United Nations, citing India as a prime example, President of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, Dennis Francis, highlighted how the country has significantly reduced poverty through digitalisation. According to the news outlet The Hindustan Times, speaking in Rome at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Francis praised India’s use of smartphones to lift 800 million people out of poverty over the last five to six years. He emphasized that digitalisation has enabled rural farmers to engage with the banking system, transact business, pay bills, and receive payments through their smartphones.
Francis noted that India’s high internet penetration and widespread smartphone usage have been pivotal in this transformation. In stark contrast, many parts of the Global South still struggle with digital inequality.
Francis called for efforts to address this disparity as a crucial step towards negotiating a Global Framework for Digitalisation. Highlighting India’s progress, he mentioned that in 2009, only 17% of adults had bank accounts and 15% used digital payments, whereas today, teledensity has reached 93%, over a billion people have digital IDs, and more than 80% have bank accounts. As of 2022, over 600 crore digital payment transactions were completed per month, the news outlet further said.
