Agenda-setting and networked influence in digital policy: lessons from the Brazilian G20 Presidency

Following Indonesia and India, and preceding South Africa, the moment seemed favourable for addressing issues such as digital inclusion, AI harms, and the impacts of digital technologies on work. India’s progress in these areas, particularly its emphasis on digital public infrastructure (DPI), reinforced this sense of continuity and Global South relevance.

At the same time, Brazil’s presidency unfolded amid humanitarian crises and political polarization that affected the G20’s internal dynamics. This was reflected in Vladimir Putin’s absence from the Summit due to Russia’s war on Ukraine and tensions with Argentinian president Javier Milei over economic issues. In this context, Brazil emphasised strengthening multilateralism and the G20’s agenda-setting role in a fragmented global environment.

Within this context, we explore G20 Brazil’s role in defining key themes in the digital agenda, evidenced by the work of the Digital Economy Working Group, but also non-governmental initiatives pushed by the G20 engagement groups, including the Think Tank 20 (T20). Drawing from Data Privacy Brazil’s work on leading the Inclusive Digital Transformation taskforce of the T20, together with the Observer Research Foundation, we reflect on the G20’s impact, especially its influence on emerging global discourses and networks.

We argue that the G20 – and the T20 alongside it – should be seen as a strategic platform rather than an end in itself. The success of the T20 Inclusive Digital Transformation Taskforce lies less in influencing the Leaders’ Declaration and more in shaping broader debates across global processes. Coordination and consensus-building within the G20/T20 generated unexpected outcomes, including partnerships across engagement groups, joint events, and influence in other forums. Outputs such as joint statements strengthened multistakeholder networks and connected technical, civil society, and governmental perspectives. Even proposals not formally adopted, such as the D20, a proposed engagement group on data governance, helped reframe debates by linking data governance to power, connectivity, and justice in AI governance.

Furthermore, the networks built through this process spilled over into other advocacy and institutional spaces. This continuity was evident under the South African presidency in 2025, particularly on artificial intelligence and data governance, issues that rose to prominence across both the G20 and the UN Global Digital Compact. With that, we highlight the G20’s position as a strategic platform capable of shaping shared priorities and driving policy coherence across countries and sectors.

The T20 and the opportunity of networks: from local to global

The Brazilian presidency of the G20 was not only an important milestone for multilateral coordination among countries, but also an opportunity to build coalitions beyond. The government stakeholders and institutions, together with the Brazilian Presidency, sought to implement a multistakeholder approach, through and beyond the official engagement groups. The T20 Inclusive Digital Transformation Taskforce (referred to from here on as ‘the Taskforce’) was, from the outset, designed to strengthen a Global South network. Membership was based on the Global South Alliance (GSA), a global civil society network formed at the end of 2022 with the purpose of unifying NGOs dedicated to the advancement of digital rights, strengthening Global South perspectives and advocacy by connecting global discussions to local realities. At the time, it already had a history of taking forward collective action, as exemplified by its involvement in the formulation of the United Nations Global Digital Compact (GDC). The Taskforce also involved several other think tanks with a track record on digital rights, both from Brazil and other Global South countries, as well as Global North institutions which contributed to the taskforce’s regional diversity and represented the G20’s geographical scope.

Members were distributed across focus areas, previously defined by the T20 Brazil Organising Committee, based on their interests and expertise, which included:

1. Digital inclusion and universal meaningful connectivity;
2. Digital transformation and the platformization of public servicesi;
3. Digital integrity, data protection, and cybersecurity;
4. New digital technologies for the SDGs and decent work;
5. Challenges, opportunities, and governance of AI;
6. Global digital governance and the regulation of digital platforms.

These topics enabled an important initial consensus within the Taskforce: to ground recommendations in a data justice approach, a concept developed by scholar Linnet Taylor, which advocates for ‘fairness in the way people are made visible, represented and treated as a result of their production of digital data’. This was consistently applied throughout the Taskforce’s work, based on a shared understanding that inequality is a central driver across the subtopics.

Our T20 Taskforce mobilised fundamental discussions around three core areas of digital transformation through the lens of data justice: data governance, artificial intelligence, and social inequality implications of digitalization. These topics were the most discussed by members and seen as complementary since they are transversal to the digital transformation itself.

