Halfway and Hopeful

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hi everybody Welcome to the digitalinclusion and 2020 uh 2030 developmentgoals conversation uh we have titled ourevent halfway and hopeful and we’ll getinto unpacking why that is the case uhin just a moment uh my name is hazamibramada and I will introduce myself andour wonderful panelists shortly but Iwanted to start by giving you guys aquick overview of the agenda of theconversation for todayum so our conversation todayum initially we’re going to talk aboutthe 2023 Global development goals alsoknown as the sustainable developmentgoals or the sdgs and specificallylooking at the intersection of the sdgswith digital inclusion then we’re goingto open it up for a larger conversationaround why this is relevant looking atdigital Equity as a lens through whichwe should look at Social and economicdevelopment but then also trying tobetter understand where are we failingwhere are we not making enough progressand where are we making progress andwhere can we scale and invest into moreopportunities to create more equity andthen we’re going to open it up for Q aso there is q a box uh feel free to typemessages for us in there we’ll try toget to them through this presentationum all right to start us off with Iwanted to give you a quick overview ofthe digital Equity accelerator which isan initiative that was launched in 2022that specifically looks at investinginto non-profit organizations that arefueling social Innovation to addressinjustices in their communities uhspecifically looking at Social andeconomic Injustice around the pillars ofHealth Care education and access toeconomic opportunities and we’ll getinto why that is important but we lookspecifically at non-profit organizationsthat are addressing the in inequalitythat is exacerbated by unequal accessand use of technology and in the day andage that we’re living in today whichwe’re going to unpack a little further alot of our world is digital and in apost-covered world and in some parts ofthe world still grappling with covid westarted to see the importance oftechnology in a way that maybe we’vebeen able to not see uh prior but todate the accelerator has operated and isoperating in six countries withinvesting into 17 organizations and wereally look at investing inorganizations holistically sospecifically providing them withcapacity building support with capacitygrants and also Hardware grants courtesyof HP who’s our collaborator uh in thisinitiativeand without further Ado I’m going tointroduce our wonderful panelistsum and we’ll just jump straight into thebiographiesI’m not going to read them uh inentirety uh so hopefully you guys canskim through this and look people upafter the event if you’re interested infurther follow-up but I am the directorof the digital Equity accelerator fromthe Aspen Institute side and I come tothis work from a long background ofdoing social impact advocacy workspecifically within big corporationsnon-profit organizations and the UnitedNations system and I will be the hostfor this conversation todayand then next we have Dr Francesco whois the representative of the UnitedNations population fund also known asunfpa currently in Guinea and DrFrancesco has a amazing and huge uhbackground in multilateral organizationsover 20 years experience at the UN butalso uh prior to that worked at unvolunteers I did quite a bit of work onthe ground really looking at the role ofcivil society and individuals in helpingAdvance not social and economicdevelopmentand next we haveum Brighton and Brighton is the globaldirector of the United Nationssustainable development SolutionsNetwork also known as sdsn youthinitiative specificallyum also we’re really excited to have himwith us he works uh quite a bit also onthe Grassroots mobilization andspecifically Innovation aspects of Youthsolutions to achieve the sdgs ineducation Partnershipsum specifically uh very excited to divemore into conversations around the Nexusof Grassroots mobilization and the sdgswhich to a lot of people are framedoften as the UN goals and we’re going totry to debunk why they are not U.N goalsthey are indeed the global goals andlastly we have Mariana who is thedigital Equity accelerator lead on thesocial impact team at HP who is mywonderful counterpart at HP and sheworks on collaborations and Partnershipsthat help really uh of hp’s commitmentwhich we’ll hear about more toaccelerate digital equity for 150million people by 2030. also hasbackground experience at a multilateralorganization specifically in Falls ofthe United Nationsso without further Ado I’m gonna reallyquickly touch on what is digital equityand then we’re going to open it up toconversations with the speakersbut digital Equity as we Define itum at the Aspen Institute and as part ofthe accelerator is a reality where allindividuals and communities have theinformation technology skills and accessthat they need for full and meaningfulinclusion in their societies andeconomies and so what we really thinkabout is helping make sure and ensurethat communities have the tools theyneed to be able to fully take advantageof economic political and socialparticipation in their societiesum and we’ll again unpack why that is socritical and why we try to move pastthis idea that digital Innovation is youknow just hip and cool but ratherlooking at how so much core servicesthat communities need access to aredigitally fueled and so when you don’tgive children access to the Dualliteracy they fall back on theireducation they lack Economic Opportunityor opportunities for employment so thatis a lot lot of the framing that we usewhen we start to think about digitalequityand I’m going to dive intoa conversation here initially withFrancesco and I’m going to ask you as westart to help us understandwhat are these sustainable developmentgoalsum and do you think that the worldEmbraces them and knows what they aretodaythanks a lot tazami and very happy to bewith you all today and thanks for theopportunity so I do think that when welook at the substance of the sustainabledevelopment goals what they talk whatthey speak about is really uhpeople every day is lie everyday livesobjectives because when we talk aboutbeing able to go to school being able toaccess a meal two meals per day beingable to