United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) President Dennis Francis has praised India for its digital revolution, which has significantly impacted the country's rural areas. Speaking at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on 'Accelerating progress towards Zero Hunger for the current and future generations', Francis highlighted how the widespread use of smartphones has lifted 800 million Indians out of poverty in the past five to six years.
Francis noted that digitalisation has allowed people in rural India, who previously lacked access to banking and payment systems, to pay bills and receive payments using their smartphones. This transformation, he said, has been driven by the high level of internet penetration in the country.
"Digitalisation provides the basis for rapid development. Take, for example, the case of India. India has been able to lift 800 million people out of poverty over the past five to six years simply by the use of smartphones," Francis said.
He emphasised that rural farmers in India, who never had a relationship with the banking system before, can now conduct all their transactions on their smartphones. This includes paying bills and receiving payments for their orders, thanks to the high level of internet access in India.
However, Francis pointed out that this is not the case in many parts of the Global South. He called for efforts to embrace digitalisation and address the inequality that exists, as an initial step towards negotiating a global framework for digitalisation.
