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18 to 19 September 2023 | By invitation only

Conference Room 4, United Nations Conference Centre, Bangkok, Thailand
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Findings from ESCAP research including ESCAP’s flagship report, ‘Shaping Our Digital Future – Asia-Pacific Digital Transformation Report 2022’, indicate that the ‘digital divide’ among member States in the Asia-Pacific region is the largest in the world, and that achieving a certain level of digital inclusion requires not only the presence of technologies like mobile banking and digital legal identification but also ensuring affordability, security, and accessibility of devices and data usage for all, regardless of their income level or location.

To respond to the urgent need to address the digital divide and development gaps, member States developed and adopted the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway (AP-IS) Action Plan 2022-2026. The Action Plan was fully endorsed with the adoption of the resolution 79/10 on “Promoting digital cooperation and inclusion through the Action Plan for Implementing the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway Initiative, 2022–2026” by member States at the 79th session of the ESCAP Commission in May 2023.

Serving as a blueprint for regional cooperative action and capacity building, the AP-IS Action Plan 2022-2026 highlights digital inclusion as a crucial catalyst for advancing the digital economy through accelerating digital transformation on 3 pillars, namely: “Connectivity for all”; “Digital technologies and applications”; and “Digital data”.

Against this background, the ESCAP secretariat, with support from the Korean Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives (KFCC), plans to organize the “Regional Workshop on Digital Inclusion and Community Development” on 18-19 September 2023, at the United Nations Conference Centre, Bangkok, Thailand, through in-person participation and online via MS Teams. The Regional Workshop, which is sponsored by the KFCC, will bring together the representatives from member States and related UN agencies, to address the challenges relevant to the pervasiveness of digital divides and development inequalities within and across nations and the Asia-Pacific region.

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

 

for more information, please contact

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