eWeek - Donor Roundtable on enabling impact at scale in supporting inclusive and sustainable digital economies: Opening remarks

Dear Ambassador Subedi, Permanent Representative of Nepal and Coordinator of the LDC Group,

Dear Ambassador Falemaka, Permanent Representative of the Pacific Islands Forum to the World Trade Organization (WTO),

Dear representatives of the international donor community,

Dear partners and colleagues from the private sector,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to this high-level session on how to maximize the impact of support to digital economies.

We need a digital economy that is inclusive and sustainable for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

At the midpoint of the SDGs, only 15 percent of the SDG targets are on track. And on nearly a third of the Goals, we are moving backward, not forward.

Digital transformation is a tool that has the potential to turn the tide and alter the current course of development.

Development partners increasingly acknowledge digitalization as a game changer: Not only in education, healthcare, and other government services, but also for reshaping production and trade with far-reaching implications for private sector development and the future of trade and investment. This change in thinking led the share of Aid-for-Trade commitments to the ICT sector grow from 1.2 per cent in 2017 to 4.1 per cent in 2021.

But there is a large unfinished agenda for achieving inclusive and sustainable gains from digitalization.

While it is a positive development that the internet is becoming more widespread and affordable, access remains very uneven. In least developed countries, only 36 per cent of the population use the Internet, compared with 66 per cent globally.

And improved digital connectivity is not sufficient to succeed and increase development gains. Many developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing states, continue to lack the digital infrastructure, skills, resources, enabling environments and access to capital necessary to compete and trade on an equal footing with more advanced countries in the digital economy.

We see this concern clearly reflected in data: Global exports of digitally deliverable services rose from around 3.3 trillion US dollars in 2019 to 3.8 trillion US dollars in 2021, but most small island developing States only saw limited growth in the value of their digitally deliverable services exports.

Another concern is that a large share of women remains excluded in the digital world. And that has a big cost. The UN estimates that women’s exclusion from the digital world has cut 1 trillion US dollars from the GDP of low- and middle-income countries in the last decade - a loss that will grow to 1.5 trillion US dollars by 2025 without action.

While a lot is being done to support developing countries to enhance their readiness to engage and share the benefits of digitalization, lots of work still lies ahead.

I would like to thank all the donors that support UNCTAD’s work to enhance inclusive and sustainable development gains from e-commerce and the digital economy for people and business in developing countries. And as you know, least developed countries are at the center of our support.

By contributing to the Programme’s research and analysis, technical cooperation and consensus-building work, you are enabling us to build knowledge, capacity, consensus, and partnerships to harness the digital economy for development.

Let me recognize especially our core donors: The Kingdom of the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden and Australia.

I also want to thank our dedicated partners in this work, in particular, the members of the eTrade for all initiative and those from the private sector, academia and civil society, whose experience and expertise make for much stronger, more coordinated and tailored support to developing countries that we work with. 

Today, I invite you to consider this question: How can donor support to digitalization in developing countries maximize its impact, and add up to more than the sum of its parts?

How can we work together and better? Playing to our respective strengths and making the most of the limited resources that we have available? Targeting those most in need, where the impact of our support will be the greatest?

I thank all the speakers to share your perspectives on how we could achieve this. I hope we will all leave this session with reflections and new ideas on how to better leverage international cooperation for shaping a digital economy that works for the many and not just for the few. 

Thank you.