to make a living to to affordone’s aspiration and the missions and soon we are really talking of of uh youknow the the most meaningfulumsituation and reality that human beingswould like to see around them now weshould not be fooled by the fact thatthis very down to heart and personallevel objectives have been translatedinto a formal agenda 17 of goals andindicators and so on so in my experiencethethe better able we are to connect peoplewith the goals in terms of what theymean to their everyday lives the higherthe commitment and engagement to makethese goals work for all in an inclusiveway and in a way that is very in a humanway I think that sometimes politicalagendas get lost in translation into theJurgen of politics or policies but whatreally matters to people is what thesepolicies want to achieve and as I wasmentioning before you know the 16thematic goals because the 17th is aboutPartnerships that are necessary toachieve the 16 thematic goals this isthe symptomatic goals really talk aboutthe quality of life of everyone and therights and choices that every individualevery human being can make on thisplanet so in this sense they are knownand understood if we engage on them withthe everyday lives perspectiveforeignTy recently released a reportum an annual reportthat looks at where we are today and uhit frames the global climate as quotehard to Hopeandwe know that we have made progress butwe also know that with covid we were setback even further on achieving thesustainable development goals so can youtalk to maybe the size and scope of theproblem and how does digital the globaldigital divide impact and further createsetbacksure I mean if we look at the overallsituation in terms of progress It’soverwhelmingly depressing if I may sosaybut I think that the uh the strategywhen we feel overwhelmed is to takeproblems and break them into smallerpieces that we can deal with and I thinkthat this is really the challenge forthis decade of action we are already thethird year into the decade of actionright towards the 2030 uhum deadline and I think that if we areable as uh institutions organizationsworking on this uh Global agenda to makeit meaningful for each individual toundertake the right actions to adoptadopt the right behaviors there is roomto catch up not the whole setback thatcovered uh brought about but definitelyto catch up and probablyum identify what the accelerators aretowards at least the achievement of of abasic Equitable standard for themajority of people on this planet anddefinitely digitalization uh representsone of these possible acceleratorsthanks to its power of thisintermediationof messages of access to knowledge of ofconnection and and partnership andjoining forces because eventually whenwe have big goals in front of us we wantto work against those goals together wewant to work against those goals makingthe the use of the best availableknowledge and experience in this casearound the world and we want to makesure that we make as many people aspossible access that now digitalizationrepresent a great opportunity you knowand I’ll give you the example of Guineawhen we look at internet access andaccess to uh you know the online worldthe uh the uh the ratio the rate sorryhas gone from uh I’m looking at the datahere from 10.7 in 2020 of the populationhaving access to uh internet uh to 48.2percent in 2022.this is like a dramatic increasenotwithstanding covet and I would sayprobably thanks to covet because whencovet forced all of us to be home andeven in developing countries to try andfigure out a basic strategy todigitalize certain services and fromeducation or telemedicine that gave apush now what to do with that push whichwas inexistent when we were achievingthe better results up to 2019 because upto 2019 we were set on a good journeyand then 2020 set us back but 2020offered us in the case of Guinea a 30percent of Greater increase to to theinternet mostly on mobile platform so myquestion is what are we going to do withthis lever now to accelerate the thejourney towards the achievement of thesegoalsBrighton maybe I want to pull you inhere actually as we think aroundum the role of civil society and to uhwhat Francesco was talking about thisidea that covet allowed us to actuallyum you know accelerate in some ways butwe also know that marginalizedcommunities fell even further back uhBecause the Internet and the onlineWorld actually exacerbates a lot of theinequalities the Discrimination themarginalization that we experience youknow in the real world if we can call itthat uh in the physical world todayespecially when you’re looking at kindof uh that the fact that for example alot of health care services andeducation opportunities are accesseddigitally uh also can you speak to thefocus on why it’s important to investinto for example youth-led Solutions andor marginalized communities and Centertheir voice in the sustainabledevelopment agendaabsolutely thank you so much um I’m veryexcited everybody Amy clearlyexcellentum I I think um Dr Francesco did providea very good background to some of thegreatest challenges that we are facingwith respects to access to digital toolsand the digital infrastructureand I want to open by stating that inthe face of the escalating Global crisiswe are currently standing at aCrossroads we can either allowtechnology to widen the existingdisparitiesor we can decide toprovide more sustainable more EquitableSolutions especially for young peoplethat make up close to 1.8 billion of theglobal populationbut I think when we look at the globalstatistics sometimes they might not giveus a very clear sense of the digitalpoverts that we are we are facingespecially in the emerging economiesum the global average sometimes as Isaid don’t steal the whole the wholestory because we have to think aboutrisks age disability Social economicstatus and locations which collectivelyplay a role in determining for examplewomen’s digital access and use we’realso seeing that marginalized groupssuch as older women or women and womenwith disabilities face significantgreater barriers to connectivitybut at the same time we see that in theat least developed countries wheredespite mobile broadbandsignals covering seven six percent ofthe population we see that only 25percent is connectedand in most cases men are