Our work sought to go beyond what was requested by the T20 Organising Committee. This included creating spaces for coordination with other T20 Taskforces, and even with other engagement groups, prioritizing a multistakeholder approach. The São Luís Declaration, published in October 2024, represented this effort to expand and strengthen consensus among different stakeholders on artificial intelligence and its social implications, a topic underpinned by questions of data governance and data justice.

The development of the Declaration required extensive coordination throughout the year with the Civil20, Labour20 and Women20, as well as high-level institutional endorsement by the T20, including prominent visibility at convenings. This coordination also involved B20 (the private sector engagement group), which ultimately did not join the final declaration due to a lack of consensus, reflecting the seriousness with which stakeholders approached the document. Despite the challenges inherent in drafting a multistakeholder document across diverse interests and perspectives, this Declaration was nonetheless an innovation within the G20 process, primarily for two reasons: i) the coalition of four engagement groups that was formed, seeking to build consensus on the subject of the declaration; and ii) the fact that it addressed the topic of artificial intelligence across such diverse engagement groups. Some of the disagreements regarding the AI text concerned the nature and degree of emphasis over a pro-innovation agenda. Some supported regulation but advocated a softer language regarding the responsibility of AI system developers, versus what was eventually agreed by the four engagement groups, which included strong language on regulation.

The São Luís Declaration made inroads into furthering a Global South-led agenda on Artificial Intelligence and starting a rich multistakeholder dialogue that later would occupy a central place in global governance debates. This was also addressed by Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation during a G20 international seminar on AI, in 2024, where the Ministry’s representative, and also coordinator of the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, Renata Mielli, emphasized the need for AI governance grounded in data use and in dialogue with Internet governance, with coordination across different spaces. Equally, the Declaration went further in its significance as it shaped G20 processes themselves. It helped shape the nation-states’ perception of the importance of data governance and the social impacts of AI. This became evident both in explicit references to its terms in the Rio de Janeiro Leaders’ Declaration and in the transition process between the Brazilian and South African presidencies, which incorporated the language of data justice and data governance as key points of continuity to 2025.

Importantly, the Brazilian G20’s digital agenda aligned with other international processes, including the UN-led Global Digital Compact (GDC). Alongside the G20, artificial intelligence and data governance were core issues in the GDC’s deliberations. Such alignment positioned our Taskforce to contribute to these complementary debates, opening the possibility for closer engagement with the Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies (ODET), the UN body responsible for conducting the GDC, alongside the efforts to support continuity of discussions into the South African G20.

These concurrent digital governance processes demonstrated the need for coordination among international processes, even those with distinct scopes, to successfully address overlapping issues and concerns. This was a central theme of another Internet Governance process t in 2024 in Brazil: the NetMundial+10, an edition held ten years after the first NetMundial forum. Beyond coordination among international processes, NetMundial+10 was a space to critically engage with how multistakeholder governance is understood, by exploring how effective and meaningful participation of non-governmental actors in these processes could be ensured. In this regard, the Brazilian presidency of the G20, by incorporating non-governmental actors into the deliberative arena through the engagement groups, contributed to this shift in how multi-stakeholderism is conceived within high-level governance and policymaking.

The agendas for the Netmundial+10 and the T20 converged around, and reinforced the importance of, data governance as a cross-cutting agenda on digitalisation. In particular, both agendas emphasised a data governance framework attentive to the social impacts and grounded in the notion of data justice could be a foundation for engagement of diverse actors in multistakeholder and networked governance arrangements. Different global forums were able to reinforce and encourage a shared interest in data governance. This was visible amongst both Brazilian and South African sherpas, particularly toward the end of 2024, as well as within the priority areas of the UN’s Global Digital Compact, adopted in September of that year. These synergies highlight the potential complementarity of these multilateral spaces for agenda-setting. The G20 engagement groups, together with the focus on AI governance, contributed technical expertise that contributed to the elevation of data governance to a priority issue that was sustained from Brazil to South Africa’s G20. The issue also gained traction at another multilateral group, the BRICS+, which in 2025 talked about data governance in its Leaders’ Statement on Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence.

