ICT & SDGs - How Information and Communications Technology Can Achieve The Sustainable Development Goals

"...the SDGs represent a complex, global-scale problem-solving exercise that cuts across all sectors of the economy and that must engage all sectors and all parts of the world. The entire world has adopted the SDGs; now we will have to deploy all of the tools available, and especially ICT, to make them a success."

This report shares joint research between Ericsson and the Earth Institute at Columbia University that highlights the role of information and communication technology (ICT) - in particular, mobile technology - in accelerating achievement of the 17 United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. It summarises the lessons to date and the future prospects for ICT in 4 sectors: health, education, financial services, and infrastructure, focusing on electricity and power. The main argument is that ICT offers an acceleration of technology uptake in all these sectors by: reducing the unit costs of service delivery; expanding the range of services that can be offered; economising on scarce resources (such as local skilled workers, who can be engaged online rather than local presence); and accelerating the institutional learning through online communities.

At the crux of this argument is the observation is that the SDGs aim for universal access to high-quality public services, such as quality healthcare and public education, and safe and reliable infrastructure. "Universal access will be achieved for those services only if governments skillfully and actively embrace the ICT revolution, and deliver public services using the massive benefits of ICTs. According to the report, there are several specific ways in which ICT can accelerate the uptake of SDG-supporting services, especially in low-income countries. For instance, ICT makes possible an expanded role for low-cost community health workers (CHWs), enabling many diagnoses and treatments to be made at the community level (during CHW visits to the households) rather than at high-cost facilities. ICT can also provide low-cost online platforms, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which enable students anywhere to gain free access to high-quality university courses, including courses in the design and use of ICTs. Special training materials are also being delivered conveniently over smart phones, tablets, laptops, and other devices. "In this way, ICT-hosted training modules and courses offer the way to train millions of workers, especially young and under-employed workers, in the uses of new ICT applications for SDG-oriented service delivery."

The components of national ICT deployment are outlined, with the a figure on page 5 illustraing the interconnected components of a rapid and successful process. At the centre are the government policies and institutions needed to deploy ICT. They influence: the roll-out of the physical infrastructure such as the fiber/microwave backbone and the wireless access network; the ICT and general skills of the workforce (e.g., through age-appropriate STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education); the local operating presence of the ICT industry ; and the readiness of both the public and private sectors to adopt ICT solutions. The report explores supply-side and demand-side ICT policy issues, describing both horizontal policies and emerging policies impacting supply and demand side. If these ICT-supporting policies are to be quickly put in place in support of the SDGs, national governments will need to work with the global ICT sector (both public and private), universities around the world, and global donors. The main policy conclusion of the study is that governments need to ensure that the entire public sector, including service delivery in health, education, and infrastructure, is fully supported by high-quality ICT systems. This includes: broadband connectivity of all public facilities by 2020; ICT training of all relevant public officials and service providers; ICT-based delivery systems for health care, education, and infrastructure; deployment of the Internet of Things (remote sensing and control of connected devices) for the public infrastructure and environmental management; and encouragement of universities to scale up education and incubation of ICT solutions, including through partnerships with the business sector.

Several figures in the subsequent sections of the paper illustrate the fact "ICT has already had a remarkable record of rapid diffusion, one that can be extended into the future". For example, mobile subscriptions in Africa have gone from almost no subscribers in 2000 to around 900 million in 2015. "Mobile phones have already allowed for dramatic breakthroughs in e-finance and e-health, overcoming long-standing gaps in access to facilities such as bank branches and clinics." The report notes that the role of ICTs in the SDG era (2016-2030) will involve ICTs increasingly transforming governance and the provision of every type of public services. Also, "the underlying technologies will continue to evolve rapidly and dramatically, making way for new breakthrough capabilities", such as the Internet of Things (IoT), defined as sensors and actuators connected by networks to computing systems that can monitor or manage the health and actions of connected objects and machines. Other examples include advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, and "big data" (real-time data for public management, strategy and budgeting, and to hold governments accountable for achieving goals and targets).

There are downsides associated with ICT-based sustainable development, such as systems failure, cyber warfare, and surveillance/loss of privacy. Yet, "with 2030 targets looming, there will be no opportunity for a slow, gradual, cautious uptake of new approaches." The report recommends that the international ICT sector, represented for example in the United Nations (UN) Broadband Commission, step forward to provide advice, expertise, financing, and tools for rapid scale up. Universities, in partnership with governments and businesses, need to undertake massive training programmes and hosting of new ICT business incubators. And global donors should provide quick seed funding to get these activities underway. It is the hope that, in this way, the public sector will be provided with needed tools for unprecedented advances in health care, education, energy services, agriculture, and environmental monitoring and protection.