like 52percent more likely to be within thatonline majorityso I think the disparitiesis what should remind us of who is LeftBehind as we work towards agenda 2013.when we think about those individualswho are left behind then we should goback to the back of the line and beginto bring them backbut at the same time all this makes veryclear sense especially when it comes tolike Bridging the Gapwhich will require more than just betteryou know digital infrastructure I thinkaddressing uh digital Global poverty forexample will require addressing factorslike affordability access to electricityonline privacy and safety we need tolook at social norms uh we also need tolook at digital skills and literacy allof which are mediated by genderand collectively all these will be keyto getting and most importantly youngwomen and girls are more meaningfullyconnecteduh recently the United Nations SecretaryGeneral uh Antonio gutarisreleased the common agenda reports andand following the political declarationadopted that the occasion of the UnitedNations 75th Anniversary there’s a newGlobal uh digital compact which is goingto form a big part of the summit of thefuture which is happening next year I’mvery keen to speak to this more indetail uh in the next few minutes uh butI think we we have a very hugeopportunityto be able to equip the next generationof young Leaders with the tools theskills the connections they need forthem to thrive I think we’ll be doingthe future a huge the service if wedecide not to bring them to the front ofthe lineand take a step back especially currentsenior leaders in government civilsociety and multilateral institutionsyoung people all they want is to begiven spaceand allowing them to take up keyresponsibilities while providing themwith the mentorship the skillsespecially in terms of unlocking digitalopportunities we are seeing young peoplewho are entrepreneurs but again being anentrepreneur in my home country likeZambia will require you to startthinking about how do you get access tocloud services which sometimes can bevery expensive so I thinkit would be very critical for us thistime start thinking about who’s leftbehindif we identify what’s left behind andthen we’ll be able to create moremeaningful and less not tokenistic waysof engaging uh young peoplewonderful and I wanted to just uh kindof maybe emphasize some of what you saiduh as of April 2023um you had5.18 billion internet users worldwideum which is around 65 percent a littlebelow 65 of the global populationhowever as you said when you look atthat data it is quite misleading because93 of the U.S population is connected tothe internet however even though thatnumber looks large rural communities andas you mentioned communities withdisabilities and what we considermarginalized communities in general alsohave do not have access to the internetalso we saw in covet for example 1.6billion students face learning uhdisruptions due to covidum but not all students have the abilityto actually get online to continue theirstudies because they did not have acomputer at home so 826 million uhchildren and students did not haveaccess to computers to be able to tocontinue their education during duringcovid so we do start to see to thepoints that you talked about it’s reallyimportant to to look at the intersectionof these challenges when it comes tosocioeconomic background and educationlevels but then alsogender race identity and so on and so onthat impact these thingsum Francesca I want to go back to youum and ask you from the perspective ofthe world we often look at these goalsas the problem of governments or theproblem of the United Nations systemwhich is made up and composed of memberstate governmentsum what is your perspective giving yourbackground on the global nature ofresponse needed to actually achieve thegoalsum and can you can you speak maybe andunpack a little bit around thePartnerships that are required withcivil society and ngos to actually makethese a realityso I I think you know that of course thethe agenda 2030 and the 17 goals thatarticulate this agenda are a politicalagenda so therefore decision makerdecision makers have a biggeraccountability to steer whatever isneeded in terms of resourcesPartnerships and channel these resourcesand partnership towards the goals so toa certain extent it is the response itis a primary accountability of decisionmakers at every level from themunicipality from the mayor all the wayup to the president or to themultilateral bodies like the the UNGeneral Assembly and so on it is youknow there is a greater accountabilityof decision makers in uh you knowcreating the the uh what we call theenabling environment right so allnecessary conditions in order thesegoals to be achieved however as wementioned before since these goals arerelated to the socio-economic spherethey require also an adherence in termsof individual behaviors when I look atyou know what is what is uh making thethe main goals of NFPA in sexualreproductive health and rights or theelimination of gender-based violencelack behind is primarily social normsand social norms translate intoindividual behaviors something thatbecomes unacceptable for a community ofindividuals will eventually betranslated into a legal framework youknow as a lawyer myself I I never forgetwhat’s the Journey of a lawa law starts you know the law is thecrystallization of shared values butthose values start at the individuallevel then they become a practice acollective practice because severalindividuals will adhere to those valuesand then in the rule of law those thoseindividual values that have become agroup groups practice or a communitiespractice are crystallized into a norm soI think that we always need to look atthese goals from the the two sides theydo are a political agenda that requiresdecision makers accountability and taketaking the responsibility to move itforward and mobilize the necessaryresources and Partnerships but they alsospeak aboutthe individual behaviors visit with eachother you know there will be noexclusion if there was an equitabledistribution of wealth but inequalitycomes primarily from the behavior ofpeople who are not ready to share andthis starts you know from inequitablefiscal systems to an inequitabledistribution of of profit or resourcesor discrimination