A bold new plan is being launched to support countries and communities to use digital technology as a lever to help drive down inequality, support inclusivity, tackle climate change, and open-up economic opportunities. With its ambitious new Digital Strategy 2022-2025, UNDP aims to get ahead of the ever-evolving digital reality to accelerate work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

As one of the three enablers of its new Strategic Plan, digitalization will help UNDP meet its ambitious goals. That includes supporting 100 million people to escape poverty and assisting 500 million people to gain access to clean energy. Digital technology can advance democracy and human rights by boosting civic engagement and political participation, for instance. Or consider digital public goods that countries can use for identification, data exchange, and payments while reducing opportunities for corruption. And artificial intelligence and digital technology could bring a 10-20% reduction in global carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.

“Digital technologies are driving new ways of working and thinking while opening-up opportunities that we could not have imagined,” says UNDP Administrator, Achim Steiner. “For instance, it can assist policymakers to better understand how our natural world -- such as forests, coral reefs, or glaciers -- are changing in real-time and where to take action. Look at UNDP’s Data Futures Platform for example, it provides policymakers with the latest data and analytics to inform key areas like vaccine inequity.”

UNDP is already supporting communities to develop and use digital technology to surface a wide range of much-needed development solutions. In the space of just one year, UNDP assisted 82 countries to adopt over 580 digital solutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This included everything from leveraging digital finance to facilitate cash transfers to people unable to leave their homes during lockdowns; to helping countries develop digital readiness assessments; to providing robots that are serving in COVID-19 wards.

“Over the past year, demand has grown among our partners to provide strategic support on national-level digital transformation,” says Robert Opp, UNDP’s Chief Digital Officer. “At present, UNDP is supporting 35 countries on their digital transformation journey – a strong signal in the trust and confidence placed in our organization to provide the cutting-edge support needed.”

In Uzbekistan, UNDP has been a long-standing partner of the Government in advancing ICT and e-government by combining a good understanding of the local context with best international practice.

As part of our previous projects and programmes, we have collaborated on improving the legal and institutional framework for e-governance, building digital solutions and platforms for user-centric digital services, promoting the concepts of open data and e-participation for accountability and transparency of the government.

Through the dedicated project on digitalization – “Advancing Digital Transformation in Uzbekistan” – UNDP is supporting the Ministry for Development of Information Technologies and Communications of Uzbekistan (MITC) in implementing the government’s ambitious digitalization agenda with focus on inclusive and user-centric service delivery, data-driven and platform-based approach, and innovations.

In particular, as part of this short term engagement, we have:

- Drafted a National Strategy on Advancing Artificial Intelligence in Uzbekistan based on the study of the country’s emerging needs in AI;

- Trained 148 Chief Digital Officers and civil servants on AI, E-Government ranking, and core principles of Digital Transformation;

- Piloted small-scale AI-based solutions in the healthcare sector and crowdsourced an open dataset of Uzbek voice to teach machines to understand spoken Uzbek language.

Also, in 2021, UNDP jointly with the MITC has conducted a Digital Readiness Assessment of Uzbekistan – a tool to analyze the country’s digitalization in 5 key dimensions: infrastructure, government, regulation, business, and people, and to identify opportunities for its inclusive digital transformation. The results of this assessment will be unveiled in March 2022.

Overall, due to their cross-cutting nature, digital components exist in almost all of UNDP Uzbekistan’s current interventions on good governance, inclusive growth, and climate action. In particular, we are leveraging digitalization to:

- improve access to public services in rural areas and mahallas, implement e-justice and e-parliament systems, fight corruption, as well as to build capacity for digital economic diplomacy;

Photo: UNDP Uzbekistan

- enhance employability and wellbeing of youth, women and vulnerable population through improving their digital skills and supporting digital entrepreneurship;

- mitigate the social and economic impact of the Aral Sea crisis, facilitate green transition, and introduce smart agriculture and climate solutions.

UNDP will also engage with global and local businesses and entrepreneurs, academics, researchers, young people, and policymakers to foster collaboration around the responsible and sustainable use of technology. This necessary conversation will feed into the work of the UNDP Accelerator Labs network as it surfaces and scales up local development solutions – many of which are digital.

Anchored in the UN Secretary-General's Roadmap for Digital Cooperation and the framework presented in the Our Common Agenda report, the strategy complements the UN's global efforts to expand access to affordable broadband and enhance the digital capacity of key groups including women and people with disabilities – ultimately creating new opportunities like jobs while boosting human development.

“This latest Digital Strategy demonstrates that UNDP will not stand still. With the Global Goals serving as our guiding stars, we are looking beyond the immediate horizon to help ensure digital futures for everyone,” added Achim Steiner.

More information at: digitalstrategy.undp.org