Welcoming Remarks

National IT Forum (September 29)

Ms. Louise Chamberlain, UNDP Resident Representative in the Kyrgyz Republic

Dear Excellency, Mr. Ulukbek Maripov, Chair of the Cabinet of Ministers, 

Dear Excellency, Mr. Dastan Dogoev, Minister of Digital Development,

Dear organizers of the Kyrgyzstan IT Forum,

Distinguished participants, Ladies and Gentlemen

I have the honour to greet you this morning, representing the UN’s development agency, the United Nations Development Programme in the Kyrgyz Republic. I am glad to be here along with my colleague from ITU – the United Nations is investing significant effort in digital transformation as a force for development, and UNDP and ITU are working closely together in several areas, including e-commerce.

Around the world, digital technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to accelerate sustainable development. Digital technology is transforming the way governments, businesses, and society as whole are functioning. New technologies have the potential for fundamentally changing the way we communicate, interact, deliver and access services, and create value.

In the last several years, Kyrgyzstan has introduced a number of significant initiatives to move the country forward into the digital age. Important progress has been made in developing platforms for government services and government-to citizen and B2B connections. Foundations for entrepreneurship have been laid, and certain enabling conditions are in place. We welcome the digitalization ambitions in the government’s draft mid-term development strategy 2021-2026, including also the aim of strengthening digital skills within government itself – a transformative vision can be implemented if the competencies to drive this agenda are in place. 

But not surprisingly, even more needs to be done to fully leverage the development potential of the digital agenda. Digitalisation has a real promise of contributing to ‘leave no one behind’ because if we can ensure connectivity across the country, it is possible to connect the entire population to services, data and information networks with which they can gain access to new life-enhancing opportunities. In fact, the imperative of expanding the digital infrastructure is precisely that:  to increase the connectedness of the marginalized; to narrow or at least prevent the widening of any digital divide; and to promote inclusion down to the furthest administrative levels in government and to every community.

The COVID-19 crisis further highlighted the need for stronger digital connectivity within Kyrgyzstan, particularly in ensuring the continuity and delivery of core government functions. With the outbreak of the global pandemic, the demand for online services skyrocketed. Digital solutions were developed for health, education, delivery services, meeting services, and so on, and had huge impact on business. The digital sector is one of few sectors that has expanded during the global economic crisis that ensued.

During the pandemic, UNDP has grown our support to countries in delivering digital services worldwide. Governments have turned to UNDP to assist with developing more comprehensive national digital transformation strategies, to bring greater coherence to government digital initiatives, to help foster innovation, and to ensure that the benefits of this transformation reach across to all segments of society. 

UNDP launched its global digital strategy in 2019 with the aim of capitalizing on the growing speed and power of digital technologies, and the recently approved UNDP Strategic Plan 2022-2026 recognizes digitalization as a core enabler to advance the Sustainable Development Goals.

UNDP in the Kyrgyz Republic has supported many digital innovations in public service delivery and community engagement. We are supporting digital solutions in elections management, in e-fiscalisation, and in public services. Having supported the development of many niche solutions, our goal now is to go “digital by default” by integrating a digital solution in every development intervention.

This trajectory has taken us to work with very talented and IT savvy young people of Kyrgyzstan in launching several online applications, such as a chatbot to provide free legal advice for women, an artificial intelligence-supported job-matching application called “IshtApp”, and educational technology with “Balatech” to teach young people digital skills through gamification, in addition to supporting the development of e-health and several emergency information hotline platforms.

My key message today is the importance of a whole-of-society agenda for digital transformation. A coordinated approach between government, civil society, and the private sector is a key driver of success, and I would like to highlight three reasons why.

Firstly, engaging the spectrum of stakeholders in digital innovation also supports inclusive design that meets the needs of vulnerable groups, helps mitigate risks, and establishes accountability and transparency. This is especially true for new technologies, where the private sector is driving much of the progress.  

Secondly, with the explosion in the diversity and quantity of data generated globally, we need to collaborate with the private sector to source satellite data and build on big data analysis, to gain real-time insights into people’s wellbeing and target aid interventions to vulnerable groups. If applied responsibly, these approaches can enable more agile, efficient and evidence-based decision-making and better measure progress towards the SDGs in a way that is inclusive and fair.  

Let me just give two examples of this: In Armenia, UNDP worked with a local telecom operator to analyze records to better understand travel patterns and help the government design an evidence-based national strategy for tourism sector development. In the Philippines, UNDP used market research data showing fast-moving consumer goods spending and mobility data to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on households and key recovery trajectories across geographic areas, in order to design a more comprehensive and inclusive social protection program for the newly vulnerable communities from the crisis.

Thirdly, unconventional partnerships with civil society and startups are critical if we want to harness the collective intelligence on a larger scale than before and embrace technology adoption for different groups in society. In this sense, digital transformation is not only about technology or even skills, but involves the access to services and infrastructure, the design of devices, and different services for diverse capabilities, languages, cultures, organizational and regulatory settings.

If this was not apparent from what I have said already, allow me to underscore that digital tools have different potential for different groups of people. For example, a woman living in a remote rural area caring for young children at home will not have the same level of access to digital opportunities as an internet entrepreneur in well-connected, trilingual Bishkek. It is the design, therefore, of digital access with the aim of reaching everyone, that is going to differentiate success and deliver equitable outcomes and promote everyone’s digital rights, and this is why the conditions for cooperation among all stakeholders is so crucial.

Clearly, the institutional frameworks are not yet in place to fully enable this, and we need to work together to develop sustained and effective platforms of cooperation. UNDP stands ready to support this process.

Ladies and Gentlemen; Digital has an impact on all of us: governments, businesses, and citizens. By developing strategies and plans in a whole-of-society approach, everyone can benefit from a better future.

I hope that today’s forum will help us navigate this range of issues – the technology itself is exciting and important, but even more I hope we can focus on the behaviors,  skills and competencies, the new forms of networking, and the new types of institutions that are required to turn the digital promise into a digital dividend.

Thank you again for the opportunity to address you this morning; I wish all participants good health, happiness, and a very exciting forum!