based on gender raceuh you know whatever we want to look atgeography ethnicity and so on socombining together this this decisionmakers accountability with individualresponsibility and action is what isreally going to make this these goalsbecome a reality for everyone in anequitable way and so Partnerships areessential because if these goalsrepresent a bit of a of a you know of anew social contract where we commit thatnobody should be hungry at the end ofthe day where we commit that everyonehas to have the same opportunity to goto school fulfill its body potentialmake informed choices and enjoy itsrights and so on then of course we needall part of society to adhere becauseyou knowas I was mentioning before aninstitution has to believe and and takeits responsibilities in its Norm settingand uh and uh monitoring responsibilitya private sector company should ensureequity in terms of salaries notdiscrimination in terms of access toopportunity might that be physicalaccess for people with disability or youknow uh no discrimination in terms ofgender race sexual orientation and so onas well as you know the ngos have tocontinue to do their joblooking at themselves as part of asystem and so should all developmentorganizations do so I do think thatthe recipe is inum combining this individualresponsibility with the collectiveaccountability each one of us in ourrole personal and professional role andwhen I say personally it’s a singleBehavior the role as a parent as a childand and this is where I want to make areference to the inequality in terms ofdigitalization it is true that there isstill a lot of work to be done in termsof providing Equitable access to uh youknow to digital tools connectivity andso on but at the same time a communityof 1 000 people where five people haveaccess has already acquireda public good through the knowledge thatthose five people are acquiring now thethe the question is are those peopleinstrumentalized their access or arethose people going to put that access atthe disposal or the broader communityso we may say that you know 50 isinadequate and insufficient it is but itdoes represent a big opportunity forexample when it comes to social normswhen I look at you know untilthere was no connectivity in communityin many communities even only those twomobile phonesyou know elders and religious leadersand the most conservative people in thecommunity had the Monopoly ofinformation and knowledgeon interpreting religious norms forexamplenow just by a few people in thatCommunity having access to differentperspectives some of those Norms that’swhat we observe start being challengedin the conversations around the tablearound food andnecessarily everything doesn’tnecessarily need to takea social movement shape to plant theseeds for changeso that’s where I I tend to look at theopportunity we have to take while weremain aware or how on of how to makethis opportunity more Equitable orgreater access and so on and so forthbecause of the time we are left with wehave to leverage what we have while wework towards improving thatyeah I want to also stress that when wetalk about for those who might not be asfamiliar when we talk about digitalinclusionum and specifically digital Equity thereare three pillars that we specificallyas a program uh look at we look ataccess to technology which are digitalinfrastructure the tools the internet wealso look at the second pillar which isdigital skills and some people refer tothis as digital literacyum but we we think that visual skills isa bit more all-inclusive and this is theknowledge of how to actually use andnavigate the technology and the internetand the various services and then thethird bucket is what we callparticipatory and inclusive content thisis inclusion of marginalized communitiesin the design and creation of thetechnology and also content that’sum you know accessible to thesecommunities that specifically designedwith them in mind and that they know howto relate to and navigate so content isthere but it’s inaccessible because youyou don’t know how to access it then itis not participatory and or inclusivecontent so we do look at those threepillars as as important to build on allthree of those to ensure that there’sdigital Equity across the board you canhave access to technology but not havethe skills and so your penetration intothe internet and into the digital skillstheir Digital World tends to be lowerand so it is important to have all threethree of those and with that uh MariellaI want to pull you into the into theconversationum when we you know obviously we’veheard a bit of the the darker side andthe reality and the challenge of thegoals and one of the questions actuallyin the chat box was around the failuresor perceived failures of the mdgs thatare the goals that in essence camebefore the sustainable development goalsand why we didn’t make progress and whydid they materialize and I wouldarguably say that the sdgs because wehave more goals and many more indicatorsand targets and the goals were inessence brought to the world as acollaborative Endeavor no one sector cansolve them alone so as we’re looking atthe halfway mark on the progress towardsthe sdgscan you give us some examples of someprojects that you’ve witnessed that areactually changing and building momentumtowards closing the digital gaps andactually addressing digital inequity ina sustainable wayyeah thank you hizami and you’re sogreat what a milestone to kind of takestock of where we are but also keep thatNorth Star of the sdgs so we know wherewe’re headedum I’d like to First actually touch on apoint that was mentioned uh in thediscussion a lot of these challenges areintersectional and so the solutions as aresult aren’t just uh you know formultilaterals aren’t just in the publicsector Civil Society but really includeall of us as individuals as companies uhreally because we’re all in thistogether and so when I think of ourprogress so far with the sdgs I am soinspired by so many partners that aredoing great work in their communitiesusing their expertise to bridge thedigital divide or the digital Gap I eventhink of the accelerator for examplesome of the cohort one organizationsthat are working with women and girlsworking with people with disabilitiesessentially to get them online uh sofocusing on