IADB-financed projects must meet the requirements of the Environmental and Social Policy Framework (ESPF), which requires project implementing agencies to respect human rights and address human rights-related risks and impacts. IADB’s commitment to human rights includes those recognized in international and regional legal instruments.
When financing infrastructure development, agriculture, and water sanitation projects – common projects financed by the IADB – the most prevalent human rights challenges include ensuring workers’ rights, community health and safety, and mitigation of impacts related to the physical displacement and livelihoods of local communities. Digital government initiatives, however, have implications on a different sphere: they open the online space to ensure a wider government presence, enhance public service efficiency, and feed on data for increased analytical and decision-making capabilities. Therefore, the digital space offers an arena for citizens to exercise their rights, but also a space where human rights can be affected in unprecedented ways.
On March 6, 2024, at the Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the IADB in the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and IADB signed a US$90 million Conditional Credit Line (CCL) to support Trinidad and Tobago’s digital transformation. The first loan under such credit line, for US$42 million, seeks to support this country’s capacity to deliver public services using digital technologies, increase the digital capabilities of the national workforce and firms, and strengthen the government’s prevention and response systems to cyberattacks.
Below are a few of the lessons extracted after navigating the implications of the ESPF for Trinidad and Tobago’s digital government initiative and assessing the specific actions a borrower government must put in practice to ensure human rights protection in digital transformation.
1. Digital Rights are Human Rights
As governments further the use of digital technologies in the provision of public services, considerations on digital rights become increasingly important.
On one hand, the use of novel digital technologies in government services makes such services more efficient, as it allows people to access the service in their own time and from their own device, reduces paperwork, speeds up processing times and minimizes errors. As it provides an improved access to crucial public services such as health, social security, education or child protection, digital government empowers citizens to exercise their rights.
On the other hand, the operation of digital services entails practices that, if not managed properly, may have negative implications on human rights. Enhanced data processing practices require measures to prevent privacy breaches and misuse, alteration, or loss of sensitive personal data. Decision-making algorithms require transparency and accountability measures to prevent bias and discrimination. Appropriate safeguards should be put in place to prevent surveillance and monitoring of citizens’ activities and behaviors, which will be more easily tracked with digital technologies.
Since human rights violations can also take place in the digital space, the UN Human Rights Council recognized that “the same rights people have offline must also be protected online”. Financing of digital government initiatives must therefore require digital rights risk and impact assessments and include, as part of project design, the corresponding prevention and mitigation measures.
The remaining lessons describe how strategies and tools set forth in the ESPF contribute to the protection of digital rights.
2. Digital Inclusion as a Core Project Component
The ESPF includes IADB’s commitment to non-discrimination and the promotion of inclusion of vulnerable groups.
To ensure inclusion, a successful digital government initiative requires going beyond implementing novel technologies and developing capacity on the government side. It is crucial to support citizens in the transition, ensuring they have the tools and knowledge to navigate the digital service landscape and devoting special attention to groups who could be at risk of further marginalization if they’re not integrated in the digital dynamics.
These efforts are particularly relevant in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the digital divide is still significant. As documented by the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean – ECLAC –, almost a third of the population still does not use the Internet and less than 40% has basic IT skills, such as copying and e-mailing a file.
Enhancing digital access for all citizens must therefore be a core component of financing for a digital government initiative. Funds should be specifically allocated to ensure broad and equitable access to the Internet and the development of citizen digital literacy and skills.
In the case of Trinidad and Tobago, assessments on digital inclusion conducted by the Telecommunications Authority informed the areas where actions were required to bridge the digital gaps. The first loan under the CCL will support engagement, training programs, assistive technology, and accessibility standards for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) who, according to the assessment, are half as likely to be active Internet users and three times less likely to feel comfortable accessing e-government services than those who did not report a disability.
