Page 80 - SAMENA Trends - September-October 2020

ARTICLE SAMENA TRENDS

ARTICLE

Digitizing With “Purpose”

Digital access is positively correlated with 65% of
the SDGs across all development levels (developed
regions, developing regions, Least Developed
Countries) and geographies.

Proven direct linkages between “digital” and SDGs
Globally economies have made significant progress on the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs). Yet, even at the start of 2020, no country was
on track for achieving all SDGs and COVID-19 has been an unexpected set-
back with severe short-term negative impacts on most SDGs.

In the context of COVID-19, digital infrastructure and technologies when
deployed and leveraged strategically and used responsibly, are undeniably
powerful tools to further SDGs. Fundamentally, digital provides access to
information and services, improves productivity and enables cost and time
savings, and if the infrastructure and technologies can be used to provide
access equitably, they can drive societal progress and efficiency, ultimately
building more sustainable economies that are potentially more resilient to
even pandemics.

Digital access is positively correlated with 65% of the SDGs across
all development levels (developed regions, developing regions, Least
Vidhitha Kanakamedala Developed Countries) and geographies. South Korea is well known as one
Senior Manager of the few countries that has successfully climbed the economic ladder by
embracing technology. South Korea scores especially high on measures
Arthur D. Little of technological adoption and diffusion – higher even than the US. Not
surprisingly, South Korea has relatively high performance across all SDGs.

South Korea today is a technologically intensive society, and that has almost
certainly made a difference in the context of the pandemic, particularly when
it has come to monitoring localized risks and containing the spread of the
virus. From the very beginning of COVID-19, the South Korean government
released the detailed trajectory of patients, which included patients’ recent
movements, places to stay, timelines of movements, and whether they were
wearing masks. They were able to do this by using location information from
mobile phones and cars, security camera footage, and credit card records.

Identifying the right digital use cases to adopt
To drive inclusive and sustainable prosperity, digital technologies can be
leveraged across all industries, to enable myriad of use cases as highlighted
in Figure 1 below. By identifying and enabling high impact digital use cases
across industries most relevant for the nation, governments can maximize
the impact of digital on their SDGs.

80 SEP-OCT 2020