those three pillars youmentioned there’s the hardware componentthere is the digital literacy componentso what do you do when you’re actuallyonlineum but I’m also really excited bysolutions that are outside for examplehp’s wheelhouse like connectivity soseeing all of these pieces come togetherat the local level I think is what is soinspiring and that’s really The SweetSpot of Bridging the digital divide howare we collaborating with one anotherhow are we keeping one anotheraccountable uh and I just really thinkof cohort one as doing such a great jobbut you’ll see excellent examples acrossthe board across many differentgeographies uh one of the initiativesthat we signed on to uh I believe it wasearlier this spring was this a greatcall to action from the US governmentthe White House that was essentiallyempowering women and girls uh insub-Saharan Africa and to see all of theprivate sector commitments that cametogether I think has already beeninspiring to track the progress so thereare many ways that we can come togetheruh private sector has a role uh but I’mvery very inspired by what’s happeninglocallyyeah and on the topic of partnershipyou’re absolutely right I mean I thinkthe design of the goals uh with the factthat goal 17 is called Partnerships forthe global goalsum has that very much built into intothe DNAum Brighton I want to ask you to tobuild on that pointum very specifically the work that thatyou all do is also elevating voices oflocal Solutions and of local players andmarginalized communities into thedialogueum can you speak to what momentum youhave seen growing and uh specificallybetween the private public and NGOsectors and what we can do to continueto invest into itABS absolutely I think uh mariama diddescribe something very significantum around creating synergies andalliances for transformationuh equally uh Dr Francesco described youknow how you know the anthropogenicaspect of how we should perceive allthese cascading challenges that we arefacing with respect to digital accessand digital Equityum uh within the sustainable developmentSolutions Network our mandate is toaccelerate use solutions for thesustainable development doors how are wedoing that we work with about 4 000young innovators these are youngcomputer scientists you know youngcomputer scientists and just youngartists we run two fellowships one is ayear-long fellowship where we make earlystage you know social Innovationsinvestment readyuh So currently we have young peoplethat are taking part in the uh newagenda for uh sustainable developmentfinancing being fostered by presidentmacron in Paris so we also give accessto young people to engage in productiveInternationaldialogue and alliances with the worldleaders and then every year we alsobring young people to the Vatican wherewe create a space for intergenerationaldialogue on human rights so we fly abouta hundred young people giving themaccess to to different world leadersum last year we had Maya Motley thepresident of Barbados join us and manyother world leaders so our mandate is toidentify young people irrespective ofwhere they are bring them into ourprograms and give them the tools andskills which they need the mostin addition to that we’re also veryexcited this year we’ll be hosting theNext Generation leaders Summit here inNew York at the United Nations uh thisis on the lead up to the summit of thefuture happening next year So within thespace we are seeing that young peopleare organizing young people areinnovating and young people are workingtogether because they’ve realized thatthere is nothing for us without us andit’s within that framework of thinkingthat is allowing the cross-pollinationof ideas and alliances and Partnershipsum I would like to also add somethinginteresting I think this uh events todaycoincides with the launch of thesustainable development reports whichare we produce at uh the sustainabledevelopment Solutions Network and thisreport has reviewed very interestingaspects uh so some of the key findingsuh from the reportsinclude having Finland holding the topsports on this year’s 2023 sdg indexuh so meaning they are meeting lots oftheir you know specific targets we haveDenmark Sweden which falls on number twoDenmark number three German number fourand Austria number fivewhat we’re also seeing is that there’sstill a risk that the Gap in sdgoutcomes between High income countriesandum low-income countries will be largerby 2030. so we are seeing that there’sstill a huge huge gap and and based onthe current space of progress we havementioned since 2015 none of the goalswill be achieved by 2030 it sounds verypessimistic but that’s what the reportreviewsum and about less than 20 percent of thesdg tigers are on track to be achievedso this just shows us that there is Needfor this like north to south sort ofcollaboration in terms of like how do wethink about financing development how dowe think about identifying specific youknow like recovery Pathways from thecovid-19 uh pandemic one last thing Iwant to share is about what we alsowe’ve seen in this report we’ve seenthat Argentina Barbados Chile GermanyJamaica and the seashells obtained thehighestscore on a new pilot index for theirefforts to promote multilateralism butyet no country is still on course sowe’re seeing quite a number of like veryinteresting findings which reminds usthat we still need to go back to thedrawing board and establish how can wework together collaboratively toco-create you know solutions forsustainable development one of myfavorite you know old habits is that youknow there’s no time for a Lone Ranger Ithink the time is long gone whensomebody will fall from the scans of ourproblems I think right now the greatestresults are achieved throughcollaboration cooperation andco-creationwhen I wanna take take that and kind ofmaybe not to put a negative spin on itbut in essence say that withoutcollaboration and co-creation we willnot achieve progress because the realityis bits of the solution live within somany different communities and it doesrequireum you know integration across multiplesectors and while the governments andthe UN system do have responsibility ourcommunities also have responsibility uhone of the things that we we look atwhen we look at gender divide forexample is some of these issues are