and then the doctor started in your eHealth file,
05:52 your sick leave. The first weeks of pandemic, we realized that much safer
05:57 is to allow people themselves to start their sick leave in eHealth. Their doctor gets informed
06:03 and then gets in phone or Zoom or whichever media contact with the patient and then
06:10 the service delivery goes from there. So, we avoided people going to the doctor's offices to be
06:16 infected by others who are there while not knowing they might be Corona positive. One example.
06:22 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: Second example.
06:25 Well, nowadays in Estonia, you might be in the group who has the right to be vaccinated,
06:30 not everybody does. You have to be above the age of 60 or work in frontline job.
06:37 If you have the right to be vaccinated, your eHealth system flashes a red button for you.
06:43 You click on this red button and then you can match your right to be vaccinated with the space
06:49 and the time to get the shot. Just two examples. But of course, you cannot create such a system
06:56 when pandemic starts. I mean, all Estonians, a whole generation already because it's
07:01 20-years-old system what we use here. Nothing to do with big data shift frankly speaking,
07:05 it's a KSI or a keyless signature infrastructure, something similar to how Bitcoin is run. Safe,
07:12 secure, digital identity timestamp. So this is not database system, which Estonia is running.
07:18 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: Of course, a lot of data is created and a
07:21 lot of this data safe, the regulation here is in place, this regulation created 10 years earlier
07:26 than European Union did. But the basic service is not shifting data for the benefits of the people
07:32 but allowing people to use the e-Government services without going to the offices.
07:38 Frankly speaking, my daughter who has three children, cannot imagine she would have to
07:43 go to anywhere to register the name for the baby, ridiculous idea for her. She's 32 now.
07:51 [Raj Kumar]: Yeah, I've been in
07:53 countries where you see the mothers, new mothers holding their newborn babies in line at a notary
07:59 to register births. In fact, David talked about the huge gaps. One point that the report makes is
08:05 that there's not a single low income country that has a complete vital statistics system.
08:11 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: I'm sorry. I mean,
08:12 that really scratched my ear when you get talking about
08:17 low income, middle income, high income and having different digitalized systems. Yes, it's true.
08:24 Rich countries, quite a lot run dual systems that are lots and lots of government offices,
08:29 lots and lots of obligations to go these offices and somewhere in the background, the eSystems
08:34 which help the clouds to deal with people turning to the offices. I don't know of any high income
08:41 country where a citizen has a single one-stop self-service shop for all government services.
08:50 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: I know only one lower level high
08:53 income but at the low end and this is Estonia. I know another, which is pretty close and this
08:59 is Portugal. I know a third one, which has really good eServices, which is high income but doesn't
09:05 have ethos compatible digital ID. This is Denmark. This is an encouragement for middle income and low
09:12 income countries. You don't have to be terribly rich, you don't have to be terribly expensive
09:17 data exchange systems, most of Estonian e-Government system is ready to run on 3G.
09:23 As I said, it only uses keyless signature infrastructure. It's 20 years old technology, free
09:29 by the way to be used. So, this is a myth that you need really a lot of money to develop eServices.
09:38 It's not simply true and developed nations simply cannot boast that they have really
09:44 advanced e-Government systems. They have lot of legacy systems. That's what they have.
09:48 [Raj Kumar]: That's a fair point. I want to bring you
09:51 into this, Ngozi and get your take on where we are in general in the discussion. You're thinking of
09:55 the WTO about trade but of course, the economy of the future, and of today, really and the massive
10:02 inequality we see is reflected in the digital economy and in the data and the lack of access to
10:08 it or the way it's held or transferred. How do you see this issue of data from your new perch at WTO?
10:14 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: Well, thank you so much,
10:17 Raj. I mean, I think I want to really congratulate David and the bank for this
10:23 WDR because I think it's exciting. It shows a lot of potential for what data
10:29 can do and I completely agree that part of the key for inclusion, for fighting poverty
10:37 lies in how we use data and how we can use data responsibly, to change people's lives.
10:45 From the trade perspective, just looking at one aspect, you mentioned digital services and digital
10:53 trade where we have the eCommerce negotiations that are ongoing now among members.
11:00 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: Admittedly, they are plurilateral
11:03 negotiations, not all members around the table yet, but a good number of developing countries
11:10 among the 80 or so, who are participating in these negotiations. But there are also many who are not.
11:16 Now what the negotiations are trying to do is to recognize the explosion of the digital
11:22 economy and the importance of eCommerce, which has really shown itself during this pandemic and
11:28 the realization that many developing countries can benefit from this, that micro, medium and
11:36 small enterprises can have platforms that can help them reach others and sell on the internet.
11:44 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: All of these, women in particular,
11:47 you're talking of women in trade. This is also a platform, but we don't have rules
11:52 and standards that govern the eCommerce. To make sure we have a level playing field,
11:58 we need these rules. That is why the negotiations are ongoing, trying to put in place standards,
12:04 that can govern the use of data, trade data in this case.
12:08 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: We don't have those standards. There's
12:10 a lot of fear. We have massive cross-border data flows, but many developing countries don't
12:17 have the regulatory capacity to manage this. So committing to these negotiations without knowing
12:24 what it will mean in future is difficult. So lots of data, but how to manage it, how to govern it
12:32 within the trades. Yeah. That's what we are struggling with, right now.
12:35 [Raj Kumar]: Brad, you've been very outspoken on
12:37 exactly this topic. I remember when GDPR came out and you announced Microsoft was going to use it as
12:42 a standard globally. You've talked a lot about the legal frameworks, regulatory frameworks. I guess,
12:48 I wonder what your feedback is on Ngozi's point here. Is it that the technology and the amount of
12:54 data being generated is just moving too fast for countries, unlike Estonia, perhaps to catch up and
13:01 to stay on top of this, or what do you think is actually needed to do what this report is asking
13:06 us to grapple with and take the data that's out there and make it actually serve people?
13:10 [Brad Smith]: Well, it's a great question and
13:12 I would say a few things. Number one, I think that the report is so well timed. It's so important and
13:17 I think we should all recognize that it doesn't matter in what area you work. If you are working
13:24 on an important problem, data is really the new and indispensable tool to help you address it.
13:30 We're working with governments around the world on very concrete issues like COVID
13:36 and carbon and corruption and data really is what can make the difference in advancing our efforts.
13:44 [Brad Smith]: The second thing I would say is it
13:46 actually starts, I think, with a very practical aspect. You can really put data to work only if
13:53 people are measuring the same thing the same way. Otherwise, it actually just creates confusion.
14:00 A year ago, one of the big questions around the world, it still is a big question today,
14:06 is what was the hospital capacity? How many intensive care unit beds were available in that
14:12 hospital? How many of them were occupied? How many of them were occupied by COVID
14:16 patients? You needed to know that on a regional or national basis, to manage the healthcare system.
14:23 But until every hospital was measuring the same thing, the same way, you couldn't tell.
14:29 [Brad Smith]: You need data systems that
14:31 capture that and then reported very quickly. That's where the digital tech comes into play.
14:38 Then you need to make it easy for people to understand. This is where data visualization
14:43 is such a game changer. We're all so used today to seeing different graphs that show
14:48 us whether COVID rates are going up or down, or how quickly are vaccinations going up? So
14:54 you just take those ingredients and then I think you just recognize one other thing.
15:00 Unlike most of the economic assets in the world, data is non-rival risk.
15:05 [Brad Smith]: Meaning I can use it,
15:07 you can use it. We need to have safeguards in place and this is where your reference to
15:11 regulation is so important. We need safeguards in place to determine who gets to control
15:17 it and how we protect privacy and security in it. But the good news is, humanity is probably
15:24 better at creating data faster than almost anything else. There will be more and more
15:30 data and we can help every country, I think, figure out how to put it to better work.
15:35 [Raj Kumar]:
15:37 Yeah. There's in fact, a section in the report that gets into exactly that point,
15:40 the opportunity to reuse data and the idea that it's not so clear, you can't just say, "Well,
15:46 this person owns it or this government owns it." You need to think about data in a more nuanced
15:50 light. It is complex as an issue, and maybe it gets to a point in the report that perhaps
15:55 all of you want to comment on. The report talks about data as a double-edged sword, right? That
16:00 it has all this fantastic potential, but because of the downside risks and the lack of trust, and
