It was the gathering of over one thousand representatives of consumers across the globe at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Nairobi Kenya between 6th and 8th December 2023 with the theme Building a Resilient future for Consumers
The Deputy President of Kenya Geoffrey Rigathi Gachagua declared the event open with a call for harmonisation of global laws and integration of technology to combat illicit trade and eradicate exploitation of consumers as a key step in enhancing protection of consumers and their rights.
He also requested for adoption of Artificial Intelligence to track, arrest and suppress the networks of consumer exploitations across the world.
Mr Gachagua said that since the digital revolution is changing how business is done, consumer rights’ violations are also evolving.
“With violation of consumers evolving with technology, national and transnational legal provisions will be less effective and possibly obsolete if reviews are not updated,” said the Deputy President.
The three-day congress led by the Helena Laurent, Director General Consumers International had the following panel conversations on day one, The Impact of AI on Consumers, Serving up a food System that works for people and the planet, Effective Frameworks for Products safety, Refining Consumer Journeys in Mobile Money, Around the world in 80 Bytes: Building privacy and redress into cross-border data flows, How do we get on track to achieving SDG 12, Channels of change towards fair digital finance
Day 2 of the event had side events on Advancing voice of Consumers in AI standardization, Building Sustainable Consumer Organizations: Spotlight on Collective Claims, tackling pollution for consumers, Scams, fraud and fake reviews: Building trust in digital economy, Consumer Safety in the era of digital wallets and deferred payments, Achieving fair and transparent algorithms for consumers, fair prices for healthy and sustainable diets, the C 21: Why the G 21 needs consumer Protection and empowerment, Deeper shade of Green: in search of credible sustainability claims and engaging the consumer voice into digital finance, The transformative power of innovative regulation and unveiling the crypo Conundrum.
Day 3 had panel discussions on Net Zero Heros: The 10 priority appliances for people and the planet, The Consumer energy revolution: People- powered systems for climate, affordability, and resilience, making a sustainable life style the norm, enhancing the consumer movement and Consumer International general assembly.
With over 30 panelists sharing views on the various topics and audience had the floor at all sessions to make contributions to the opinion of the panelist with was a rich event that resulted in a series of conclusions that led the launch of the 2024 Consumer Rights Day theme of ‘Fair and responsible AI for consumers.
Other highlights of the three day summits are : Launch of a critical call to action of governments to ensure adequate protection against the growing risk of scams on technology platforms. Governments must require platforms to take effective action in preventing, detecting and disrupting, and responding to scams.
The coordinated global statement comes at a critical time. Online scams are on the rise, but global technology companies are failing to detect and prevent scams on their platforms. Scammers are exploiting weak platform protections to target consumers through social media, online ads, marketplaces and messaging. These scams are often sophisticated, highly targeted and difficult for consumers to detect.
Trust in the online world will collapse unless there is urgent and dramatic change:
The internet has made us more connected than ever before, and new technologies have huge potential to generate positive change for consumers. In finance, digital financial services are giving consumers around the world access to mobile money, in healthcare, AI is set to revolutionise diagnosis processes, and in the marketplace, consumers can experience more personalized shopping experiences,
But new technologies also bring with them a lot of risk, and if we don’t approach with caution, trust in the online world will collapse, and consumers may be at risk of harm.
In many places around the world, consumer protection in the digital sphere is lagging behind. Key boxes are not being ticked and trust is lacking across the online marketplace and in areas like Buy Now Pay Later, mobile money, and cryptocurrency.
We are living in a digital world, but relying on rules for an analogue one. Updates and innovations are needed now. Tech like AI and opaque algorithms – used in facial recognition technology and to determine personal loans – have the power to alter the course of people’s lives.
The launch of of a new tool- the Fair Food Price Monitor- developed together with members across Africa, using publicly available data to track food prices at different stages of the supply chain and expose risk and unfair pricing as a result of the Global and national food systems crisis of unfair-price, weak competition and market concentration that are enabling powerful actors to make record profits off the back of overcharged consumers and underpaid farmers.
Also Designing a one-stop-shop for consumer renewable energy systems that identifies 113 one-stop-shop solutions. The current energy system is broken. But increasingly affordable home technologies like solar panels, batteries, and efficient electrical devices are creating a cleaner and cheaper alternative for consumers.
Households around the world are using ‘one-stop-shops’ to make this transition easier. One-stop-shops are integrated hubs that provide consumers with advice and support with installation and financing in the energy transition.
