Carlos Santiso

Corporate Director, Governance Practice, Digital Innovation in Government , Development Bank of Latin America

About Carlos Santiso

Carlos Santiso has a long career working on improving lives in fragile states and emerging economies in Africa and the Americas by furthering democracy, strengthening governance and fighting corruption. In the past two decades, he has worked in over two dozen countries in various capacities in multilateral development banks, bilateral aid agencies, and policy think tanks. He is the Director for Digital Innovation in Government at the Development Bank of Latin America, based in Colombia. He previously headed the Innovation for Citizen Services Division of the Inter-American Development, which he joined in 2011 to manage the Institutional Capacity of the State Division; as Sector Manager for Governance at the African Development Bank between 2007 and 2011, as governance adviser to the British government aid agency between 2002 and 2007 and as senior operations officer at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance between 1996 and 2000. He started his career as an adviser at the French Prime Minister’s Office between 1995 and 1996. He is a founding member of the board of adviser of the Centre for Democratic Governance in Burkina Faso. Carlos holds Ph.D. in comparative political economy from Johns Hopkins University (2006), a master in international economic policy from Columbia University (1995) and a master in public policy from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Paris (1993). He has written extensively on digital government, democratic governance, development finance and foreign aid.

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Digitalisation Trust

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IdeaFactory: High-intensity Democracy

Recent Comments

Jan 26, 2018

Dear Bhaskar: Thank you for your inspiring contribution. Aadhaar is indeed one of the most promising innovations in digital identity in the developing world and is reshaping the ties between states and citizens. However, what do you make of recent problems with it, especially making it compulsary in India's context? Are those glitches that can be fixed or more fundamental problems? The following articles in the Economist point to some of these challenges. Best, Carlos

https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21734468-journalist-discovers-information-aadhaar-id-scheme-available-online-watertight

https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21720599-bjp-government-should-listen-peoples-qualms-about-snooping-indias-biometric-identity

Jan 15, 2018

This is a great contribution on a very promising application of blockchain technology

Jan 15, 2018

From the presidential elections in the United states to more recently the so-called independence referendum in Catalonia, there is heightened concern about the pernicious effects of cyber hacking and fake news on our digital democracies.
 
How to manage the challenge of “fake news” in the cyberspace is one of the critical challenges to our digital democracies and trust in our digital world. This also includes cyberattack on democratic institutions and politicians during elections, and how our social media news feed contributes to the increasing polarization and populist tendencies. I recently wrote an opinion piece on how to protect our democracies in the digital age (in Spanish).

 There are a number of interesting developments in protecting our increasingly digital democracies. In France, President Emmanuel Macron is to table a new law banning fake news during elections. Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged the responsibility of social media platforms and announced that Facebook will regulate itself and limit news feed and thereby fake news.    

 Policy think tanks are also taking on the issue to better analyze the impact of social digital tools ou our politics and democracies. For instance, the Berggruen Institute and Harvard University have recently launched research initiatives to reflect on how digital democracies can fight cyber attacks and protect the integrity of elections. This is certainly a defining challenge and critical debate for preserving trust in the digital world.  

 

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