Six panels dedicated to topics such as digitization for greater inclusion, skills and abilities for societies in transformation, cybersecurity and critical assets, digital solutions for agriculture and digital commerce and SMEs, among others, were held on the second day of the Eighth Ministerial Conference on the Information Society in Latin America and the Caribbean which takes place in Montevideo, Uruguay, until this Friday, November 18, 2022.
Government representatives, the private sector, the technical community and civil society in the region participate in the meeting organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) together with the Government of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay, through the Agency for Electronic Government and Information Society (Agesic). Its objective is to define a set of policy priorities at the regional level to promote digital transformation with a vision of sustainable development, within the framework of the Digital Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean (eLAC 2024).
In the first panel of the day, titled Digitization for greater inclusion: closing gaps and promoting economic autonomy, the need to ensure the affordability and quality of Internet connection to the entire population was stressed, in order to close the important territorial, age, gender and other gaps that persist in the region. Digital technologies are key to promoting the economic autonomy of women and the inclusion of people with disabilities, for example, they highlighted.
Later, in the session called Labor market and employment: skills and abilities for societies in transformation, the speakers called attention to the various challenges that countries face to reduce labor informality and to improve the insertion of young people in highly changing labor markets, in which occupations are disappearing and demands for new knowledge are emerging. The region’s educational offerings must be flexible and promote skills such as collaborative problem solving and the ability to learn, with short, medium and long-term horizons, as indicated.
In another panel at the Conference, titled Agritech in LATAM: sectoral digital agendas and regional experiencesgovernment representatives and academics shared various national and local policies and experiences, and raised the urgency of expanding digitalization in the agricultural sector and in rural areas, as well as promoting public-private partnerships and promoting research and innovation in the field of digital solutions for the agricultural sector.
Similarly, in the session entitled Digital trade and SMEs: spaces to improve regional competitiveness The recent experience of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced them to rapidly digitize in order to survive, was analyzed, and the importance of prioritizing this issue on public agendas in the region was highlighted to improve the competitiveness and possibilities of internationalization of smaller companies and advance, in this way, towards a regional digital market.
In the panel titled The relevance of measuring the progress of digitization: a digital development observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean alerted to the need to advance in the generation of indicators and metrics to better measure the digital divide and to guide public policies in the countries. It is urgent to have greater regional cooperation in this area, they pointed out. Finally, in the session on the situation of the Cybersecurity and critical assetsall interested parties were urged to work together to build capacities and cooperate on this critical issue for the digital transformation of the region.
On the first day of the Conference, the Executive Secretary of ECLAC, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, presented the document A digital path for sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbeanwhich proposes various measures and actions to move towards an inclusive and sustainable digital transformation in the region.
