Category: Human Development
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Digital Technologies and Sustainable Development: The Missing Link
Context Nowadays, digital technologies occupy most of the interstices of society. While the global pandemic exposed glaring gaps, especially in developing countries, avoiding their mantra seems torturous. Undoubtedly, their rapid diffusion in the last 30 years is historical (Comin & Mestieri, 2018). However, once touted as unstoppable drivers for social change, many now perceive modern…
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ICTs and Emissions – IV
Environmental Footprints As previously mentioned, data centers (DCs) depend not only on energy consumption but also require plenty of water for survival, just like humans. We thus have increasing competition for a critical resource, significantly when droughts and wildfires are increasing. Not surprisingly, the availability of adequate and nearby water resources is one of the…
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ICTs and Emissions – III
The Abode is a Humongous Shopping Mall As some pundits have observed, data centers (DCs) are the backbone of the digital realm—hiding in plain sight, I would add. However, DCs do not live alone in their noisy, albeit warm homes. They cannot afford to for existential, not financial, reasons. DCs depend on several other beings…
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ICTs and Emissions – II
Cyberspace Mansions In 2009, amid the Global Financial Crisis, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) announced plans to create a 1.2 billion dollar data center (DC) in Utah. Indeed, surveillance once again proved it is immune to economic disasters, regardless of magnitude. In any case, actual construction began only in 2011, after government approval. The…
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ICTs and Emissions – I
Digital technologies’ social ubiquitousness is indisputable. Indeed, escaping their mantra seems unreal, almost dystopic, regardless of location or connectivity. The TINA (there is no alternative) principle appears to be entirely at work here. It is thereby paradoxical that new ICTs are conspicuously absent from big-ticket global climate change policy documents such as the 1997 Kyoto…
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Economic Growth and Sustainable Development
In a previous entry, I explored the connections between digital technologies, economic growth and the environment, using the concept of Sustainable Development (SD) as analytical reference. The figure below depicts yet another way to see the three development outcomes that must interact to trigger SD. Three other outcomes are also possible if the interaction…
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More Carbon Inequality
IPCC reports usually include an annex containing a climate glossary where key terms are succinctly defined. The latest report is no exception, providing an extensive dictionary consuming over 30 pages of text – yet less than 1% of the report’s length. Bringing into the fray four key terms will suffice for our purposes. They are…
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More Light on Financial Inclusion
In a couple of recent posts, I briefly traced the history of financial inclusion and its links to the emergence and diffusion of digital technologies. A recently published book by Nick Bernards tackles the same issue more comprehensively while taking a more critical perspective. His departing point, however, is not financial inclusion but rather poverty…
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Carbon Inequality
My previous post highlighted a gap between the Glasgow CoP26 mitigation targets and GHG emissions data. The best example here is the selection of methane as a priority while the big elephant in the room, CO2, mentioned in passing, escaped almost unscathed. Indeed one could argue that such global meetings must make choices, some of…
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Net-zero Emissions and Developing Countries – II
As discussed in the previous post, low-income and most low-middle-income countries play almost no role in methane emissions. Therefore, embarking on related targets and projects will not make a dent on a global scale. Instead, it might end up increasing foreign debt and diverting from other perhaps more pressing developing gaps, local climate change issues…
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Net-zero Emissions and Developing Countries – I
If Climate Change rings to many of us as an almost insurmountable global challenge, then net-zero has recently emerged as its apparent universal solution. The coin has finally been imprinted with two clearly defined sides, in constant and inseparable opposition. Many would argue that we can sleep well again; the apocalypse has been postponed indefinitely.…
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Towards a Public Internet?
Memory insists on telling me every so often that the first time I ever used the Internet was at the tail end of the 1980s. A couple of years earlier, the college where I was struggling to finish my Ph.D. (memories of a lost war come back often, too!) had connected, with our help, to…
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Digital Technologies and Sustainable Development
1. Overall context Much water has already gone under the bridge on this topic. Yet the flow shows no signs of coming to a halt soon. In the early days of the so-called “Internet revolution,” only a few were connecting the two. At the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, which I had…
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Financial Inclusion and Democratizing Finance – III
Show me the money The impact of initiatives such as Grameen Bank (Village phone included) and M-Pesa is still under discussion. From a poverty reduction perspective, the effect has been much more limited. Many countries in the Global South have managed until recently to reduce the number of people living in extreme poverty. Take Bangladesh.…
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Financial Inclusion and Democratizing Finance – II
Where are the banks? It seems paradoxical that the mainstream history of micro-finance/financial inclusion does not consider banks. After all, banks are supposed to “bank the unbanked.” So banks are not only missing from such a narrative. They are also missing in action on the ground. In principle, banks are the institutions that should cater…