Amsterdam, 9 april 2025–An increasingly digital world creates more urgency than ever for Lower Middle Income Countries to tap into the promise and at the same time avoid the perils of technology for their citizens.
Suriname apparently is not yet that far, but with the nations strong force and potential in Silicon Valley a wise decision should not be far away.
Recognizing that some technology companies have amassed as much power as many governments, Denmark appointed an ambassador to the tech industry in 2017, the first such position in the world,although it is not exactly an LMIC.
Caspar Klynge
Casper Klynge, a career diplomat, spent nearly three years representing his country’s interests in Silicon Valley, where giant tech platforms like Meta, formerly known as Facebook and Google are behind some of the biggest forces shaping society, both online and offline.
Since then, a large number of countries have followed suit, either by appointing diplomats to liaise with tech companies or by reimagining their foreign policy strategies for an era where technology has vast implications for geopolitics.
Paramaribo, Capital of Suriname should follow
“With the rise of the influence of technology, governments realized they needed to have someone on the ground liaising directly with these behemoths of non-state power,” said Patricia Gruver, tech policy manager at the nonprofit Meridian International Center.
Patricia Gruver
So far, those diplomatic efforts have been dominated by European interests, with the European Union recently opening an embassy in San Francisco.
Low- and middle-income countries have been largely underrepresented in this “new field of statecraft,” Gruver said last month in a session on tech diplomacy at the Science Summit during the 77th United Nations General Assembly.
Their participation is essential on issues ranging from privacy to misinformation to cybersecurity to artificial intelligence “to safeguard responsible policies and regulations that support democratic values, human rights, and ensure a safe technological future for all,” she added.
Among lower-income countries dipping a toe in tech diplomacy are Pakistan, which is embedding tech into its foreign policy; Brazil, which has appointed a tech diplomat to Silicon Valley; and Senegal, which is exploring models for engaging with the tech industry. But experts tell Devex the shift is not happening enough, arguing that an increasingly digital world creates more urgency than ever for LMICs to tap into the promise — and avoid the perils — of technology for their citizens.
A race between technology and diplomacy
Though Pakistan does not have a tech diplomat in Silicon Valley, its ministry of foreign affairs is exploring how the country can deploy technology to address social and economic development challenges, such as the devastating floods that recently hit the country.
A key priority of Pakistan’s work in “science, technology, and innovation diplomacy” is to engage with the country’s diaspora in Silicon Valley to bridge the divide between technology development and policymaking, said Muhammad Adeel, a biotechnologist and diplomat in Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs, at the Science Summit.
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The European Union’s regulations of big tech, such as its data privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, are having global implications. LMICs must “make sure their voices are heard” in these conversations, Adeel said. This will ensure that they don’t become testing grounds for new and potentially risky technologies but also that they aren’t blocked from accessing technologies they see as beneficial.
For a lower-income country like Pakistan, the work on tech diplomacy is twofold: It must work to reduce the so-called “digital divide” and build technological capacities at home, while also keeping up with a constantly evolving global landscape for both technology and digital regulation, Adeel said.
“We’re going to see a race between technology bringing in new products and diplomacy providing new avenues for dialogues,” he said.
Because technology companies look many years down the road as they develop new products and services, diplomats “need to be anticipatory due to the aspect of institutional drift – technology outpacing regulations,” Adeel added.
The urgency of integrating technology into diplomacy
Tech diplomacy looks different depending on the priorities, context, and resources of a given country.
Governments seeking to integrate technology into their foreign policy can appoint a dedicated tech ambassador, create a team to manage tech foreign policy within the ministries of foreign affairs, or draft a dedicated tech foreign policy strategy, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change explained in a guide released earlier this year.
For example, India’s ministry of external affairs established a New and Emerging Strategic Technologies, or NEST, division in January 2020 to focus on the foreign policy and international legal aspects of new and emerging technologies. Its work includes representing Indian interests in multilateral organizations like the United Nations or the Group of 20, where global regulations on technology use and access are often made.
The Tony Blair Institute is also working to get more African countries involved in tech diplomacy. For example, it is working with the Senegalese government, which is considering appointing a digital ambassador, and organizing a session at next month’s Internet Governance Forum to focus on how to grow the cadre of tech diplomats from the continent.
We know perhaps they would also want to cooperate with Suriname.
Many governments tend to go it alone in crafting their tech-related foreign policy strategies, creating fragmentation around issues that require global coordination.
It is especially urgent that countries find ways to bring data, technology, and digital into their diplomatic efforts, as the free, open, and safe internet faces a range of threats, said Melanie Garson, cyber policy lead at the Tony Blair Institute.
Melanie Garson
Existing international institutions are falling short in protecting internet users against things such as censorship, internet shutdowns, and other potential restrictions by states such as China, which is investing heavily in internet infrastructure in LMICs.
“Emerging digital economies, and quite a lot of emerged digital economies, are not seeing the full picture of what’s going on, and part of that is because they’re not embedding tech into how they see foreign policy,” Garson said
Many governments including Suriname, do not fully grasp the stakes of standards developed by groups such as the International Telecommunications Union, a specialized agency of the United Nations focused on information and communications technologies, which determines the kind of access to information that people have.
“Diplomats don’t have to be technical experts, but they have to understand how what might seem to be a niche conversation in the ITU could have massive implications,” she said.
Bridging the gap between technology and diplomacy
Tech diplomats from LMICs often represent citizens who have the most to gain or to lose depending on how technology, from social media to surveillance, is developed and regulated.
“They come from a different reality, economically and socially speaking,” with many of their citizens “excluded from the digital revolution,” said Eugenio Garcia, Brazil’s tech envoy to Silicon Valley, at the Science Summit.
Eugenio Garcia
And yet LMICs are missing from the “Tech Diplomacy Playground” — how Garcia and other tech diplomats refer to the innovation ecosystem that is Silicon Valley — and many other critical forums where the future of technology development is on the agenda.
“Diverging national approaches” are likely to stand in the way of global technology governance,
Garcia warned in an email to eyesonsuriname. Effective technology governance demands not just more global participation of tech diplomats, but also coordination between tech diplomats, he added.
LMICs can support the United Nations, which has a tech envoy of its own, in “providing a space for exchanging information, discussing norms, setting standards, or holding multi-stakeholder initiatives,” Garcia said.
Next year, a range of entities including governments, tech companies, and civil society organizations will gather for the United Nations Summit of the Future.
LMICs should push for a meaningful Global Digital Compact, as envisaged by the U.N. Secretary-General, Garcia said, in order to “outline shared principles for an open, free and secure digital future for all.”
