Following the publication of Project Liberty Institute’s official T20 policy brief, Sarah Nicole, Policy & Research Manager, joined the T20 delegation in Johannesburg, South Africa, on November 13 and 14.
Co-written with the Global Solutions Initiative, the Aapti Institute, Data Privacy Brasil, and the Equiano Institute, the policy brief “Catalysing Positive Digital Infrastructure Innovation: G20’s Role in Advancing Data Agency” feeds directly into the T20 Communiqué, a collection of high-impact recommendations for the G20 by the task forces, published during the T20 summit.
The T20 Communiqué delivers high-impact, solutions-driven, and implementation-focused policy recommendations to the G20. The Project Liberty Institute’s contribution to the recommendation [#3] of the Digital Transformation task force is as follows:
“The G20 must extend earlier G20 endorsements of the role of DPI in development with commitments to ensuring a ‘people-first’ and whole-of-society approach to digital public infrastructure and emerging technologies.”
During the T20 summit, South African Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Alvin Botes recognized the T20’s vital role and the recommendations from the collective.
Sarah Nicole addressed the delegates gathered during the T20 dinner, calling for a redesign of global digital infrastructure to center agency, equity, and sustainability of citizens. As data increasingly drives economic and social power, current models, which are dominated by a handful of Big Tech platforms, entrench structural inequalities, diminish user control, and undermine public trust. Regulatory frameworks, like the GDPR, fall short when addressing systemic power asymmetries and enabling effective cross-border governance. Data agency must be embedded at the core of infrastructure design through decentralised, open-source protocols that rebalance power between citizens, states, and technology providers.