Benchmarking corporate contribution to digital inclusion and SDGs
World Benchmarking Alliance
Session 294
From mobile money applications that are giving the poor and unbanked access to financial resources to bring themselves out of poverty (Goal 1: No Poverty), to Internet and Web applications that are helping people globally connect and cooperate (Goal 17: Partnership for the Goals), ICTs have much potential to accelerate the 2030 Agenda. To unleash this potential, we need to remove the barriers excluding billions of people from accessing and productively harnessing ICTs. ICT companies need to play a significant role for this to happen.
In this session, we introduce a company-level benchmark that will track the contribution of 100 of the most globally significant ICT companies towards digital inclusion. The benchmark aims to highlight leaders in fostering digital inclusion, to hold laggards to account, and to trigger a “race to the top” across the ICT sector.
This session is designed to be interactive. It opens with a brief introduction to the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) and the company-level digital inclusion benchmark in development, followed by a Q & A, and finally a workshop-style interaction where participants are encouraged to identify specific actions that individual ICT companies can take to close access, skills, use, and innovation gaps, within and between countries.
Moderator
Ms Lisanne Urlings, Lead - Research, World Benchmarking Alliance
Speakers/Panellists
- Ms Lourdes O. Montenegro, Lead - Digital Inclusion Benchmark, World Benchmarking Alliance
Session's link to WSIS Action Lines
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C1. The role of public governance authorities and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development
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C10. Ethical dimensions of the Information Society
This session discusses a company-level digital inclusion benchmark. The benchmark defines digital inclusion broadly to include mitigating not only access gaps, but also skills, use, and innovation gaps, within and between countries. As such it is closely linked to the ethical dimensions of the information society as inclusion is itself an ethical issue. At the same time, the session's topic is also linked to the role of all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development, not just public governance authorities.
Session's link to Sustainable Development Process
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Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere
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Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all
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Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
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Goal 8: Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all
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Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
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Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
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Goal 16: Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies
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Goal 17: Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
This session discusses a company-level benchmark that will assess and compare how ICT companies are contributing to ensure that benefits from digital technologies are broadly enjoyed, given that these technologies are considered to be cross-cutting tools for the achievement of sustainable development.