DHAKA: The ‘ICT and SDGs’ report, an outcome of joint research between the Earth Institute, Columbia University and Ericsson was published in New York on 23 September, ahead of the United Nations SDG Summit.

The report highlights ICT’s role in accelerating achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

Under the leadership of the Director of the Earth Institute, Professor Jeffrey D Sachs, the report was authored by a research team that includes Dr Fahmida Khatun, Research Director, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Professor Vijay Modi and others.

This report summarizes the lessons to date and the future prospects for ICT in four sectors: health, education, financial services, and infrastructure (with particular focus on electricity power), said a press release on Monday (September 28).

The main insight is that ICT offers an acceleration of technology uptake in all four sectors. They do so by reducing the unit costs of service delivery; expanding the range of services that can be offered; economizing on scarce resources (such as local skilled workers, who can be engaged online rather than local presence); and accelerating the institutional learning through online communities.

Recommendations of the study include that the international ICT sector, under the aegis of for example the UN Broadband Commission, can step forward to provide advice, expertise, financing and tools for rapid scale up; universities, in partnership with governments and businesses, can undertake massive training programs and hosting of new ICT business incubators; and global donors should make provisions of quick seed funding to get these activities underway, the release added.

The report is available here: http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2015/ict-and-sdg-interim-report.pdf

BDST: 1823 HRS, SEPT 28, 2015
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