Source: United Nations (video statements)
Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed said technological innovations “have enormous potential to accelerate progress” on the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) program of action, as “they are making it easier to analyse population data, treat illness, strengthen advocacy and widen access to education.”
Addressing the plenary of the fifty-ninth session of the UN Commission on Population and Development, Mohammed said, “technology has reshaped almost every part of human life, from smartphones to social media, from artificial intelligence to biotechnology” and population and sustainable development “have been transformed by that shift as well.”
She noted that the risks posed by digital technologies are also “significant and the gaps are widening.”
The Deputy Secretary-General said “in high income countries, 93 percent of people use the internet. In the least developed countries, that figure falls to 39 percent. Within countries, those gaps follow similar lines rich and poor, urban and rural, old and young.”
The deepest and most persistent divide, she pointed out, “is between women and men,” as “in low-income countries, only 21 percent of women are online” and “women make up just 1 in 4 tech workers.”