Multilateral digital policy retrospective for 2022: what you need to know
Issue 3 — December 2022
2022 was a tough year for multilateralism. A search for “multilateralism in 2022” on Google returns results like “multilateralism tested,” “the UN […] made it,” “strain on multilateralism,” “reviving multilateralism” and similar commentary that confirms the challenges that this type of cooperation faced in 2022.
The OECD 2022 Multilateral Development Finance Report (OECD Report) identified three forces testing the identity, legitimacy, and capacity of the multilateral development system: political polarization, institutional fragmentation, and frequent global shocks. All these forces shaped multilateral digital policy efforts in the past year:
1. Increased poverty and vulnerability combined with accelerated digitization led to more focus on inclusion in digital policy.
2. Political polarization increased countries desire for digital sovereignty, resilience, and independence.
3. Climate shocks combined with accelerated digitalization led to multilateral mobilization for a green digital policy.
This Issue of the Multilateral Monitor pulls together our pick of the top five multilateral research and initiatives on digital policy that took place during the past year. Our hope is that it helps you connect the events of a very active year and prepare for another, which promises to be as demanding for digital policymaking.
Wishing you happy endings and an inspiring New Year.
EDITOR
Heba Shamas
VP Multilateral Engagement
Global Public Policy
Financial inclusion and digital payments
- The Global Findex Database 2021 was launched after two years delay on 8 July 2022. You can also watch a presentation by the lead author Leora Klapper in this Policy Research Talk.
- The World Bank’s very informative Fast Payment Toolkit, first published in November 2021, continued to expand in 2022. A new Technical Focus Noes on Scheme Rules in Fast Payments published in February 20200 and a Brazil Pix Case Study published in May 2022. Both are worth a read.
- The Bank of International Settlement (BIS) and its Innovation Lab published several important papers on CBDCs design features and lessons from experiments. Considering how much of the CBDCs development effort is justified by the pursuit of financial inclusion, the BIS FSI Insights paper Central bank digital currencies: a new tool in the financial inclusion toolkit? is particularly useful for evaluating CBDCs developments.
- Improving the efficiency and affordability of cross-border payments continued to preoccupy multilateral policymakers. For a disruptive vision read the IMF Working Paper A Multi-Currency Exchange and Contracting Platform.
Digital development
- For a sense of the strategic direction of the World Bank on digital development see the Development Committee Paper (April 2022) Digitalization and Development.
- Rapid digitalization, severe climate shocks, and COP27 all converged to make 2022 the year for a call to action on greening digital policy. The Digital Development Partnership published an overview of its forthcoming report Catalyzing the Green Digital Transformation. For a deeper dive on this topic see Issue Two of the Multilateral Monitor.
DPG4DPI
- Increased focus on poverty and inequality due to the multiple crisis of past few years combined with accelerated digitalization lent substantial momentum to the digital public goods and digital public infrastructure agenda.
- For a deeper dive into this agenda see Issue One of the Multilateral Monitor on UNGA & IMF Annual Meeting | An Overview on Future of Digitalization (mastercard.com).
- Or read the summary of the UNGA77 event on The Future of Digital Cooperation, which took place on 22 September 2022 and marked the first significant gathering of countries to advance the development and use of DPI, and especially through digital public goods (DPGs).
Click here for PDF of this issue.