3. Stakeholder Engagement for a User-Driven Approach
The ESPF includes requirements for borrowers on stakeholder engagement and information disclosure throughout the life of a project as part of Environmental and Social Performance Standard 10 (ESPS 10). This standard promotes community participation, as it requires executing agencies to conduct project consultations and consider stakeholder views, concerns, and proposals in project design and in developing management strategies for environmental and social risks. Also, the information disclosure requirements are a means to ensure project transparency and accountability.
Stakeholder engagement is even more relevant in digital government initiatives, as it is a tool for government accountability regarding sound data protection practices and protection of the right to privacy. Through information disclosure activities, executing agencies implementing digital initiatives can provide citizens with information on the type of citizen data that is being collected, the purpose and methods of data collection, the benefits and trade-offs of data processing, and the policies that will rule data governance, including those related to storage and sharing of data. Such information disclosure practices align with international standards for data protection, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), enhance citizen trust in government agencies, and enable citizens to be informed, engaged, and equipped to claim from government sound practices in digital public services.
The ESPF’s stakeholder engagement requirements provide an avenue for best practices regarding participatory approaches in the selection, design, and implementation of digital government initiatives. International benchmarks for digital government, such as OECD’s Digital Government Policy Framework (2020), highlight the need for a “user-driven approach”, where citizens needs and profiles drive service design. ESPS 10’s requirement for stakeholder consultations during project preparation and action plans to engage with citizens throughout the project lifecycle are a way to ensure a two-way conversation between government and citizens, which allows citizens to become active co-creators of digital services, as they have the space to raise their needs and expectations for government services and provide feedback on service delivery.
The first loan under the CCL for Trinidad and Tobago’s digital transformation includes the implementation of a citizen engagement strategy, which includes communication plans and citizen consultations regarding the digital initiatives to be implemented. This will ensure the digital transformation agenda is citizen-driven.
4. Grievance Mechanisms as a means to ensure Digital Rights
As with stakeholder engagement, the implementation of a Grievance Redress Mechanism [(GRM) has a heightened relevance in digital government initiatives. As digital government services entail the use of digital platforms and tools like artificial intelligence, eliminating previous forms of direct in-person interaction and human decision-making, there is a need for effective channels to raise requests for clarification or to contest government decisions. Moreover, to protect the right to privacy and comply with international standards for data protection (such as GDPR), effective mechanisms should be in place for citizens to raise questions on which of their personal data is being processed, request its correction, update or deletion, and report data misuse and/or unintended outcomes.
Funding for the digital transformation of Trinidad and Tobago included allocation of resources for the implementation of a GRM, aligned with the principles and features required under ESPS 10: fairness, accessibility, transparency, culturally appropriateness, and confidentiality. The GRM will channel and respond to questions and concerns of citizens related to the digital government services financed under the project.
5. Digital Rights Risk Management System
The IADB requires under ESPS 1 that borrower countries develop a project an Environmental and Social Management System (ESMS), a tool to assess, prevent, and mitigate risks and impacts throughout the project cycle.
The preparation of the CCL for Trinidad and Tobago’s digital transformation has involved the preparation of the first ESMS focused on management of risks related to digital rights, including data privacy and digital inclusion.
This ESMS includes a preliminary digital rights risk and impact assessment, which identified the types of personal data that will be processed under the supported initiatives and the categories of potential digital rights risks. Moreover, the ESMS provides guidelines for the executing agency, Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, on how to regularly update the digital rights risk assessment and extend it to new digital transformation initiatives under the loan. The guidelines include a proposed methodology, standards and tools, and a definition of roles and responsibilities. Regarding prevention and mitigation measures, the ESMS includes a matrix with intervention options for risk and impact categories related to digital rights and with checklists for their implementation.
The implementation of a digital rights risk management system is an opportunity for implementing agencies to lead a digital transformation with sound digital rights practices. Government digital transformation requires a joint effort between multiple agencies. The need for interoperability in digital government – the standardized practices in the exchange of information – has been addressed through legal, organizational, technical, and semantic solutions, according to the European Interoperability Framework. A digital rights risk management system provides an opportunity to set uniform standards among collaborating agencies on how to ensure human rights respect in digital government services. It is a step towards interoperability in digital rights risk management.
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