16:06 there's a tremendous lack of trust of institutions and groups that have access to and control data,
16:12 that there's a challenge in threading this and getting to a productive future
16:17 for governments, for digital services for e-Government. I wonder, maybe I can just
16:20 start with you David, to chime in here, on this point of data as a double-edged sword
16:26 and how you think about the opportunity, but how do we bridge this gap of trust?
16:30 [David R. Malpass]: Right. Thanks. It clearly is
16:35 a double-edged sword and like many things, if you MIS misuse them, they're going to
16:40 cause some harm and if you use them well, it's going to be very advantageous. I guess my thought
16:48 has been that if there's a regulatory structure within a country, that allows the expansion of the
16:58 digital systems, of the data systems and gives and thinks through in the country's own norms,
17:06 what's a reasonable way to proceed? We see the differences, obviously between Europe, the US,
17:12 China, and in how they think about data privacy. Well, that's true across the developing world.
17:20 [David R. Malpass]:
17:21 I think the A way that we can proceed is for countries to recognize the
17:28 value, and then have a lot of transparency in what their rules are. So that the regulatory framework
17:38 is not arbitrary, and that will allow some of the expansion. One other thing I'll mention that's
17:46 related is the avoidance of monopolies or the allowance of innovation in a rather rapid way.
17:56 It's really important, I think for developing countries to allow that change and that's
18:02 very true in the post... If we can get to a post-COVID world, I expect it to be very different
18:08 in the pre-COVID world in terms of the services that people want that and need. So it's all the
18:16 more important to have that both transparency and a regulatory framework that will work.
18:21 [Raj Kumar]: President Kaljulaid,
18:22 you were talking about your experience in Estonia and how it may be relevant
18:25 to countries regardless of their income level. I wonder what your experience is on this particular
18:30 point about trust, right? Where people are now, they're using a digital identification. They're
18:34 connecting with government. Digitally, data is being transferred and held. How do you ensure
18:38 people feel trust in that system? They don't think it's abused. How should we think about that issue?
18:44 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: By creating
18:47 permissive legal space for technologies to thrive, but at the same time, giving people
18:51 the guarantee that data is not misused. You said, to begin with that data is a double-edged sword,
18:59 but frankly speaking, I don't know anything humankind has created starting from firearm
19:06 demand, which isn't. Everything is. I mean, everything has a positive and a negative use.
19:11 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: The difference here is that previously we
19:14 had the time and space because the technological development was relatively slow, which meant that
19:21 our norms be the illegal or just customs could develop in the same rhythm. I mean, we had 100
19:27 years to create traffic code before we got the highways. Didn't we? Nowadays, what we have is
19:33 that technological development is faster than of course our natural norm creation as a society
19:40 and even faster than our legal cycles, our tech cycles are shorter than legal cycles. Which means
19:46 that we simply don't have time to create national and international law for the current technology.
19:53 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: It's always slower. The
19:54 technology will be already, I mean, on another planet when we reach this. For some reason, we
20:02 mishandle this badly. We try to regulate even stronger, the pathways, the processes,
20:09 rather than objectives. AI give you a very simple example, grounded deeply in analog technologies.
20:16 Previously, we all said that our doctors need to keep our private files safe.
20:23 Nowadays, when we regulate technology, we try not to say, "File has to be kept safe." We try to say,
20:30 "It has to be kept in a windows room with screen door in a cupboard with this type of lock."
20:38 See the difference. We are going in a intuitive way, but it's totally wrong. What we need to do
20:45 is we need to regulate sector neutrally and current technology neutrally for the future,
20:52 the objectives and outcomes, which means we need to regulate who has the right to gather data?
20:58 Who has the right to handle data? And how data is not only used in an well,
21:04 analyzed way, for example, but also how it is disposed of and lead technology creators
21:11 and apply us, to demonstrate us that they do apply these kind of standards.
21:16 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: In Estonia, for example,
21:18 the government has set itself a standard that it only asks citizens for any kind of data once. It's
21:27 called once only principle, if you have been given this information by a person once, this is my
21:33 address, this is where I live. This is with whom I live. The government cannot ask second time.
21:38 It has to be able if a citizen consents to find this in its files, and we don't have one big file.
21:46 We have actually quite separated the proportions of data in all the data files in the government.
21:51 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: Second promise which government made was,
21:54 it's only each and every citizen who can aggregate all the data, which concerns this
22:00 particular citizen. Nobody else can. Third, every time somebody has looked at somebody's data in the
22:09 government's files, there is a concrete, digital fingerprint of a person, not an entity. It's
22:15 not like police check my files. It's a concrete police officer or [inaudible 00:22:20] officer,
22:20 and I have the right to query. If the answer doesn't satisfy me, I will complain and the state
22:27 takes this person who was not nosing in my file to the court. Now, all these principles
22:32 have applied for 20 years in Estonia and digital ecosystem. Nevermind, which kind of technology
22:39 underlies this system. It's tech-neutral, it's sector-neutral, it's general. It's easy
22:44 to understand for the people and therefore, easy to verify. This is how we have created the trust.
22:51 [Raj Kumar]: Brad, your book
22:53 makes the exact same point. It's titled Tools and Weapons. The idea that technology can
22:58 be a good thing and a bad thing as the president describes.
23:02 She's talking about the need for principles, as opposed to very detailed regulatory frameworks,
23:07 to start at that framework level, not to say precise what you do. I guess what the report
23:11 is getting at too, though, is that there are more opportunity... If we can look at data,
23:15 not as just something to be controlled, but look at it, the opportunity to improve lives. Take the
23:22 medical example, your medical records example, the metadata there. Might actually be very valuable.
23:27 [Raj Kumar]: If you can ensure
23:28 it's anonymized. If you can, not violate the people's privacy, there may be a lot of benefit.
23:32 I guess, I wonder how you see this balance in the double-edged sword frame here. Are we too much on
23:38 the over-regulating details or are we moving in the right direction or is it a open playing field
23:45 and a race to the bottom where companies who don't subscribe to these kinds of principles,
23:49 look for the loopholes and do what they want while there isn't a strong regulatory system?
23:54 [Brad Smith]: Well, I think right now,
23:55 it's still early days. I do think as everyone is capturing, we have to start by agreeing on
24:01 the problems that we want regulation to solve and I think the word trust is very apt. We need
24:08 to protect people's privacy. We need to protect the data security so it's not breached or stolen.
24:15 I think we do need to ensure that there's competition and that this doesn't add to market
24:22 domination by a small number of companies. I think we need to ensure that it serves the purpose
24:29 that governments are seeking to advance and that is in this context, economic development,
24:35 the sustainability of the planet, broad-based public health and the like. I do think having
24:41 a set of straightforward principles is key. I think it's such a good, a point.
24:45 [Brad Smith]: What we really need is
24:48 something that is technology-neutral, so that as the technology changes, we don't find that
24:54 the regulation has unintended consequences. Then we can let people go to work. I will say though,
25:01 the other thing that I think is worth keeping in mind is every country in so many ways has an equal
25:07 opportunity to create data. This isn't like looking for oil or some other raw material
25:15 that human history would guide us towards. The truth is there's really only two things that
25:22 over the next 20 years will probably determine how much data a country creates. The first will
25:27 be the size of its population and the second will be the number of digital devices it has.
25:34 [Brad Smith]: These don't need to be
25:35 the world's biggest digital devices. Although you do need some data centers to put this data to use.
25:40 But fundamentally it's phones. It's going to be billions of very
25:45 small devices through the internet of things. The truth is 20 years from now,
25:51 Africa should probably be the continent that is creating some of the largest amounts of data in
25:57 the world. And then the key will be to ensure that it not only serves economic development,
26:03 but the broader public good. I will say, this is the last aspect where international collaboration
26:10 and regulation and an organization like the WTO and the World Bank becomes so important.
26:16 [Brad Smith]: Yeah. I just think it's
26:19 probably not realistic to think that there's going to be 50 huge data centers in every country in
26:25 Africa. You're going to need to move some across borders so that it can be used in a broader way.
26:33 But governments are only going to be comfortable with that, if there is some kind of international
26:38 legal framework in place. The faster we do get to some shared understanding of that,
26:45 I think the faster we'll see the creation and use of data accelerate to serve economic development.
