Address political distrust and social exclusion to scale up digital development in Asia-Pacific: UN Policy Forum
By Si Ying Thian
A lack of trust in political leadership and inclusive social development were highlighted as key obstacles to overcome in order to accelerate the region’s digital development, while most speakers acknowledged the pivotal role of technology in uplifting citizens and small businesses.
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A lack of trust in political development and inclusive social development were highlighted as challenges for Asia-Pacific to scale up its digital development. Image: UN ESCAP.
Of those surveyed in Asia-Pacific (APAC), 61 per cent believe that their government lacks the competence to regulate emerging technologies, according to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer. This is higher than the global average of 59 per cent.
Those surveyed in countries like Thailand, Malaysia, China, and India, were most skeptical of their government’s ability to manage the regulatory challenge.
The survey also reflected that a poor acceptance of technologies in APAC is correlated to feeling excluded by both technology and society, which was also higher than the global average.
The statistics were cited by one of the speakers at a high-level roundtable at the opening plenary session of the 80th Commission session by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), themed “Leveraging digital innovation for sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific”.
Power to the people: Inclusive social development may just be the key to scale up
Economics Professor Danny Quah, also Dean at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, makes the case that social acceptance is key to scaling up digital innovations in the region.
“While digital innovation provides a wonderful opportunity [for governments] to formulate growth strategies, its success and continued innovation hinges as much on social acceptance.
“A big challenge we’ve got is that a lot of the political leadership has not been able to cultivate that trust in our populations.
“If our political leaders believe that we can leverage digital innovation to improve the people’s well-being, they need to do a better job at engaging with social acceptance,” he said at the roundtable titled “Socio-economic outlook, emerging challenges and solutions.”
His fellow panellists were from the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation based in Saudi Arabia and Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research in Thailand.
To cultivate social acceptance, digital innovations need to align with people’s needs – in other words, there needs to be an inclusive social development.
Governments can lead on innovations. But if people do not use them because they do not trust the innovations, nothing will come to fruition, he added.
Prof Quah also cautioned the need for governments to be clear about the objectives of leveraging digital innovations, and not to neglect the “symptoms of social ills” like poverty, inequality, and social immobility.
“Regardless of whether there are digital innovation opportunities, these are problems we should deal with. We should not pretend that they come hand in hand with the other challenges.
“We need to separate the two things: A growth strategy and treating the symptoms. My point is that we need to be clear about the problem we are solving with digital innovation,” he explained.
Government’s role in setting the foundations for digital success
Nazeem Noordali, Chief Operating Officer, Trade Solutions Complex, International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation, outlined his five priorities for policymakers to facilitate the scale up of digital innovations in APAC:
- Investing in a robust digital infrastructure, such as digital payments,
- Putting in place a clear and transparent regulatory framework and enforcing the regulations,
- Promoting digital literacy and skills development,
- Ensuring interoperability of digital platforms, and
- Promoting public-private partnerships in knowledge and best practices sharing, facilitating technology transfers, and addressing emerging challenges.
He emphasised the importance of digital trade solutions for APAC, with micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) making up 95 per cent of the businesses in the region.
“Digital innovations will lower barriers of entry for MSMEs, particularly in logistics and payments, enabling them to participate more actively in the global market by accessing a bigger consumer base and supply chain,” he explained.
Some of the priority areas highlighted above were also illustrated by Sommarat Chantarat, Executive Director, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research, who shared about leveraging digital innovations to empower smallholder farmers.
According to Chantarat, a clear and transparent regulatory framework around land rights and water use can help improve competitiveness and promote efficient use of resources among farmers.
Incentive schemes and training can be put in place to encourage smallholder farmers to adopt technologies around climate-resilient agriculture.
She also questioned the effectiveness of agricultural subsidies: “We need to rethink about how to do agricultural policy in our region, that is now highly focused on unconditional assistance to farmers. This creates bad incentives for farmers.
“How can we make sure that the policy is designed in a way that provides a safety net that buffers the shocks but at the same time incentivises farmers to engage in productive activities?”
Noordali and Chantarat also highlighted the role governments can play to integrate with international markets, for the benefit of stakeholders such as smallholder farmers or MSMEs, to tap on the opportunities of a global supply chain network.
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