Smart rebalance

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, launched by the United Nations in 2016, pledges to leave no one behind while strengthening areas of weakness in the economy, society and environmental protection.

However, it is a daunting challenge to realize the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In 2020, the average GDP per capita of developed economies in terms of purchasing power parity was 4.5 times that of developing economies. Within the first 10 years of this century, the figure declined from 7.5 times to 5.4 times, followed by a much slower narrowing-down from 2010 to 2020－from 5.4 times to 4.5 times.

In a nutshell, the wealth gap between developed and developing economies has been closing at a noticeably slower pace. The UN's Sustainable Development Goals Report 2021, released in July, points out that as the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded, the extreme poverty rate has risen for the first time since 1998, from 8.4 percent in 2019 to 9.5 percent in 2020, undoing the progress made since 2016.

Around 120 million people were pushed back into extreme poverty in 2020, with another 83 million to 132 million people pushed back into hunger, making the total number of affected people around 800 million, most of them in the South.

Unbalanced growth between the developed North and the less-developed South is one of the most prominent issues plaguing the world. It is an issue where digitization could have a huge impact. Digitalization could enable services such as online education, telemedicine and cross-border e-commerce, thus enabling knowledge and experience-sharing at a lower cost. But it could also bring adverse effects, as the penetration ratio of mobile and fixed broadband in developing economies is only half and one-third, respectively, that of developed economies. If developing countries fail to narrow the digital divide, they could lose the development opportunities created by the digital revolution.

China can play a critical role in South-South cooperation to narrow the digital divide. After more than four decades of reform and opening-up, China has established close economic and trade ties with advanced economies. Also, China has been promoting the industrialization and urbanization of other developing nations through foreign assistance and international capacity cooperation.

The current wave of digitalization has made it more urgent than ever before to strengthen South-South digital cooperation.

To start with, information and communications technology infrastructure connectivity should be prioritized. Taking the opportunity of the Digital Silk Road, part of the Belt and Road Initiative, developing countries can increase their capital and human resource inputs into information infrastructure by expanding market access, striving for international assistance and promoting third-party market cooperation. They can also increase their internet bandwidth, quicken the alignment of rules and standards, improve legislation on the digital trade, improve their risk assessment capabilities and introduce prudent regulation, and promote free, safe and orderly cross-border flow of South-South cooperation data.

Second, developing countries need to give full play to their respective comparative advantages in South-South digital cooperation. As a first mover, China has gathered rich experience in the digital economy, business model innovation in the services trade, the upgrading of communications networks, and the application of artificial intelligence technologies.

The vast majority of developing countries, on the other hand, have such advantages as low-cost manufacturing, huge market potential and favorable location on trade routes between the East and the West. Cooperation between the two sides could reinforce their complementary advantages and seize the opportunities presented by the new round of industrial revolution.

Third, to address the development deficit, the trust deficit needs to be fixed. If countries view others as a security threat, it will only increase the costs of cooperation. Therefore, countries should strengthen their awareness of the need to build a community with a shared future for humanity, support multilateral frameworks including the UN and the World Trade Organization, and adhere to the principles of mutual respect, mutual trust, equality, openness, inclusiveness and win-win results.

Finally, developing countries should jointly promote international digital governance. The vast majority of developing countries, which are in similar development phases, share lots of common interests and generally lack a voice on global issue. By making a common voice through such bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanisms as South-South cooperation and the Belt and Road Initiative, developing countries can together contribute to a global digital governance system that is more open and inclusive.

The author is deputy director of the Research Department of Foreign Economic Relations at the Development Research Center of the State Council, China. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn