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Addressing the G-20 development working group meeting, India’s G-20 Sherpa (India representative) Amitabh Kant said data was key in helping countries meet their developmental goals and India has benefitted from the same.
“Without data and good governance, less developed and developing countries will never be able to grow,” he added.
Minister of State for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Infosys co-founder and non-executive chairman Nandan Nilekani were among the other major speakers at the event.
Kant also pitched for the dissemination of data by the government in granular form.
“Government data is provided as aggregates, which is not good. We should break down the aggregation,” Kant said on the sidelines of a G20 side event “Data for development”.
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He said it was important to ensure that data is de-cluttered and that it is not difficult to navigate or access, especially in case of government data.
“We need to overcome this challenge so as to help academics and researchers analyse the data and use it for best outcomes,” he said.
Government policy think tank, Niti Aayog, had brought in a data governance quality index, he said, urging other nations to adopt the same
Chandrasekhar, who addressed the event through a video message, said the government will soon begin to assemble large swathes of anonymised data sets collected and harmonised under the country’s national data governance policy.
He added that the government expects companies to use this large database to train their AI models.
“Our aim is to catalyse innovation and create more effective policy and climatic solutions. And amongst the use cases for these data sets will be governance and governance solutions,” he said.
New Delhi has offered to make the India Technology stack available to countries in the global South to help accelerate digitisation initiatives, Chandrasekhar added.
He said it is necessary to find the right balance between data sovereignty and protection and the notion of a data commons that could benefit the global community.
Nilekani said India has been fortunate to have large amounts of population-scale systems like GSTM, Diksha and NPCI that are generating a wealth of data.
“In the coming years, starting with financial services, and later in other areas, individuals will be able to use their own data to get loans, better financial services, healthcare and jobs. The real paradigm of data for development is empowering everyone with their own data so that they can make their lives better,” he said in a video message.
Queen Maxima of The Netherlands said that the fintech ecosystem is the main source of data for the global financial inclusion database.
“The big picture is that 71% of adults in developing economies now have a financial account. A decade ago, it was just 42%,” she said.