alsocultural there are also economic andreality and so there’s multipleintersectionalities across the sdgswhich to some people they look at thesdgs and like well they’re notachievable because how are you going tosolve the entirety of gender inequalityfor exampleum but then you look at genderinequality and it touches on just aboutevery single goal and I want to actuallypull on some statistics from an articlethat Elizabeth and Ium Elizabeth’s one of our colleagues atthe Aspen Institute had written aroundumthe gender norms and specifically theopportunities and the impact of uhdigital exclusion on women but lookingat the report itselfum from the it was a un report from U.Nwomen that in 2021 the report found thatit would take sorry that we grew theclosing the gender gap by 36 years inthe space of 12 months 12 months so ifthe world doesn’t change its policytowards women it will now take135 years to close the gender gap aroundthe worldand because of digital exclusion ofwomen we’ve also seen a one trilliondollar loss in GDP growth in low andmiddle income countries and so whenwe’re starting to look at these numbersthere’s an incentive unfortunately aneconomic incentive for governments andcorporations to also think of thesecommunities not as Charity or you knowgood side projects but rather core tothe the reality of sustainability of theplanet so Francesco I want to ask you totalk to us about intersectionality ofthe goals and why we cannot solve forone issue without lookingat all issues and on the other hand wecan’t allow ourselves to be overwhelmedbecause the problems are just so big canyou speak to thatthanks a lot because you actually giveme an entry pointing to something thatis very close to my heart and the Heartof an FPA right which is demographicsintersectionality starts fromdemographicswho is wherewhat do they know what’s their age andso on you know that’s why when whenpeople look at the population senses asyet another technical data collectionI’m you know here in Guinea we are inthe middle of the process andwe are trying with the government tomake everyone knows that and understandthat unless you’re not counted you willnot count in the decision making and soyou know demographics help us look atwhere people are who they are theirtheir sex and their age and you knowtheir ability or lack thereof and so onand so it’s it’s essential to uh to owndata and that is why you know data areconsidered a key lever also for makingdigital transformation working foreveryonebecause it brings back that perspectiveuh you you all were talking about of youknow we need to know who who is excludedand where that person is and why thatperson is excluded in order to worktogether strategies to uh to uheliminate those obstacles uh to uh to alarge extent and then I think that theagain you know you know me I’m anoptimist and I like to look at the halffull side of the glass you knowintersectionality should lead us look atsolutions from a systemic perspectiverather than as we have done even inInternational Development over the past70 something years in a sectoral waythere’s no you know no individual looksat his or her life in a sectoral way ohlet me think about my education or andthen now I’m going to think about foodsecurity and not no people make theirlives a system from the moment they wakeupto the moment they go to bed even in thedifferent roles each of us play in ourcommunities and the different identitieswe carryyou know so intersectionality translatesinto the complexity of the individualand the social dynamics and so unlessSolutions are designed around the wealthofthe the elements that make a human ahuman being we are not going to be ableto maximize because again you know therisk even now of catching up after coveton some of the indicators is fallinginto self-complices by saying oh we areon the right trackbut my question is maximizing the efforteven when it comes to financing to goback to you know to Brighton’sobservation my the first question I askmyself as a manager of a pretty largeprogram in a country so you know tryingto contextualize in order not to feeloverwhelmed right what is within mysphere of influencebefore going out and looking for moremoney my first question is am Imaximizing the return on investmentthrough Partnerships throughcomplementarity of the money I’mthrowing into tsdg sdgs I’m responsibleto contribute to and I have theimpression that this this search formore money and better instruments and soon leaves us a little bit blind on theefficiency of the billion of dollarsthat have been thrown into InternationalDevelopment and this goes back to someof the questions that are coming upright we didn’t achieve the mdgs whatmakes us think we’re going to achievethe sdgs I mean it’s we need to changeyou know we need a change of Paradigmwhen it comes to InternationalDevelopment and the intersectionalityand looking atissues from from a systemic perspectiveI think can bring that greatest sense ofefficiency of collaborative efforts andand uh and Partnerships that are neededeventually also to mobilize moreresources but I would say that you knowmore resources will come when the returnon investment of the current resourcesproves right there’s also that aspectpeople who are investing want to makesure they are investing in somethingthat is not the usual throwing money outof the window and never being fullysatisfied of what we did in terms ofresults and that’s where I come backwith the last kind of pitch on data isnot only demographics but it’s alsomeasuring our assumptionsand correcting on the on the way becauseonce again we tend to count activitieswe tend to count beneficiaries or peoplereachedthat doesn’t tell us the whole story thefull story comes with those qualitativeuh analysis that you were mentioningbefore when it comes to equity and so onbut also to the quality of what we doand how our hypothesis turn to be rightor wrongand that’s that’s excellent Mariana I Iwant to kind of maybe if you can bringsome color toum some of what Francesca was talkingabout when it comes toumspecifically the Partnerships in actionon on the ground can you speak to theum kind of the momentum that you’ve seenbuilt across on the ground specificallyacross private public and NGO sectorswhat has worked and why do you thinkthey did workum specifically