26:51 [Raj Kumar]:
26:52 Yeah. And I guess I wonder for you and Ngozi, to what extent do you feel like lower income
26:56 countries are part of this? Are engaged in this discussion today? You're actively negotiating,
27:02 actively looking at trade agreements. Are Brad's points being reflected in
27:07 the current negotiations, ongoing? Are you hearing it from presidents of low income countries that
27:11 they want to think about the future of digital businesses, data centers, other related issues?
27:17 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: Well, thank you, Raj. I,
27:20 I think building on both what Brad said, and President Kersti of Estonia said,
27:28 two or three points. We just have to recognize that for many countries, this discussion
27:37 sometimes about data and digitization may seem esoteric because the basics of what it needs,
27:45 the countries need to participate and generate data, make use of it is sometimes missing. This is
27:52 why many countries talk about the digital divide. The shear lack of infrastructure, sometimes
27:59 impedes countries from participating in these discussions that they should.
28:04 The President of Estonia was saying you don't have to be rich to be able to have e-Government
28:10 and participate. That's true to some extent, once you have the basic infrastructure in. But
28:16 for many countries laying this infrastructure is very expensive, so we need to think about
28:21 that. How do we get countries to participate when they don't even have the access to the internet.
28:28 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: You look at the numbers, okay, our young
28:30 people on the continent, about 43% of them have access. But overall population, 15%. So you can't
28:37 even begin to talk of people really participating when they don't have that. This is something we
28:44 need to really focus on, that digital divide. If we don't solve it, instead of data being a good,
28:51 we are going to have more inequality, which poor up countries and people are left out.
28:57 The second thing is trust. If people feel the data works for them, then they will be willing
29:05 to participate in sharing their own data. To the extent we've seen people see their data being used
29:12 to give them access to services, conditional cash transfers, access to other government services,
29:20 using it to get them access to education and health, vaccination for their children, et cetera.
29:26 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: People are less mistrustful and more willing
29:29 to engage. So I think, it's one thing as the report says to have data, is another to extract
29:36 value from that data. The fact that many low income countries don't have the capacity yet to
29:43 extract that value makes them leery of engaging in discussions on data governance. I think this
29:50 is one issue we really have to tackle head on, how do we bridge this digital divide and how-
29:59 [Raj Kumar]: Ngozi, Brad talked about the amount of data
30:01 is determined by the size of the population and the number of digital devices and your point is,
30:06 for many of these countries, the number of digital devices, the number of connected devices is very
30:10 small and this gets into a theme we wanted to get into, today. We're getting some questions
30:14 about it. That is, we've seen in the pandemic at the very beginning,
30:18 there was this idea that this was the great equalizer. Everyone is affected by COVID, but
30:24 we realize quickly it's actually a very unequal situation and it's exacerbating that inequality.
30:30 Is data the same thing? Are we going to basically see, that advanced economies, wealthier people
30:36 have many devices, they're much more connected. They're moving to 5G. They're moving to AI.
30:41 While many others really are still using a feature phone or not connected at all.
30:45 [Raj Kumar]: Is the divide
30:46 going to get worse before it gets much better? I pose that to you and to everyone,
30:50 as we start to get toward the end of the conversation and think about
30:53 what is this new social contract like? What is required of all of us to avoid that future?
31:01 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: Well, I really think that,
31:03 that's the issue. If we don't make the effort to include countries that are left behind
31:13 in terms of this access to digital infrastructure, then we're going to have increasing inequality.
31:22 They will have, less access to these devices, less ability to participate, less desire to engage
31:29 in global discussions on governance. So we have to bear that in mind and that means that a large
31:36 part of the population is left out. Can this be solved? Yes, absolutely. That's why I say that for
31:42 an organization like the WTO, my interest is in partnering with David at the World Bank,
31:48 partnering with the regional development banks to make sure this infrastructure is provided, one,
31:54 to those countries that don't have it. Two, we build capacity for regulatory frameworks.
31:59 If we do all of this, then instead of having increasing inequality,
32:03 we will bring closer together those low income countries that are logging behind.
32:08 That's the point I really would like to make. The world has to pay attention to this because
32:14 a world in which we have inequality of access and use of data is not a good world.
32:19 [Raj Kumar]: Go ahead, Brad.
32:22 [Brad Smith]: One thing I would add to that is
32:25 obviously the digital divide is very pronounced in the world today.
32:30 I think one of the big questions for the next decade is will this get better or will this get
32:35 worse? It will go in one direction or the other. If you look at the history of technology and how
32:41 quickly it reaches places that are underserved, I think one thing to always look at, is whether the
32:48 technology that's used to move something, whether it's electricity or data or anything else,
32:54 ask whether it's done on a wire or can be done wirelessly. Anything that can be done wirelessly
33:01 is the game changer. It is cheaper and it can leapfrog your wired technology. Electricity
33:08 cannot be delivered wirelessly, but most of what we're talking about today can.
33:14 What that means in the first in is in addition to continuing to build out undersea cables,
33:19 that's the wired portion, look to Low Earth Orbiting satellites. They will
33:24 be one of the defining technologies of this decade and they can reach the entire planet.
33:29 [Brad Smith]: Second, I think,
33:30 especially for a lower income countries, you don't need to reach every building or every home
33:38 through a fiber optic cable under the ground. You'll want that in your urban
33:42 areas, it will be critical, but use spectrum, use wireless spectrum. When I look for example
33:49 around the world, and I see who is using say TV white spaces, which is effective for broadband,
33:55 the countries that are really at the forefront are countries like Kenya or Nigeria or Columbia, where
34:02 there is an interest in putting unused spectrum and leapfrogging some of the other countries
34:10 where you have more legacy providers fighting over that spectrum that has made it scarcer. Of course,
34:16 in addition to reaching people through broadband, we need each them with two other things as well.
34:22 [Brad Smith]: One is devices.
34:24 So we have to keep figuring out for us, in our industry, how do we make them
34:28 cheaper? How do we make them more available? Then the last thing is skills. Yeah, it's not
34:35 enough just to equip people with the device and a connection to the internet. This is where the
34:40 development banks, the world bank and all of the other development banks, I think are going to
34:45 need to be at the forefront in expanding digital skilling programs in partnership with governments.
34:51 [Raj Kumar]: Maybe I could just bring David in,
34:53 on this one point about, you're talking about the cost of devices and they have to come down Brad.
34:59 There's a data point in the, in the reports saying for the 20% of the world's poorest households,
35:05 the cost of an entry level smartphone today is 80% of monthly income, right? So,
35:11 what David is doing at the World Bank focusing on the 800,000,000 or so people at the very bottom,
35:16 the people living on less than a dollar, 90 a day,
35:18 how do we ensure David, they aren't left out of this digital revolution?
35:22 [Brad Smith]: Thanks, Raj. We can think of it as,
35:28 I think there is a digital divide. So if we focus a lot on that, we're going to maybe come up with
35:35 solutions that aren't optimizing for the people. The biggest value for people are often,
35:42 maybe it's not the smartphone, it's any kind of digital data that has financial information on it.
35:49 As we've seen in Kenya, a good measure of the success of the system is the number of
35:57 transactions that occur and what the cost per transaction is. So if you can have a billion
36:03 transactions at a small fraction of ascent, you're probably providing huge value in gains
36:10 for people that are very low, on the income scale. That's what's going on in quite a few countries.
36:17 I think the things Brad said made sense, as far as choosing where you can use the spectrum.
36:28 That's important and the regulatory structure, I think for countries to do that,
36:33 I want to note, monopoly power is problematic for some of the countries.
36:39 [Brad Smith]: For example, in west Africa,
36:41 there's, there's a pretty tight monopoly on the fiber optic cable itself. That creates
36:48 limitation. I think having an environment that allows competition and innovation is going to
36:58 be important. I wanted to mention, in addition to, or I think as we define financial inclusion,
37:08 we should be doing that, not so much in terms of a bank account anymore, but in terms of access to
37:14 really low cost transactions. If your income per day is five dollars per day, you can't
37:21 afford a transaction that's 10 cents. You need a transaction that's cheaper, and you need a lot of
37:28 them in order to survive, in order to innovate and have children learn the systems. I think we
37:37 should focus some on the actual infrastructure and those parts of the developing world that
37:43 haven't allowed, or are not moving forward in terms of low cost transactions. I'll mention that.
