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08 November 2022, 08:30 - 16:00 Korea Standard Time | By invitation only

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Frontier technologies carry a promise to fast track the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through supporting innovative, forwarding-looking policies and solutions. There are, however, risks and complexities of digital technologies that come along with those opportunities, including the widening digital divide as well as policy and regulatory challenges.

In recent years, relatively new approaches of policy experimentation and regulatory sandboxes have emerged among countries and have proven to be effective in creating a more conducive space where governments, in partnerships with relevant stakeholders, can experiment and trial with digital technologies and innovations at the edge or outside of the existing policy space and regulatory framework.

The Maldives is one of three [1] target countries of the project. Maldives identified ‘Central Bank Digital currency’ as the project’s focus area following a national consultation on 7 September 2021 [2]. Following the Maldives national consultation, DESA, ESCAP, the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA), and the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Technology (MECCT) co-organised a national workshop on 10- 11 August 2022 in the Maldives. The participants discussed the opportunities and challenges of implementing a regulatory sandbox framework on CBDC.

In response, DESA and ESCAP in partnership with Kakao and the Korea Minting, Security Printing and ID Card Operating Corporation (KOMSCO) of the Republic of Korea, are organizing a study tour for the Maldives country project team to visit Kakao and KOMSCO sites in Seoul, the Republic of Korea.

The objectives of the study tour are to: (a) enhance awareness and facilitate learning of the Maldives country project team from the experience of the Republic of Korea on Central Bank Digital Currency. (b) develop the next course of actions for setting up a regulatory sandbox framework for Central Bank Digital Currency and other frontier technologies in the Maldives.

 

For any questions related to the event, please contact the ESCAP secretariat at [email protected].

 

 

[1] Bangladesh and Kazakhstan.

for more information, please contact

Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division [email protected]