looking atintersectional approaches to accelerateprogress on multiple goalsyeah thank you hizami uh I’d say whatmakes these initiatives work best atleast from what I’ve observed is reallywhat Dr Francesco just mentioned nothinghappens in a silo so let’s say a companygoes out to solve digital equity and isjust focusing on one of the pillars thatyou mentioned that solution in itselfthough it may be effective really doesneed more of an ecosystem involvement sothat’s of course a partnership approachworking with non-profits working withentrepreneurs working with governmentworking with public sector but also whatthat means is thinking not just aboutthe digital solution itself but how doesthe end user experience the solution inlife to get a little bit more concreteuh we’ve seen a lot of success withprograms that recognize that it’s notjust a connectivity issue or a hardwareissue or a digital literacy issue butseeing how else does someone show upwhen it comes to education when you’rein the classroom do teachers needsupport is there an intervention or asolution that can engage teachers in thelearning process and the digitizationprocess then you step back even furtherare there ways that we can Empowerparents are there ways we can empowerthe school systems as a whole uh butthen stepping even further back is therea way that we can also think aboutclimate so social impact really focuseson people and when we talk about digitalEquity their access to technology butwhat happens when we’re sunsetting thattechnology is there a way to incorporatecircularity so that those devices arebeing reused or repurposed in reallyconscious ways uh when it comes to humanrights are there ways that we areconnecting what we’re doing in digitalequity and climate to those areas so thesolutions that I’ve seen be reallysuccessful really think about the entireproduct life cycle also think about theentire user experience and also thinkabout how our social impact is showingup in different pillars and areas thereis a question also about a refurbishmentand I think the project projects andinitiatives that have been reallysuccessful globally have thought aboutthese issues very intentionally uh andso that’s just an overview of what I’veobserved and seen but really interestingpoint that goes back to that that corethat you know we really do needpartnership uh to solve some of thesereally sticky hairy challenging uhproblems related to reaching the sdgs by2030.there’s also a question around kind ofreaching those that are the hardest toreach so vulnerable populations andRural communities living in povertyum in parts of the world that arenot as invested into as others soum I’ll maybe open it up to all of youwhoever wants to take the question ishow do you with limited resources andwith limited bandwidth and with limitedattention spans how do we start to thinkabout reaching those that are thehardest to reach around the world maybeif each of you can take thatsure happy to kick us off uh I think itactually touches on things that myfellow panelists have mentioned uh sofirst is the data do we know what thelandscape is where the problems are themost severe or the most felt uh and thenbeing able to prioritize in that way onthe other side of the data I think itreally does all come back to peoplebecause these impacts affect real livingbreathing people so having the rightpeople on your team and yourPartnerships that have that proximateexperience to the problem that canco-create Solutions with you or you’regoing to be completely and reallyintrinsically important to finding asolution so it’s really that Nexus of dowe have the data to know where theirproblems are and are we working with thepeople that have that lived experienceand knowledge of the issues and can wecombine those two things to createSolutions uh to tackle some of thesechallengessure thank you so much I think it’s justbeen really amazing taking it in andlistening to all the incrediblecontributionsand I think I want to summarize by uhlooking backat where I’m coming fromum my home country in ZambiaI grew up in a smoker urban community inZambia and I remember having an accessto the like the internet when I was Ithink in seventh grade touching thefirst computer when I was I think inabout eighth gradeso when I look back and reflectit then reminds me of how despite thathaving happened a few years back there’sstill that continuation of disparitiesand I then begin to think about thisyoung person I metuh she was about you know at 12um back in my hometown and during thetime of the pandemic uh she never hadaccess to go to schoolum the teachers didn’t even have anydigital uh you know infrastructure toprovide online planning she didn’t haveaccess to mobile phone for her to beable to Lanemeanwhile the only thing that she wasable to do was to just carry out housechores for two months never had anyaccess to education and I’m sitting inNew York City where when I think aboutthe abundance of resources in like themajority of the population you knowevery young person has got a digitalgadgets they can stay at home they haveaccess to the internet they can continueto learn and then when I look at thishuge gap it then reminds me of specificprivileges how do we think how do wethink about this young girl that I metin my hometownand for individuals like you and myselfwell the opportunities and privilegeshow can we be able to stand up for thoseindividuals who have less I think that’smore on a very personal leveland I think we need to start from thereas we think about the institutions thatwe are leading these institutions thatwe belong toand in addition to that we have twobillion people that don’t have access tothe internet how do we think about thoseindividuals on a more personal levelbecause like uh you know Dr Francescodescribed you know the specific policiesregulations are created by the socialnorms which become acceptable if weaccept that other people should haveless then those are the social normsthat are going to define the decisionsthat are made even in publicinstitutions in governments and ininternational organizations I think it’sthinking about those individuals that weleave behind in my case I think aboutyou know that young person I met in myhometownand how I can change the lives of justone single individual for them to