37:51 [Raj Kumar]: Yeah. I appreciate David, you
37:53 expanding the conversation around data, because obviously we often will go directly to things like
37:58 digital data that are you produced on devices, but as you say, it really touches everything,
38:02 including financial data. So we're getting to the end of the conversation and I wanted
38:05 to try to leave people with an action point, right? With something that we can actually do,
38:11 given what this report is calling all of us to do. The question I want to ask everyone is
38:16 what is the most important contribution data can make to improve people's lives,
38:21 and what more need do we need to do to get there? Maybe we can start with you, President Kaljulaid,
38:26 I'd love to get everyone's take on this. What's the one thing,
38:29 the most important contribution data can make to improve people's lives?
38:32 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: Well, the way we started here in Estonia
38:39 was to declare access to internet a human right? Of course, we didn't write it in the law, exactly,
38:44 but this is how we acted. I would re really like to relate to something which was said before. It
38:50 was said before that, I mean data and digital accesses, I mean, have their costs and digital
38:57 services have their costs to be delivered. But frankly speaking, let's take an analogy
39:03 from the paperwork world. If you have an universal or means-tested child support in any country,
39:10 then delivering it by internet applications and I mean, simple transactions,
39:15 which can be more or less automatized from state budget to people while bank accounts or cell phone
39:20 accounts, I don't mind, is definitely cheaper than having a paper-based, office-based development.
39:27 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: Which means that, I mean,
39:28 if you didn't have means to do these services before you are not going to have them today,
39:33 neither, simply because you have technology. But technology makes it inherently easier and cheaper
39:40 to deliver for people. But inclusivity doesn't happen all by itself. 20 years ago in Estonia,
39:47 if you think everybody had even a fixed line phone at home, you're wrong. But what we did was
39:52 we declared internet a human right and if you had a school or a library,
39:58 you had an internet access point through which you could use government eServices. So everything
40:04 starts with making your legislation to withdraw everybody in. That's the most important thing.
40:11 If you want to achieve inclusivity, you have to act political, you have to act regulatory
40:18 way. You cannot just sit back and wait this to happen. It cannot be delivered in any other way.
40:24 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: The last moment is that we very often
40:27 think that governments don't matter. Governments do matter. The digital transformation in Estonia
40:33 only happened because government and private sector created the digital identity for each and
40:38 everybody together. We have loads of countries who have lots and lots of digital private services,
40:44 but what is missing link is exactly this government is not in this digital space.
40:49 It's not present. That makes the digital space wild, unsafe and anonymous. You have to drive
40:57 anonymity from this space. So inclusivity and lack of anonymity, my two suggestions. Thank you.
41:02 [Raj Kumar]: Thank you very much for that,
41:04 President Kaljulaid, maybe Brad, we can go to you for your final thought here. What
41:07 is that one most important contribution data can make to improve people's lives?
41:11 [Brad Smith]: Well, I'll just pick
41:13 one practical issue that I think is the issue of our time and that's climate and carbon.
41:20 Data is going to be indispensable to the world's efforts to reduce carbon emissions
41:27 and we cannot possibly reduce carbon emissions, unless we all have a standardized approach to
41:34 measure it, to monitor it, to just know how much progress we're making.
41:39 I do think a point you made earlier is important. People can look at this and say, "Well, this data
41:45 thing. What are we talking about? It feels very esoteric." I put it in a different context.
41:51 Doesn't matter how old or young you are or where you live. We all pretty much start every morning
41:56 doing one thing everywhere. We look at the weather forecast. We ask ourselves, what's the temperature
42:03 going to be today? Now the good news is there's only two ways in the world to measure temperature.
42:09 [Brad Smith]: It's called Fahrenheit
42:10 or Centigrade, but at least there's only two and we can go back and forth between them.
42:15 We have these tools that are everywhere on the planet. It's called a thermometer. It tells
42:20 us what the temperature is. We have people who then accumulate all of that data from the past,
42:26 and they predict what the temperature's going to be this afternoon. Just think about
42:31 that when you get up in the morning and think about the problem that you want to go to work
42:36 to solve. In this case, I'll say it's reducing carbon. It could be reducing COVID. It could be
42:42 reducing corruption. It doesn't matter what it is. That same analytical framework that
42:48 you use to think about the temperature is the analytical framework that you can put to work,
42:54 to solve whatever problem you need to address when you start doing your job in the day.
42:59 [Raj Kumar]:
43:00 That's a great way to look at it, Brad. It makes me think, I wonder how many of us
43:04 look at our phone to see the temperature before we even look out the window in the morning
43:07 to see what's happening. Ngozi, maybe I can turn to you for your thought here.
43:12 What is that one most important contribution, data can provide to improve people's lives?
43:16 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: I think that if data can give, and
43:20 I'm talking very much from the point of view of people in poorer countries, data that gives people
43:26 access to services, that can make a difference in their lives and I'm talking of education,
43:34 of health. That is what is important. That's what I think will make people trust the system and
43:44 participate in it. For me, getting value out of data for people such that they can feel included,
43:55 as part of the economy, I think that is very... That's perhaps the best that one can can hope for.
44:03 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: How can it help
44:05 make education more accessible for girls and for boys, particularly those in rural
44:12 areas. How can we use GPS data to track where they are and find them,
44:17 or those who are in urban slums who have forgotten that GPS data that gets to them, finds them,
44:24 and they can get access to these services. How can we get women access to the internet so that
44:32 they can improve the economic wellbeing and that of their family. So every bit of data that can
44:38 give access to services to improve people's lives, that's what I think my wish would be.
44:45 [Raj Kumar]: Thank you so much
44:46 for that Ngozi, and David, maybe we give you the last word here.
44:49 What is that important contribution from your perch at the world bank?
44:52 [David R. Malpass]: Thanks, Raj. And thanks everybody on the... It's
44:57 really interesting discussion. I don't know if I have one thing Raj, I want to give three.
45:02 One is access as Ngozi was saying. One, I think is an uncensored flow of information.
45:09 That's really critical. Once you start down the path of censoring, the information,
45:15 I think, you lose a huge part of the value of data and of information. That's critical in the
45:22 makeup of the whole backbone of the internet. Then I do want to mention the importance of low cost,
45:30 digital transactions, financial transactions, because markets are so powerful. If you think
45:36 of the course of human history, it's how do people trade goods and services? Because,
45:41 that's where a big part chunk of the efficiency gains come from. So to do that, if the cost of
45:48 that can be brought down, then people really respond and are able to move forward faster.
45:54 [David R. Malpass]: I'm sorry, but I give you three, we got
45:58 to have access. That means infrastructure. That means regulatory power. We've I think, I think
46:05 got to have uncensored information so that people are free within the digital world. Then third is
46:14 this importance of having a backbone, a financial backbone that gives you transactions. Thanks, Raj.
46:19 [Raj Kumar]: I think that third one David,
46:21 is an important underlying of what this report is trying to do, which is to make us think of people
46:26 in the world who may be at the very bottom of that economic ladder. For many of us,
46:30 a tiny transaction cost might seem insignificant, it might seem worth it for the way we go about
46:35 our daily lives. But those very small numbers, as you said earlier, can add up. I think that's why
46:40 this report talks about data. Data's not a new question. All of you have been dealing with it,
46:44 thinking about it, talking about it in many ways, but what the World Development Report does every
46:49 year is it makes us think about an existing issue in a new way. I think, I recommend all of
46:54 you haven't seen it yet. It's a free report. You can download it from the World Bank's website and
46:58 get a sense for this idea of a new social contract and what does it actually look like and understand
47:03 many of the nuances that I think our panelists ably brought up in the conversation today.
47:08 [Raj Kumar]: I want to thank
47:09 all of you for a fantastic discussion. I'm sure people
47:11 at home are clapping and applauding this group virtually. It was a really rich conversation
47:16 and congratulations to the authors of the World Development Report, 2021. Look forward
47:21 to seeing all of you on social media and at the next virtual event like this. Thank you.
47:26 [David R. Malpass]: Raj. Can I give a shout out
47:30 Carmen Reinhart and her group did a huge job on this report. It's fabulous. Just coming out today.
47:36 [Raj Kumar]: Check it out. Nice to be with all of you.
47:39 [David R. Malpass]: Thanks.
47:40 [Brad Smith]: Thank you.
47:40 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: Bye.
47:41 [Brad Smith]: Bye.
47:42 [David R. Malpass]: Bye all.

