Thematic workshop at WSIS Forum 2022: Measuring the firm-level deployment of Industry 4.0 technologies in developing countries

Waves of technological change offer opportunities and challenges for developing countries to diversify their economies and catch up with developed countries.  However, due to existing data limitations, there is a lack of information on the patterns of adoption and use of frontier technologies in productive sectors in developing countries.

To address this gap, a joint research project has conducted firm-level innovation surveys in Ghana, South Africa, and Tunisia concerning the deployment and use of new technologies. This project aims at proposing a framework for such type of firm-level surveys that could be applied in other developing countries worldwide.

Objective and guiding questions

The objective of the webinar is to discuss challenges and prospects for the deployment of Industry 4.0 technologies in developing countries based on the initial results of the firm level survey applied by the research team in Ghana, South Africa, and Tunisia.

The webinar will seek to address the following questions:

• To what extent Industry 4.0 technologies are deployed in firms in developing countries?
• How the characteristics of these firms (e.g. size, time of operation, sector) affect the deployment of these technologies?
• What are the main drivers of the deployment of these technologies at the firm level?
• What are the main challenges?
• Which policy instruments could be used to facilitate the deployment of these technologies in developing countries?
• What is the role of international cooperation in facilitating this process?

Programme

Opening: Ms. Shamika N. Sirimanne, DTL, UNCTAD

Presentation: Frontier technology adoption in developing countries: A measurement framework and proposed questionnaire

Moderator: Mr. Clovis Freire, Economist, Science, Technology and ICT Branch, DTL, UNCTAD

Panel:

• George Owusu Essegbey, Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (STEPRI) of the Council of Science and Industrial Research (CSIR), Ghana
• Erika Kraemer-Mbula, Professor of Economics at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa
• Adel Ben Youssef, Professor of Economics, University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis

Q&A