The 2025 G20 presidency, hosted by South Africa, is the first G20 summit to take place on the African continent. This historic event comes at a critical geopolitical junction. We are witnessing China, the US and Europe in an artificial intelligence (AI) arms race, with industry and policymakers locked in a regulate vs deregulate tug of war. Against this backdrop, Africa will be home to the largest labour population in the world by 2050. Decisions made today will shape the digital future of next generations. This may be one of the key opportunities for the Global South and South Africa to push their agenda and prioritise policies for their benefit before the G20 presidency goes to the US for 2026. The crucial question for the Digital Transformation Taskforce then is: What does digital decolonial justice look like for the Global South?

This question was the focus of a two-day T20 conference hosted by the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (ACEPS), University of Johannesburg. The conference bought together a diverse range of experts from around the world, including South Africa, Brazil, New Zealand, the US and the UK. These experts represented disciplines such as philosophy, science and technology studies, media studies, information science, communications, data science, computer science, political science and law, working in decolonisation, technology, policy and justice.

Many digital harms were discussed, but the most notable, in terms of degree, extent, frequency of harm and consensus among experts, was Big Tech and its business model, which were considered the primary source of the problem. They have facilitated digital harms directly and indirectly, such as algorithmic bias, design monism, digital addiction, misinformation, the exploitation of gig workers and the embedment of epistemic stereotypes of Global South AI design, to name a few.

Points of disagreement included the value of AI tools. Experts were divided between recognising some of the opportunities AI provides (such as medical benefits) and expressing concerns about the loss of individual agency, as well as how it damages moral relationships (eg, relations of privacy, relationships with ancestors [ie, thanabots].

The following arose as actionable points* related to the G20 theme of ‘Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability’ and the T20 Digital Transformation Task Force agenda.

• DPI sovereignty: Global South countries need to control how their citizens’ data is stored, as data is the currency of politics. Connectivity needs to be a safeguarded digital right, and countries should require local ownership in digital public infrastructure (DPI). Local ownership in DPI is necessary for countries to hold a stake in protecting the centralised sensitive data of private citizens which, if breached, would undermine citizens’ human rights, such as the right to privacy.
• Epistemic design plurality: A plurality of world views should be incorporated into not only the datasets but also the design and governance principles of AI.
• Fighting against digital compulsion: It is crucial to resist Big Tech’s business model, which commodifies users’ attention. Instead, countries should implement strategies designed for resistance and resilience, and develop Global South-led social media applications to compete with Big Tech.
• Accountability for digital identity: Governance structures in the global South need to acknowledge that marginalised identities are being commodified and should develop policies to prevent digital blackface.
• AI literacy for civil society: Governments have a moral imperative to ensure their citizens have AI literacy, as this can help demystify AI technology and mobilise civil society to address digital injustices.
• Bottom-up governance structures: Countries need to ensure that their citizens’ histories and goals are taken into account by the industry – community engagement needs to be built into the design phase of AI and technological development.
• Safeguarding digital workers: Gig workers should be integrated into a company’s formal structures.
• South–South collaboration: Solidarity among African countries and other countries in the Global South is necessary to resist the need to be recognised on the Global North’s terms and rather co-conceive an anticapitalist future.
• North–South collaboration: Countries should combat infantilisation and tokenism by the Global North by focusing resources on building South–South collaborations.
• Resisting digital colonialism: Many of the previous points address aspects of this but, overall, Global South governments need to ensure that the value their citizens produce through digital labour and attention does not lead to external benefit and localised harm.

The Global South disproportionately bears most of the consequences of digital harms. While global policy initiatives such as the Paris AI Safety Summit, the UN Global Digital Compact, UNESCO’s Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms, Just Net Coalition Delhi Declaration, Haarlem Declaration on AI, ILO Gig Worker Guidelines and the Content Moderators Manifesto are working to reduce digital harms and digital colonialism, Global South solutions need to be championed by, grounded in and represent the local realities of Global South citizens. To do this, it is crucial to encourage cross-border collaboration between countries of the Global South and Africa, specifically, to build solidarity against digital colonialism.