Data for Better Lives – World Development Report 2021

Follow the event on Twitter #WDR2021

World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives – the first WDR focused solely on the role of data for development – comes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc on the global economy, bringing to the fore global data inequalities. How do we tap the full value of data, ensuring equitable access for poor people? What reforms are needed in data governance to protect individuals, businesses, and societies from harm?

As we chart a course for a resilient recovery, World Bank Group President David Malpass, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid, Microsoft President Brad Smith, and WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala will discuss data’s tremendous potential to improve lives.

Speakers

David R. Malpass

Former President, World Bank Group
@DavidMalpassWBG
Kersti Kaljulaid

President, Republic of Estonia
@kerstikaljulaid
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Director General, World Trade Organization
@NOIweala
Brad Smith

President, Microsoft
@BradSmi

Moderator

Raj Kumar

President & Editor-in-Chief, Devex
@raj_devex

Read the transcript

00:02 [Raj Kumar]: Well. Welcome, everyone.
00:03 I'm Raj Kumar, the President and Editor-in-Chief of Devex. Really honored to
00:08 help moderate this conversation today. This is always a moment in the calendar when we look to
00:13 the publication of the World Development Report. Right? Every year this report comes out of the
00:17 World Bank Group and it hits on a key issue in development, probably an issue we talk about, but
00:22 it brings it to a new level in the conversation and that's what we're here to do. Today,
00:26 the topic is data and we've got an incredible group to help guide this discussion. It would be
00:33 an insightful conversation with any of the four of you. We got all four, which is a real treat.
00:37 [Raj Kumar]: I want to welcome President Kersti Kaljulaid,
00:40 who's the President of Estonia, David Malpass, of course the President of the World Bank Group,
00:44 President Brad Smith of Microsoft and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is now the Director-General,
00:50 I don't have to say nominee anymore, the new Director-General of the World Trade Organization.
00:55 Fantastic to be with all of you to talk about this important subject. We've all become armchair
01:01 epidemiologists during the pandemic, we're quite used to looking at data and charts. Those of us in
01:06 journalism, you see our stories now replete with charts, but this report is telling us something a
01:12 little bit different. In fact, it's a big idea around data, which is why it's so important.
01:16 [Raj Kumar]: The idea is this, that
01:18 we are not taking advantage of the enormous opportunity that data provides
01:23 to serve the lowest income countries and the poorest people. That there is this
01:28 yawning gap of inequality in the world. We've all seen it, it's gotten worse during the pandemic
01:33 and data, both hold some promise and some peril that there's opportunities here, if we focus on
01:38 it and think about it in the right way. So, it's an important report, it's got a really big idea
01:43 in it and we're going to get into that today with this group. So I'm excited to do that. I
01:48 wanted to just start with you David, if we could, you focus on low and middle income countries,
01:53 you're looking at this growing gap, this growing inequality, the heightened extreme poverty and
01:59 you're thinking about many tools that the bank has to address it. Where do you see data fitting in?
02:04 [David R. Malpass]: Yeah, thanks Raj and I'm
02:07 very interested in the views of the others on the panel. What we've done with this report is,
02:13 and it's been two years in the making, it goes through and shows that data is
02:20 very positive and has huge potential but then how do we fill in the gap?
02:25 So, if I can give one aspect of that is the actual digital systems in developing countries are behind
02:33 advanced economies. And so, how do you create the infrastructure that allows more data to be used
02:40 by the people of the country? That's a very positive side and a challenge. Then, on the-
02:47 [crosstalk]: I think he's not connecting or something.
02:50 [David R. Malpass]: Another-
02:51 [Raj Kumar]: We got a little crosstalk
02:53 from somebody who didn't turn off their mic, but they'll go ahead and do that, you continue, David.
02:57 [David R. Malpass]: Okay. So then, another aspect is to apply data to
03:04 the immediate challenges. We're trying to do that with vaccine, with the vaccine effort, that means
03:11 for example, simply the systems in countries to keep track of who's been vaccinated. Those
03:17 are very important because then you can move more quickly through the population. We're doing that.
03:22 We were able to do assessments on 100 countries, developing, many of them very poor countries of
03:30 what do they need in order to be able to vaccinate their population when those vaccines
03:37 become available? One other timely importance of data is we're in the process of rolling out
03:47 our climate change action report and one thing I hope we can do this morning is talk about
03:54 what actions would be most useful for various countries in terms of expanding their data?
04:00 [David R. Malpass]: With regard to climate then one of the key things
04:04 is to prioritize efforts so that they have the most impact. In order to do that, you have to have
04:10 a lot of data about what emits carbon, what are the ways to slow that down or reverse it? I know
04:21 Microsoft's been very involved in that effort. Those are some of the things that we're looking
04:26 at and the report gives this important baseline for people to study or to read as far as both the
04:39 very positive story of data, of big data, of small data, of useful data for farmers. Then,
04:47 also some of the challenges or the drawbacks or the dangers that are inherent in these areas.
04:54 [Raj Kumar]: Yeah, we're going to get into all of that. For
04:56 those who are following along, the report is out, it just came out 30 minutes ago. You can follow on
05:02 Twitter, #WDR2021. Tell us what you think of this conversation. We're also getting questions in the
05:08 chat that we'll try to integrate as we go through. President Kaljulaid, maybe we can just start with
05:12 this focus on the pandemic. Right? We've all started to see data in a new light due to it.
05:18 Your country and you personally are known for digitization, for thinking about
05:23 data as a key tool in governance, in public policy, decision making.
05:27 Has anything shifted for you due to this pandemic? Have you had a new realization about how to use
05:31 data or do you think we're in a different place in policy making, in governance due to the pandemic?
05:37 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: Well, not really. Two things had to
05:42 change immediately when the pandemic started. First thing was that previously in Estonia,
05:47 you had to go to a doctor when you fell sick and then the doctor started in your eHealth file,
05:52 your sick leave. The first weeks of pandemic, we realized that much safer
05:57 is to allow people themselves to start their sick leave in eHealth. Their doctor gets informed
06:03 and then gets in phone or Zoom or whichever media contact with the patient and then
06:10 the service delivery goes from there. So, we avoided people going to the doctor's offices to be
06:16 infected by others who are there while not knowing they might be Corona positive. One example.
06:22 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: Second example.
06:25 Well, nowadays in Estonia, you might be in the group who has the right to be vaccinated,
06:30 not everybody does. You have to be above the age of 60 or work in frontline job.
06:37 If you have the right to be vaccinated, your eHealth system flashes a red button for you.
06:43 You click on this red button and then you can match your right to be vaccinated with the space
06:49 and the time to get the shot. Just two examples. But of course, you cannot create such a system
06:56 when pandemic starts. I mean, all Estonians, a whole generation already because it's
07:01 20-years-old system what we use here. Nothing to do with big data shift frankly speaking,
07:05 it's a KSI or a keyless signature infrastructure, something similar to how Bitcoin is run. Safe,
07:12 secure, digital identity timestamp. So this is not database system, which Estonia is running.
07:18 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: Of course, a lot of data is created and a
07:21 lot of this data safe, the regulation here is in place, this regulation created 10 years earlier
07:26 than European Union did. But the basic service is not shifting data for the benefits of the people
07:32 but allowing people to use the e-Government services without going to the offices.
07:38 Frankly speaking, my daughter who has three children, cannot imagine she would have to
07:43 go to anywhere to register the name for the baby, ridiculous idea for her. She's 32 now.
07:51 [Raj Kumar]: Yeah, I've been in
07:53 countries where you see the mothers, new mothers holding their newborn babies in line at a notary
07:59 to register births. In fact, David talked about the huge gaps. One point that the report makes is
08:05 that there's not a single low income country that has a complete vital statistics system.
08:11 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: I'm sorry. I mean,
08:12 that really scratched my ear when you get talking about
08:17 low income, middle income, high income and having different digitalized systems. Yes, it's true.
08:24 Rich countries, quite a lot run dual systems that are lots and lots of government offices,
08:29 lots and lots of obligations to go these offices and somewhere in the background, the eSystems
08:34 which help the clouds to deal with people turning to the offices. I don't know of any high income
08:41 country where a citizen has a single one-stop self-service shop for all government services.
08:50 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: I know only one lower level high
08:53 income but at the low end and this is Estonia. I know another, which is pretty close and this
08:59 is Portugal. I know a third one, which has really good eServices, which is high income but doesn't
09:05 have ethos compatible digital ID. This is Denmark. This is an encouragement for middle income and low
09:12 income countries. You don't have to be terribly rich, you don't have to be terribly expensive
09:17 data exchange systems, most of Estonian e-Government system is ready to run on 3G.
09:23 As I said, it only uses keyless signature infrastructure. It's 20 years old technology, free
09:29 by the way to be used. So, this is a myth that you need really a lot of money to develop eServices.
09:38 It's not simply true and developed nations simply cannot boast that they have really
09:44 advanced e-Government systems. They have lot of legacy systems. That's what they have.
09:48 [Raj Kumar]: That's a fair point. I want to bring you
09:51 into this, Ngozi and get your take on where we are in general in the discussion. You're thinking of
09:55 the WTO about trade but of course, the economy of the future, and of today, really and the massive
10:02 inequality we see is reflected in the digital economy and in the data and the lack of access to
10:08 it or the way it's held or transferred. How do you see this issue of data from your new perch at WTO?
10:14 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: Well, thank you so much,
10:17 Raj. I mean, I think I want to really congratulate David and the bank for this
10:23 WDR because I think it's exciting. It shows a lot of potential for what data
10:29 can do and I completely agree that part of the key for inclusion, for fighting poverty
10:37 lies in how we use data and how we can use data responsibly, to change people's lives.
10:45 From the trade perspective, just looking at one aspect, you mentioned digital services and digital
