Keyvisual "Digitalisation: Policies for a Digital Future"

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The German G20 Presidency under the motto "Shaping an Interconnected World" will end on 30 November. It has been the aim of the first G20 Digital Ministers Meeting organised by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy to initiate and establish a global exchange on digital policies.

Economic Affairs Minister Brigitte Zypries said: "Digital issues are increasingly becoming the focus of political activity worldwide. It makes sense for as many states as possible to join forces. Under my chairmanship, the G20 Digital Ministers convened for the first time. They agreed on the following objectives: we want to provide internet access for everyone by 2025 and to remove the gender gap in the field of internet use by 2020. We succeeded in agreeing on common solutions to make our countries more competitive and to enable all people to benefit from the digital transformation."

At the invitation of Economic Affairs Minister Zypries, the G20 Digital Ministers met for the first time in Düsseldorf on 6 - 7 April 2017 to discuss matters related to the digital transformation. On this occasion, they elaborated the Roadmap "Policies for a Digital Future" (PDF, 122 KB) which outlines 11 priority fields of action for the coming years.

At the end of October, the G20 member states and host countries together with the OECD, the ITU, the World Bank, the IMF and UNCTAD met in Hamburg to discuss specific steps to implement the Roadmap. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy summarised the results in a report (in German) (PDF, 83 KB). Its 120 or so pages contain some first examples of how the G20 member states, the host countries and international organisations are implementing the Roadmap. Argentina will assume the G20 Presidency on 1 December. It has already announced that it will continue the digital ministers' process, which was launched successfully under the German G20 Presidency.