haveaccess to opportunities for them tolearn and become whatever they want tobecome professionally and personallyso my my two cents I think that umfirst and foremost unfortunately uhinclusion is not yet to reflectsof societyso we still need a deliberate effort toleave no one behindbecause the human beings tend to look attheir those who are similar to themthere’s always a sense of sharing amonghomogeneous groups before looking atothersand so first and foremost we should makesure those of us who are committed tothis workthat uh wherever Instinct fails intentbrings us back on the right trackthe other issue around being left behindis relates to[Music]feeling invisibleyou know of course we will not be ableas a society even when we break it downwe break action down to the smallestlevel of the community or a family wewill never be able to provide everysingle individual with the same accessopportunity resources we always have tomake choices rightbut one thing is to associate people tothe decisions of what to prioritizemaking sure that everyone understandsthat prioritizing doesn’t mean it’s moreimportant it means should be done firstit’s a matter of sequencing when itcomes to Opportunities when it comes toto resources prioritizing is not amatter of importance it’s a matter ofsequencing because we stand up foruniversal access to human rights foreveryoneso nobody is more important no right ismore important however in the world offinite resources we have to sequencenow when people are associated to thatsequencing they will stop feelinginvisiblea parent who’s put in front of a choiceon using resources for him or herself orto give opportunity to their child theywill probably choose to give theopportunity to their childas a matter of fact they will be leftbehind by making that choice but it willbe a choiceof prioritizing the opportunity of theirkids first because maybe from that theopportunity to that kids there will be apositive return on them so making peoplewho are you know who are in a positionof vulnerability part of the decision sonot making them invisible is the firststep to make them feel they are not leftbehind but they are part ofthe choice of choosing where to startfrom I think this is so so importantfrom a conversation in the in the mostremote Community about their localdevelopment plan or you know what all wehave learned in development in the pastdecades to the biggest conversation andNational level multilateral level andthis naturally involvespeople who represent different groupsand stakeholders and so it naturallytalks about intersectionality andPartnerships because when a community nomatter the scale agrees on what toprioritizethat will translate into you know theprivate sector ngos and behaviors andactions if all are hold accountable tothe same values of equality and aparticular quality of access to theopportunities right breaking the theinvisible obstacles that for me isprobably important to keep in mindbecause I go back to my first statementunfortunately is not instinctive yetit’s an intentionalActand we have amazing questions in thechat box that unfortunately uh due totime we will not be able to get to butum as my colleague Elizabeth just postedin the chat box please doum sign up for additional events we aregoing to be hosting a series of these umconversations in the lead up to theupcoming United Nations General Assemblywhere uh conversations around the sdgsand digital inclusion will be Central toto a lot of the the dialoguesum I’m gonna give everybody 30 secondsand I mean 30 secondsum what is the one thing that you thinkwe need to do to invest more intodigital closing the digital divide onething 30 seconds mariama gome 20 seconds to unmutewe we can solve this if we work togetherand so finding those diverse Partners uhnot being afraid to collaborate that Ithink is the keyFrancesco gowell as with friends in the socialmovements before I joined the UN used tosay no matter the question the rightanswer is always education I would addto that of course data so to makeeducation aware of of where to intervenebut I think when we seedoes low investment in education andhealth we see where the problem startswonderful and Brightonuh we need resilienceum we are confronting challenging issuesand resilienceand determination is what we woulddefine whether we persist or we relentexcellent well thank you all so much foryour not only your amazing voices onthese topics but for your work um andthe things that you’re doing to actuallybring to life and bring to fruitioneverything that you talked about hereyou are all people that walk the walkum every single day of your life sothank you for joining us um thank youfor the work that that you are doing andthank you to the audience for being soengaged and the excellent questionshopefully we answered some of them Iknow some of them we did not get to butstay in touch with us my colleague didsend out information in the chat boxum you can sign up on our newsletter andlearn more about our upcomingopportunities but with that uh thank youuh again for all of our speakers andthank you to our audience and to mywonderful colleagues at the AspenInstitute behind the scenes helping makethis webinar a reality so um thank youeverybody and hopefully we’ll see younext time

Halfway to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the UNDP’s 2022 Annual Report frames the global climate as “hard to hope.” For people experiencing poverty, gender discrimination, and disability, widening gaps threaten their ability to make real progress. Digital inclusion strategies have the opportunity to unlock the potential of 2.7 billion people affected by the digital divide and make real change for these populations. By pursuing digital equity, the world has the opportunity to provide access, power, and systemic change for and with the people that could most benefit. 

On 21 June 2023, the Digital Equity Accelerator hosted a conversation exploring: 

• Why digitalization is a necessary public good and can accelerate progress for key populations such as women and girls, migrants, and youth 
• What progress has been made – and what must be done – to increase the momentum of digital inclusion around the world 
• How targeted, intersectional approaches can accelerate progress on multiple goals simultaneously