Roadmap for Digital Cooperation

The United Nations presented the Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation in June 2020, to address a range of issues related to AI and other digital technologies and how the international community could work together. The Roadmap builds on the recommendations made by the High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation in June 2019 and following discussion of Roundtable groups where diverse and inclusive group of experts convened to advance these recommendations. 

Enhanced multi-stakeholder efforts on global AI cooperation are needed to help build global capacity for the development and use of AI in a manner that is trustworthy, human rights-based, safe and sustainable, and promotes peace. The Roadmap puts forward the Secretary-General’s proposal to establish a multistakeholder advisory body on global AI cooperation, so as to address issues around inclusion, coordination and capacity-building. Discussion and consultations on this proposal, supported by the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology, are ongoing.

Various parts of the United Nations systems are also working on AI-related initiatives and efforts, including the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) which convenes the annual AI for Good Summit, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO’s) work to elaborate a recommendation on the ethics of artificial intelligence.