Transcript

How can digital transformation help Asia meet key development challenges?

Developing Asia and the Pacific continues to face challenges in inequality and vulnerability to extreme weather events.

Recent data show that economies in the region saw income inequality widened by an average of 6% in 2022 compared to 1990. In 2024, around a fifth of the region’s population was considered poor and living below the poverty line, earning less than $3.65 a day.

The region is also highly vulnerable to extreme weather events. By 2070, riverine flooding could impact 110 million people each year, costing more than a trillion in damages.

Rapid advances in digital technologies offer new opportunities to improve inclusion and sustainability. 

Digital technologies can enhance access to information and services, strengthen disaster monitoring and response, foster innovative and scaled solutions, nudge behavioral changes, and improve productivity and efficiency. For example, in the People’s Republic of China, digitalization helps to increase income more for households with lower income and lower education levels.

However, if not managed well, digitalization poses new risks to inclusion and sustainability.

Developing Asia has seen rapid growth in digital connectivity, with mobile internet download speeds now 4 times faster, and fixed internet speeds 1 and a half times faster.

But gaps in digital infrastructure and skills remain. Even major leading regional economies have fewer data centers relative to their population size than in other parts of the world.

Developing Asia also lacks sufficient digital skills.

To harness digital transformation to accelerate inclusive and sustainable development, digital policies that incorporate inclusion and sustainability goals are essential.

Digital policies need to be tailored to country circumstances to leverage digital transformation for a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable future.

Overarching national digital strategies for policy alignment and active engagement with key stakeholders including the private sector, civil societies, and international communities help enable digital transformation as a catalyst for inclusive and sustainable development.

By, working together, developing Asia can harness digital transformation for good.

Source link