Building a Base of Knowledge for Advocacy Abroad in the Digital Age

[Commentary] Answering questions at the Internet Association’s Virtuous Circle conference recently, Secretary John Kerry presented the US Department of State’s effort to prioritize global digital economy issues abroad in order to reflect the growing importance of these issues in both economic and foreign policy. The State Department has made real progress on this initiative in the last year and hopes to continue our momentum going forward. Approximately six months ago, we announced the State Department’s new Digital Economy Officers (DEO) Program with the goal of strengthening the capacity of our people, embassies, and consulates overseas to address the challenges and seize the opportunities that are emerging with the development of the global digital economy. We believe that this new global platform will help enhance the prosperity not only of US people and firms, but that of other nations and their people, helping achieve more broadly shared prosperity and sparking innovative solutions to both commercial and social challenges that the world faces. Given that the Internet and the digital economy are global in scope and affect a range of US interests, the State Department is uniquely equipped among US agencies, to engage, lead, and advocate on these issues.

[Daniel Sepulveda is the US Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy in the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs.]