Foreign Desk Report
NEW YORK: Pakistan Ambassador at UN Munir Akram has underlined the need for political commitment to address the “digital divide”, the gap between under-connected and highly digitalised countries, to help the developing world unlock opportunities for rapid all-round progress.
“While the coronavirus pandemic has revealed the world’s dependence on computers, international cooperation was essential to optimise the opportunities offered by digitalisation and the associated frontier technologies,” Akram said in a high-level debate on “Digital Cooperation and Connectivity” held in the UNGA Hall.
“Among these opportunities were higher productivity in all sectors, agriculture, manufacturing, services, finance, trade and communication, job creation, the fastest growth in employment is now in work related to the ICT sector, and expanding digitalisation,” Akram, who also heads the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), said.
To highlight the digital divide, he said that while 87 percent of people are online in the advanced countries, only 19 percent are connected in the poorest countries, pointing out that women were doubly disadvantaged, especially in the developing countries.
Bridging the digital divide, Akram said, will require investment in both hardware and software. The poor people cannot access the tools required for education, commerce, or production with this software.