10:53 trade where we have the eCommerce negotiations that are ongoing now among members.
11:00 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: Admittedly, they are plurilateral
11:03 negotiations, not all members around the table yet, but a good number of developing countries
11:10 among the 80 or so, who are participating in these negotiations. But there are also many who are not.
11:16 Now what the negotiations are trying to do is to recognize the explosion of the digital
11:22 economy and the importance of eCommerce, which has really shown itself during this pandemic and
11:28 the realization that many developing countries can benefit from this, that micro, medium and
11:36 small enterprises can have platforms that can help them reach others and sell on the internet.
11:44 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: All of these, women in particular,
11:47 you're talking of women in trade. This is also a platform, but we don't have rules
11:52 and standards that govern the eCommerce. To make sure we have a level playing field,
11:58 we need these rules. That is why the negotiations are ongoing, trying to put in place standards,
12:04 that can govern the use of data, trade data in this case.
12:08 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: We don't have those standards. There's
12:10 a lot of fear. We have massive cross-border data flows, but many developing countries don't
12:17 have the regulatory capacity to manage this. So committing to these negotiations without knowing
12:24 what it will mean in future is difficult. So lots of data, but how to manage it, how to govern it
12:32 within the trades. Yeah. That's what we are struggling with, right now.
12:35 [Raj Kumar]: Brad, you've been very outspoken on
12:37 exactly this topic. I remember when GDPR came out and you announced Microsoft was going to use it as
12:42 a standard globally. You've talked a lot about the legal frameworks, regulatory frameworks. I guess,
12:48 I wonder what your feedback is on Ngozi's point here. Is it that the technology and the amount of
12:54 data being generated is just moving too fast for countries, unlike Estonia, perhaps to catch up and
13:01 to stay on top of this, or what do you think is actually needed to do what this report is asking
13:06 us to grapple with and take the data that's out there and make it actually serve people?
13:10 [Brad Smith]: Well, it's a great question and
13:12 I would say a few things. Number one, I think that the report is so well timed. It's so important and
13:17 I think we should all recognize that it doesn't matter in what area you work. If you are working
13:24 on an important problem, data is really the new and indispensable tool to help you address it.
13:30 We're working with governments around the world on very concrete issues like COVID
13:36 and carbon and corruption and data really is what can make the difference in advancing our efforts.
13:44 [Brad Smith]: The second thing I would say is it
13:46 actually starts, I think, with a very practical aspect. You can really put data to work only if
13:53 people are measuring the same thing the same way. Otherwise, it actually just creates confusion.
14:00 A year ago, one of the big questions around the world, it still is a big question today,
14:06 is what was the hospital capacity? How many intensive care unit beds were available in that
14:12 hospital? How many of them were occupied? How many of them were occupied by COVID
14:16 patients? You needed to know that on a regional or national basis, to manage the healthcare system.
14:23 But until every hospital was measuring the same thing, the same way, you couldn't tell.
14:29 [Brad Smith]: You need data systems that
14:31 capture that and then reported very quickly. That's where the digital tech comes into play.
14:38 Then you need to make it easy for people to understand. This is where data visualization
14:43 is such a game changer. We're all so used today to seeing different graphs that show
14:48 us whether COVID rates are going up or down, or how quickly are vaccinations going up? So
14:54 you just take those ingredients and then I think you just recognize one other thing.
15:00 Unlike most of the economic assets in the world, data is non-rival risk.
15:05 [Brad Smith]: Meaning I can use it,
15:07 you can use it. We need to have safeguards in place and this is where your reference to
15:11 regulation is so important. We need safeguards in place to determine who gets to control
15:17 it and how we protect privacy and security in it. But the good news is, humanity is probably
15:24 better at creating data faster than almost anything else. There will be more and more
15:30 data and we can help every country, I think, figure out how to put it to better work.
15:35 [Raj Kumar]:
15:37 Yeah. There's in fact, a section in the report that gets into exactly that point,
15:40 the opportunity to reuse data and the idea that it's not so clear, you can't just say, "Well,
15:46 this person owns it or this government owns it." You need to think about data in a more nuanced
15:50 light. It is complex as an issue, and maybe it gets to a point in the report that perhaps
15:55 all of you want to comment on. The report talks about data as a double-edged sword, right? That
16:00 it has all this fantastic potential, but because of the downside risks and the lack of trust, and
16:06 there's a tremendous lack of trust of institutions and groups that have access to and control data,
16:12 that there's a challenge in threading this and getting to a productive future
16:17 for governments, for digital services for e-Government. I wonder, maybe I can just
16:20 start with you David, to chime in here, on this point of data as a double-edged sword
16:26 and how you think about the opportunity, but how do we bridge this gap of trust?
16:30 [David R. Malpass]: Right. Thanks. It clearly is
16:35 a double-edged sword and like many things, if you MIS misuse them, they're going to
16:40 cause some harm and if you use them well, it's going to be very advantageous. I guess my thought
16:48 has been that if there's a regulatory structure within a country, that allows the expansion of the
16:58 digital systems, of the data systems and gives and thinks through in the country's own norms,
17:06 what's a reasonable way to proceed? We see the differences, obviously between Europe, the US,
17:12 China, and in how they think about data privacy. Well, that's true across the developing world.
17:20 [David R. Malpass]:
17:21 I think the A way that we can proceed is for countries to recognize the
17:28 value, and then have a lot of transparency in what their rules are. So that the regulatory framework
17:38 is not arbitrary, and that will allow some of the expansion. One other thing I'll mention that's
17:46 related is the avoidance of monopolies or the allowance of innovation in a rather rapid way.
17:56 It's really important, I think for developing countries to allow that change and that's
18:02 very true in the post... If we can get to a post-COVID world, I expect it to be very different
18:08 in the pre-COVID world in terms of the services that people want that and need. So it's all the
18:16 more important to have that both transparency and a regulatory framework that will work.
18:21 [Raj Kumar]: President Kaljulaid,
18:22 you were talking about your experience in Estonia and how it may be relevant
18:25 to countries regardless of their income level. I wonder what your experience is on this particular
18:30 point about trust, right? Where people are now, they're using a digital identification. They're
18:34 connecting with government. Digitally, data is being transferred and held. How do you ensure
18:38 people feel trust in that system? They don't think it's abused. How should we think about that issue?
18:44 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: By creating
18:47 permissive legal space for technologies to thrive, but at the same time, giving people
18:51 the guarantee that data is not misused. You said, to begin with that data is a double-edged sword,
18:59 but frankly speaking, I don't know anything humankind has created starting from firearm
19:06 demand, which isn't. Everything is. I mean, everything has a positive and a negative use.
19:11 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: The difference here is that previously we
19:14 had the time and space because the technological development was relatively slow, which meant that
19:21 our norms be the illegal or just customs could develop in the same rhythm. I mean, we had 100
19:27 years to create traffic code before we got the highways. Didn't we? Nowadays, what we have is
19:33 that technological development is faster than of course our natural norm creation as a society
19:40 and even faster than our legal cycles, our tech cycles are shorter than legal cycles. Which means
19:46 that we simply don't have time to create national and international law for the current technology.
19:53 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: It's always slower. The
19:54 technology will be already, I mean, on another planet when we reach this. For some reason, we
20:02 mishandle this badly. We try to regulate even stronger, the pathways, the processes,
20:09 rather than objectives. AI give you a very simple example, grounded deeply in analog technologies.
20:16 Previously, we all said that our doctors need to keep our private files safe.
20:23 Nowadays, when we regulate technology, we try not to say, "File has to be kept safe." We try to say,
20:30 "It has to be kept in a windows room with screen door in a cupboard with this type of lock."
20:38 See the difference. We are going in a intuitive way, but it's totally wrong. What we need to do
20:45 is we need to regulate sector neutrally and current technology neutrally for the future,
20:52 the objectives and outcomes, which means we need to regulate who has the right to gather data?
20:58 Who has the right to handle data? And how data is not only used in an well,
21:04 analyzed way, for example, but also how it is disposed of and lead technology creators
21:11 and apply us, to demonstrate us that they do apply these kind of standards.
21:16 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: In Estonia, for example,
21:18 the government has set itself a standard that it only asks citizens for any kind of data once. It's
21:27 called once only principle, if you have been given this information by a person once, this is my
21:33 address, this is where I live. This is with whom I live. The government cannot ask second time.
21:38 It has to be able if a citizen consents to find this in its files, and we don't have one big file.
21:46 We have actually quite separated the proportions of data in all the data files in the government.
21:51 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: Second promise which government made was,
21:54 it's only each and every citizen who can aggregate all the data, which concerns this
22:00 particular citizen. Nobody else can. Third, every time somebody has looked at somebody's data in the
22:09 government's files, there is a concrete, digital fingerprint of a person, not an entity. It's
22:15 not like police check my files. It's a concrete police officer or [inaudible 00:22:20] officer,
22:20 and I have the right to query. If the answer doesn't satisfy me, I will complain and the state
22:27 takes this person who was not nosing in my file to the court. Now, all these principles
22:32 have applied for 20 years in Estonia and digital ecosystem. Nevermind, which kind of technology
22:39 underlies this system. It's tech-neutral, it's sector-neutral, it's general. It's easy
22:44 to understand for the people and therefore, easy to verify. This is how we have created the trust.
22:51 [Raj Kumar]: Brad, your book
22:53 makes the exact same point. It's titled Tools and Weapons. The idea that technology can
22:58 be a good thing and a bad thing as the president describes.
23:02 She's talking about the need for principles, as opposed to very detailed regulatory frameworks,
23:07 to start at that framework level, not to say precise what you do. I guess what the report
23:11 is getting at too, though, is that there are more opportunity... If we can look at data,
