In 2023, the world passed the halfway point on the road to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. While progress has stalled, and even regressed on several SDGs and development indicators, there are tools that the international community can and should use to turn the tide and deliver on the commitments of Agenda 2030. Digitalization is one such tool that has the potential to alter the current course of development, if well managed.

Recognition of the transformative power of digital technologies has been growing, not least in the economic development context, with far-reaching implications for private sector development, trade, and investment.

While much has been done in recent years to foster the development of an inclusive global digital economy, lots of work lies ahead. Digital divides are far from closed, and although the gap in the number of people having access to the internet worldwide narrowed by almost one billion between 2019 and 2022, for people and businesses in many developing countries benefits of the data-driven digital economy and trade landscape remain hard to capture. It remains the fact that most of the value creation and capture in the digital economy is concentrated in a small number of very large economies.

An innovative and sound approach to digital and data governance for development, further capacity building on various aspects of e-commerce and digital trade, sustained multi-stakeholder dialogue and cooperation remain essential to reaping inclusive and sustainable development gains from the fast-evolving digital economy. Targeted efforts to ensure the effective empowerment of women and other population groups at increased risk of being left further behind are particularly needed.

I am proud to present in this Year in Review the results that the ECDE Programme achieved to this end in 2023. I would like to convey my gratitude to all our partners, donors, and beneficiaries for their trust in our work which seeks to support developing countries’ efforts to establish favorable conditions for people and businesses to benefit from digitalization.

I look forward to continued collaboration in 2024 and beyond as the United Nations presses on in exploring how best to boost digital cooperation, including through a Global Digital Compact and by leveraging the processes established at the World Summit on the Information Society. Discussions on how to chart the course will need to be multilateral and multistakeholder in nature, to ensure that future digital transformations benefit the many rather than the few.