Lessons and perspectives for the future

Taking stock of this work during the year of Brazil’s G20, we identify many positive aspects of the Brazil G20 and T20 digital agenda processes, particularly the contributions of multistakeholder participation and a data justice perspective. The Taskforce became a space for knowledge production and the development of a diverse international network of expertise. The Global South Alliance, still in its early stages in 2024, was able to work together within the framework of the T20, strengthening trust and collaboration among members and beyond (the work of the Global South Alliance work can be found here. It is also worth noting the in-person forums that allowed better alignment and discussion among members, such as the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum (DRIF) and the Data Privacy Global Conference (DPGC)).

Equally, these efforts highlighted persistent challenges within the G20 and T20 processes. The engagement groups remain institutionally fragile, with strong dependence on the priorities and resources of each rotating presidency. As a result, priorities can shift abruptly every year, disrupting the accumulation of experience and engagement. The G20 also lacks stable knowledge management infrastructure; there is no permanent website for the G20 and its engagement groups. The forum relies on organisations to voluntarily preserve documents, policy briefs, and other outputs produced during the process.

There is also room for growth and strengthening in the relationship between engagement groups and the Sherpa track. Although the Taskforce was in conversations with specific delegations, the negotiation process remains challenging. Key issues of interest may not reach the final declaration. This was illustrated in the proposal on data governance put forward by the Taskforce in 2024. The prominence of the data governance agenda within our Taskforce crystallised in a policy recommendation that gained traction over the course of the year: the creation of a Data20 or D20. The proposal aimed to bring together representatives from different sectors, as a multistakeholder group to share and discuss cross-cutting data governance issues, build a shared knowledge base and deepen understanding of the implications and value of data as it cuts across the concerns of diverse G20 working groups and engagement groups. It also envisioned the possibility of a committee to ensure continuity across at least three G20 presidencies, institutionalising its contribution. Although it gained traction among some stakeholders, including government actors involved in Brazil’s G20, the proposal ultimately did not come to fruition. One of the main challenges, mentioned by government representatives, was the lack of institutional resources to enable such an initiative at the G20, such as a permanent secretariat.

As for the Leader’s Declaration of G20 Brazil, it devoted a section specifically to addressing artificial intelligence, recognising its benefits while also emphasising the need to establish governance that is fair, participatory, and mindful of the protection of fundamental rights, as well as ensuring the dignity of work and workers (a priority issue for the Brazilian presidency). The Declaration also acknowledges the role of data governance as a fundamental component in establishing governance mechanisms for AI.

The G20 proved to be a valuable multilateral space at a moment of growing fragmentation in digital policy-making. For the T20 Inclusive Digital Transformation Taskforce, the goal was never merely to have a seat at the table. It was to shape what gets discussed, inside and beyond the G20. Influencing the final Leaders’ Declaration was never the primary metric of success. Agenda-setting was. This was reflected in where we put our efforts as Taskforce leads, how the taskforce was designed and operationalised, and how it sought to link up to wider digital governance processes.

Reflecting on what we sought to do and achieved as a Taskforce, the main legacies of the Brazilian G20 on the digital agenda are emerging in the medium term. The interdependence between the GDC, the G20, and NetMundial+10 (also visible at the 2026 AI Impact Summit) reveals a growing traction of the data governance agenda, carried into the South African G20 presidency and the GDC itself. Although the D20 was not formally adopted, it nonetheless played a key role in reinforcing the idea that data power must be addressed alongside computing power, and that connectivity and data justice are essential for equitable AI governance. This framing continued to resonate across BRICS, the United Nations, and beyond.

In sum, the G20 was a means, not an end. As Milton Santos argued, each place is simultaneously shaped by global and local logics in constant dialectical tension. Globalisation is not a homogenizing force but a contested terrain where peripheral actors must intervene to construct an alternative that recognises and contends with diverse local realities and experiences. As put by one of the authors of this piece, beyond the policy outcomes, what stood out most was the process of “unlocking more solidarity,” highlighting data as a key enabler of this collective effort. This reflects how trust and cooperation among Taskforce members were built through shared work and a common vision, with data serving as a foundation for strengthening solidarity across contexts. Policy victories did not come during Brazil’s presidency. They emerged, and continue to emerge, through the cooperation and shared discourses that outlasted it.