23:15 not as just something to be controlled, but look at it, the opportunity to improve lives. Take the
23:22 medical example, your medical records example, the metadata there. Might actually be very valuable.
23:27 [Raj Kumar]: If you can ensure
23:28 it's anonymized. If you can, not violate the people's privacy, there may be a lot of benefit.
23:32 I guess, I wonder how you see this balance in the double-edged sword frame here. Are we too much on
23:38 the over-regulating details or are we moving in the right direction or is it a open playing field
23:45 and a race to the bottom where companies who don't subscribe to these kinds of principles,
23:49 look for the loopholes and do what they want while there isn't a strong regulatory system?
23:54 [Brad Smith]: Well, I think right now,
23:55 it's still early days. I do think as everyone is capturing, we have to start by agreeing on
24:01 the problems that we want regulation to solve and I think the word trust is very apt. We need
24:08 to protect people's privacy. We need to protect the data security so it's not breached or stolen.
24:15 I think we do need to ensure that there's competition and that this doesn't add to market
24:22 domination by a small number of companies. I think we need to ensure that it serves the purpose
24:29 that governments are seeking to advance and that is in this context, economic development,
24:35 the sustainability of the planet, broad-based public health and the like. I do think having
24:41 a set of straightforward principles is key. I think it's such a good, a point.
24:45 [Brad Smith]: What we really need is
24:48 something that is technology-neutral, so that as the technology changes, we don't find that
24:54 the regulation has unintended consequences. Then we can let people go to work. I will say though,
25:01 the other thing that I think is worth keeping in mind is every country in so many ways has an equal
25:07 opportunity to create data. This isn't like looking for oil or some other raw material
25:15 that human history would guide us towards. The truth is there's really only two things that
25:22 over the next 20 years will probably determine how much data a country creates. The first will
25:27 be the size of its population and the second will be the number of digital devices it has.
25:34 [Brad Smith]: These don't need to be
25:35 the world's biggest digital devices. Although you do need some data centers to put this data to use.
25:40 But fundamentally it's phones. It's going to be billions of very
25:45 small devices through the internet of things. The truth is 20 years from now,
25:51 Africa should probably be the continent that is creating some of the largest amounts of data in
25:57 the world. And then the key will be to ensure that it not only serves economic development,
26:03 but the broader public good. I will say, this is the last aspect where international collaboration
26:10 and regulation and an organization like the WTO and the World Bank becomes so important.
26:16 [Brad Smith]: Yeah. I just think it's
26:19 probably not realistic to think that there's going to be 50 huge data centers in every country in
26:25 Africa. You're going to need to move some across borders so that it can be used in a broader way.
26:33 But governments are only going to be comfortable with that, if there is some kind of international
26:38 legal framework in place. The faster we do get to some shared understanding of that,
26:45 I think the faster we'll see the creation and use of data accelerate to serve economic development.
26:51 [Raj Kumar]:
26:52 Yeah. And I guess I wonder for you and Ngozi, to what extent do you feel like lower income
26:56 countries are part of this? Are engaged in this discussion today? You're actively negotiating,
27:02 actively looking at trade agreements. Are Brad's points being reflected in
27:07 the current negotiations, ongoing? Are you hearing it from presidents of low income countries that
27:11 they want to think about the future of digital businesses, data centers, other related issues?
27:17 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: Well, thank you, Raj. I,
27:20 I think building on both what Brad said, and President Kersti of Estonia said,
27:28 two or three points. We just have to recognize that for many countries, this discussion
27:37 sometimes about data and digitization may seem esoteric because the basics of what it needs,
27:45 the countries need to participate and generate data, make use of it is sometimes missing. This is
27:52 why many countries talk about the digital divide. The shear lack of infrastructure, sometimes
27:59 impedes countries from participating in these discussions that they should.
28:04 The President of Estonia was saying you don't have to be rich to be able to have e-Government
28:10 and participate. That's true to some extent, once you have the basic infrastructure in. But
28:16 for many countries laying this infrastructure is very expensive, so we need to think about
28:21 that. How do we get countries to participate when they don't even have the access to the internet.
28:28 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: You look at the numbers, okay, our young
28:30 people on the continent, about 43% of them have access. But overall population, 15%. So you can't
28:37 even begin to talk of people really participating when they don't have that. This is something we
28:44 need to really focus on, that digital divide. If we don't solve it, instead of data being a good,
28:51 we are going to have more inequality, which poor up countries and people are left out.
28:57 The second thing is trust. If people feel the data works for them, then they will be willing
29:05 to participate in sharing their own data. To the extent we've seen people see their data being used
29:12 to give them access to services, conditional cash transfers, access to other government services,
29:20 using it to get them access to education and health, vaccination for their children, et cetera.
29:26 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: People are less mistrustful and more willing
29:29 to engage. So I think, it's one thing as the report says to have data, is another to extract
29:36 value from that data. The fact that many low income countries don't have the capacity yet to
29:43 extract that value makes them leery of engaging in discussions on data governance. I think this
29:50 is one issue we really have to tackle head on, how do we bridge this digital divide and how-
29:59 [Raj Kumar]: Ngozi, Brad talked about the amount of data
30:01 is determined by the size of the population and the number of digital devices and your point is,
30:06 for many of these countries, the number of digital devices, the number of connected devices is very
30:10 small and this gets into a theme we wanted to get into, today. We're getting some questions
30:14 about it. That is, we've seen in the pandemic at the very beginning,
30:18 there was this idea that this was the great equalizer. Everyone is affected by COVID, but
30:24 we realize quickly it's actually a very unequal situation and it's exacerbating that inequality.
30:30 Is data the same thing? Are we going to basically see, that advanced economies, wealthier people
30:36 have many devices, they're much more connected. They're moving to 5G. They're moving to AI.
30:41 While many others really are still using a feature phone or not connected at all.
30:45 [Raj Kumar]: Is the divide
30:46 going to get worse before it gets much better? I pose that to you and to everyone,
30:50 as we start to get toward the end of the conversation and think about
30:53 what is this new social contract like? What is required of all of us to avoid that future?
31:01 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: Well, I really think that,
31:03 that's the issue. If we don't make the effort to include countries that are left behind
31:13 in terms of this access to digital infrastructure, then we're going to have increasing inequality.
31:22 They will have, less access to these devices, less ability to participate, less desire to engage
31:29 in global discussions on governance. So we have to bear that in mind and that means that a large
31:36 part of the population is left out. Can this be solved? Yes, absolutely. That's why I say that for
31:42 an organization like the WTO, my interest is in partnering with David at the World Bank,
31:48 partnering with the regional development banks to make sure this infrastructure is provided, one,
31:54 to those countries that don't have it. Two, we build capacity for regulatory frameworks.
31:59 If we do all of this, then instead of having increasing inequality,
32:03 we will bring closer together those low income countries that are logging behind.
32:08 That's the point I really would like to make. The world has to pay attention to this because
32:14 a world in which we have inequality of access and use of data is not a good world.
32:19 [Raj Kumar]: Go ahead, Brad.
32:22 [Brad Smith]: One thing I would add to that is
32:25 obviously the digital divide is very pronounced in the world today.
32:30 I think one of the big questions for the next decade is will this get better or will this get
32:35 worse? It will go in one direction or the other. If you look at the history of technology and how
32:41 quickly it reaches places that are underserved, I think one thing to always look at, is whether the
32:48 technology that's used to move something, whether it's electricity or data or anything else,
32:54 ask whether it's done on a wire or can be done wirelessly. Anything that can be done wirelessly
33:01 is the game changer. It is cheaper and it can leapfrog your wired technology. Electricity
33:08 cannot be delivered wirelessly, but most of what we're talking about today can.
33:14 What that means in the first in is in addition to continuing to build out undersea cables,
33:19 that's the wired portion, look to Low Earth Orbiting satellites. They will
33:24 be one of the defining technologies of this decade and they can reach the entire planet.
33:29 [Brad Smith]: Second, I think,
33:30 especially for a lower income countries, you don't need to reach every building or every home
33:38 through a fiber optic cable under the ground. You'll want that in your urban
33:42 areas, it will be critical, but use spectrum, use wireless spectrum. When I look for example
33:49 around the world, and I see who is using say TV white spaces, which is effective for broadband,
33:55 the countries that are really at the forefront are countries like Kenya or Nigeria or Columbia, where
34:02 there is an interest in putting unused spectrum and leapfrogging some of the other countries
34:10 where you have more legacy providers fighting over that spectrum that has made it scarcer. Of course,
34:16 in addition to reaching people through broadband, we need each them with two other things as well.
34:22 [Brad Smith]: One is devices.
34:24 So we have to keep figuring out for us, in our industry, how do we make them
34:28 cheaper? How do we make them more available? Then the last thing is skills. Yeah, it's not
34:35 enough just to equip people with the device and a connection to the internet. This is where the
34:40 development banks, the world bank and all of the other development banks, I think are going to
34:45 need to be at the forefront in expanding digital skilling programs in partnership with governments.
34:51 [Raj Kumar]: Maybe I could just bring David in,
34:53 on this one point about, you're talking about the cost of devices and they have to come down Brad.
34:59 There's a data point in the, in the reports saying for the 20% of the world's poorest households,
35:05 the cost of an entry level smartphone today is 80% of monthly income, right? So,
35:11 what David is doing at the World Bank focusing on the 800,000,000 or so people at the very bottom,
35:16 the people living on less than a dollar, 90 a day,
35:18 how do we ensure David, they aren't left out of this digital revolution?
35:22 [Brad Smith]: Thanks, Raj. We can think of it as,
35:28 I think there is a digital divide. So if we focus a lot on that, we're going to maybe come up with
