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Almost a billion people still have no access to electricity, undermining efforts to harness technology to support a post-pandemic recovery, a top World Bank official has warned.
COVID-19 risks pushing back the battle against extreme poverty by generations, according to the United Nations, but many see technology as an opportunity to leapfrog development stages and undo much of the damage.
“I think we have to remember that 3.7 billion people do not have digital connectivity and almost a billion of people still do not have electricity,” said Mari Pangestu told CGTN Europe’s Innovation, Action, Change program.
“So before you can talk about digital connectivity, first of all, you have to have them connected with electricity,” said Pangestu, managing director of development policy and partnerships at the World Bank.
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Another vital dimension is the role of governments in allowing new technologies to be deployed cooperatively, rather than confrontationally.
“The digital revolution gives us extraordinarily powerful tools, but we have two huge challenges,” said bestselling economist Jeffrey Sachs. “One is the inequality of capacity and access to these technologies.
“The other is the tendency, unfortunately, to turn them into arenas of geopolitical competition rather than cooperation. So technology is crucial, but deploying it for the common good remains a paramount challenge.”
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