Digital Sovereignty

I’ve spent a lot of the past years in rooms where someone asks a version of the same question: how did we end up this dependent, and what can we actually do about it? The urgency of the question has grown as geopolitical certainties have slipped away and as AI has grown to dominate the conversation. Now, with my Public Digital colleagues Mike Bracken, Andrew Greenway, Lauren Kahn and Raine Lester, I’ve helped write a book that tries to answer it. Digital Sovereignty: The Power to Decide is published by London Publishing Partnership. ...

Just as digital sovereignty is about having the right agency and capacity to make and act on informed choices, digital resilience is a lot more than just whether the servers are working. It’s about whether you have the right options and ecosystem to keep delivering in the midst of changing conditions or emerging crises. In the midst of a busy UN General Assembly week it was great to moderate a panel on digital resilience with Robert Opp CDO of UNDP, John Hallmark from EY, and Vittorio Di Bello from the International Finance Corporation/World Bank at Mastercard’s Digital Ambassadors Forum. ...

Finland sits in a fascinating place when it comes to digital sovereignty. Its geography means it can’t ignore the power dynamics and risks affecting our world. Its recent history shows that it can be the home to major shapers of technology, but that they don’t necessarily last. Its recent political statements recognise that it needs to ensure that political leadership and clear roadmaps are needed to focus on sovereignty for themselves and as part of Europe. Their security agencies have correctly pointed out that there are limited options for key components of the digital supply chain. ...

Most large organizations are trapped by their own software—stuck between rigid “best practices” and a tangled mess of over-customization. That’s felt keenly but not uniquely in the world of public finance. Two years ago in DC, Lauren Kahn, Cathal Long and I started a conversation about how to break this cycle and create tools that actually adapt to our needs. Our new paper, “Better software options for public financial management: Some ideas on where to start.” offers a set of conceptual shifts and practical steps that organisations can take to start breaking out. ...