35:35 solutions that aren't optimizing for the people. The biggest value for people are often,
35:42 maybe it's not the smartphone, it's any kind of digital data that has financial information on it.
35:49 As we've seen in Kenya, a good measure of the success of the system is the number of
35:57 transactions that occur and what the cost per transaction is. So if you can have a billion
36:03 transactions at a small fraction of ascent, you're probably providing huge value in gains
36:10 for people that are very low, on the income scale. That's what's going on in quite a few countries.
36:17 I think the things Brad said made sense, as far as choosing where you can use the spectrum.
36:28 That's important and the regulatory structure, I think for countries to do that,
36:33 I want to note, monopoly power is problematic for some of the countries.
36:39 [Brad Smith]: For example, in west Africa,
36:41 there's, there's a pretty tight monopoly on the fiber optic cable itself. That creates
36:48 limitation. I think having an environment that allows competition and innovation is going to
36:58 be important. I wanted to mention, in addition to, or I think as we define financial inclusion,
37:08 we should be doing that, not so much in terms of a bank account anymore, but in terms of access to
37:14 really low cost transactions. If your income per day is five dollars per day, you can't
37:21 afford a transaction that's 10 cents. You need a transaction that's cheaper, and you need a lot of
37:28 them in order to survive, in order to innovate and have children learn the systems. I think we
37:37 should focus some on the actual infrastructure and those parts of the developing world that
37:43 haven't allowed, or are not moving forward in terms of low cost transactions. I'll mention that.
37:51 [Raj Kumar]: Yeah. I appreciate David, you
37:53 expanding the conversation around data, because obviously we often will go directly to things like
37:58 digital data that are you produced on devices, but as you say, it really touches everything,
38:02 including financial data. So we're getting to the end of the conversation and I wanted
38:05 to try to leave people with an action point, right? With something that we can actually do,
38:11 given what this report is calling all of us to do. The question I want to ask everyone is
38:16 what is the most important contribution data can make to improve people's lives,
38:21 and what more need do we need to do to get there? Maybe we can start with you, President Kaljulaid,
38:26 I'd love to get everyone's take on this. What's the one thing,
38:29 the most important contribution data can make to improve people's lives?
38:32 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: Well, the way we started here in Estonia
38:39 was to declare access to internet a human right? Of course, we didn't write it in the law, exactly,
38:44 but this is how we acted. I would re really like to relate to something which was said before. It
38:50 was said before that, I mean data and digital accesses, I mean, have their costs and digital
38:57 services have their costs to be delivered. But frankly speaking, let's take an analogy
39:03 from the paperwork world. If you have an universal or means-tested child support in any country,
39:10 then delivering it by internet applications and I mean, simple transactions,
39:15 which can be more or less automatized from state budget to people while bank accounts or cell phone
39:20 accounts, I don't mind, is definitely cheaper than having a paper-based, office-based development.
39:27 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: Which means that, I mean,
39:28 if you didn't have means to do these services before you are not going to have them today,
39:33 neither, simply because you have technology. But technology makes it inherently easier and cheaper
39:40 to deliver for people. But inclusivity doesn't happen all by itself. 20 years ago in Estonia,
39:47 if you think everybody had even a fixed line phone at home, you're wrong. But what we did was
39:52 we declared internet a human right and if you had a school or a library,
39:58 you had an internet access point through which you could use government eServices. So everything
40:04 starts with making your legislation to withdraw everybody in. That's the most important thing.
40:11 If you want to achieve inclusivity, you have to act political, you have to act regulatory
40:18 way. You cannot just sit back and wait this to happen. It cannot be delivered in any other way.
40:24 [Kersti Kaljulaid]: The last moment is that we very often
40:27 think that governments don't matter. Governments do matter. The digital transformation in Estonia
40:33 only happened because government and private sector created the digital identity for each and
40:38 everybody together. We have loads of countries who have lots and lots of digital private services,
40:44 but what is missing link is exactly this government is not in this digital space.
40:49 It's not present. That makes the digital space wild, unsafe and anonymous. You have to drive
40:57 anonymity from this space. So inclusivity and lack of anonymity, my two suggestions. Thank you.
41:02 [Raj Kumar]: Thank you very much for that,
41:04 President Kaljulaid, maybe Brad, we can go to you for your final thought here. What
41:07 is that one most important contribution data can make to improve people's lives?
41:11 [Brad Smith]: Well, I'll just pick
41:13 one practical issue that I think is the issue of our time and that's climate and carbon.
41:20 Data is going to be indispensable to the world's efforts to reduce carbon emissions
41:27 and we cannot possibly reduce carbon emissions, unless we all have a standardized approach to
41:34 measure it, to monitor it, to just know how much progress we're making.
41:39 I do think a point you made earlier is important. People can look at this and say, "Well, this data
41:45 thing. What are we talking about? It feels very esoteric." I put it in a different context.
41:51 Doesn't matter how old or young you are or where you live. We all pretty much start every morning
41:56 doing one thing everywhere. We look at the weather forecast. We ask ourselves, what's the temperature
42:03 going to be today? Now the good news is there's only two ways in the world to measure temperature.
42:09 [Brad Smith]: It's called Fahrenheit
42:10 or Centigrade, but at least there's only two and we can go back and forth between them.
42:15 We have these tools that are everywhere on the planet. It's called a thermometer. It tells
42:20 us what the temperature is. We have people who then accumulate all of that data from the past,
42:26 and they predict what the temperature's going to be this afternoon. Just think about
42:31 that when you get up in the morning and think about the problem that you want to go to work
42:36 to solve. In this case, I'll say it's reducing carbon. It could be reducing COVID. It could be
42:42 reducing corruption. It doesn't matter what it is. That same analytical framework that
42:48 you use to think about the temperature is the analytical framework that you can put to work,
42:54 to solve whatever problem you need to address when you start doing your job in the day.
42:59 [Raj Kumar]:
43:00 That's a great way to look at it, Brad. It makes me think, I wonder how many of us
43:04 look at our phone to see the temperature before we even look out the window in the morning
43:07 to see what's happening. Ngozi, maybe I can turn to you for your thought here.
43:12 What is that one most important contribution, data can provide to improve people's lives?
43:16 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: I think that if data can give, and
43:20 I'm talking very much from the point of view of people in poorer countries, data that gives people
43:26 access to services, that can make a difference in their lives and I'm talking of education,
43:34 of health. That is what is important. That's what I think will make people trust the system and
43:44 participate in it. For me, getting value out of data for people such that they can feel included,
43:55 as part of the economy, I think that is very... That's perhaps the best that one can can hope for.
44:03 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: How can it help
44:05 make education more accessible for girls and for boys, particularly those in rural
44:12 areas. How can we use GPS data to track where they are and find them,
44:17 or those who are in urban slums who have forgotten that GPS data that gets to them, finds them,
44:24 and they can get access to these services. How can we get women access to the internet so that
44:32 they can improve the economic wellbeing and that of their family. So every bit of data that can
44:38 give access to services to improve people's lives, that's what I think my wish would be.
44:45 [Raj Kumar]: Thank you so much
44:46 for that Ngozi, and David, maybe we give you the last word here.
44:49 What is that important contribution from your perch at the world bank?
44:52 [David R. Malpass]: Thanks, Raj. And thanks everybody on the... It's
44:57 really interesting discussion. I don't know if I have one thing Raj, I want to give three.
45:02 One is access as Ngozi was saying. One, I think is an uncensored flow of information.
45:09 That's really critical. Once you start down the path of censoring, the information,
45:15 I think, you lose a huge part of the value of data and of information. That's critical in the
45:22 makeup of the whole backbone of the internet. Then I do want to mention the importance of low cost,
45:30 digital transactions, financial transactions, because markets are so powerful. If you think
45:36 of the course of human history, it's how do people trade goods and services? Because,
45:41 that's where a big part chunk of the efficiency gains come from. So to do that, if the cost of
45:48 that can be brought down, then people really respond and are able to move forward faster.
45:54 [David R. Malpass]: I'm sorry, but I give you three, we got
45:58 to have access. That means infrastructure. That means regulatory power. We've I think, I think
46:05 got to have uncensored information so that people are free within the digital world. Then third is
46:14 this importance of having a backbone, a financial backbone that gives you transactions. Thanks, Raj.
46:19 [Raj Kumar]: I think that third one David,
46:21 is an important underlying of what this report is trying to do, which is to make us think of people
46:26 in the world who may be at the very bottom of that economic ladder. For many of us,
46:30 a tiny transaction cost might seem insignificant, it might seem worth it for the way we go about
46:35 our daily lives. But those very small numbers, as you said earlier, can add up. I think that's why
46:40 this report talks about data. Data's not a new question. All of you have been dealing with it,
46:44 thinking about it, talking about it in many ways, but what the World Development Report does every
46:49 year is it makes us think about an existing issue in a new way. I think, I recommend all of
46:54 you haven't seen it yet. It's a free report. You can download it from the World Bank's website and
46:58 get a sense for this idea of a new social contract and what does it actually look like and understand
47:03 many of the nuances that I think our panelists ably brought up in the conversation today.
47:08 [Raj Kumar]: I want to thank
47:09 all of you for a fantastic discussion. I'm sure people
47:11 at home are clapping and applauding this group virtually. It was a really rich conversation
47:16 and congratulations to the authors of the World Development Report, 2021. Look forward
47:21 to seeing all of you on social media and at the next virtual event like this. Thank you.
47:26 [David R. Malpass]: Raj. Can I give a shout out
47:30 Carmen Reinhart and her group did a huge job on this report. It's fabulous. Just coming out today.
47:36 [Raj Kumar]: Check it out. Nice to be with all of you.
47:39 [David R. Malpass]: Thanks.
47:40 [Brad Smith]: Thank you.
47:40 [Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala]: Bye.
47:41 [Brad Smith]: Bye.
47:42 [David R. Malpass]: Bye all.

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