Accelerating Digital Transformation in the Global South
This Track creates space for dedicated conversations that focus on the unique challenges and opportunities faced by nations and actors in and of the Global South relating to digital transformation. Consideration in these contexts is often framed in terms of what is wrong or missing, and the list is long.
However, some positive aspects and opportunities may be considered, such as growing youthful populations, cultural diversities and indigenous knowledge systems that may be harnessed for creativity and innovation, digital leapfrogging opportunities as has been seen in examples of the rapid uptake of mobile and fintech technologies; locational advantages such as natural resource endowments and renewable energy resources; South-South cooperation such as the BRICS which can lead to mutually beneficial partnerships and collective solutions to developmental challenges; and so forth. The Track invites innovative papers, theoretical or practical, that offer developmental, political economy, socio-technical, social justice, anthropological, decolonial, and other perspectives and analyses – including from the humanities, arts, and social sciences – on accelerating digital transformation, addressing current challenges, and exploring novel potentialities in the Global South.
Accepted Papers:
- Inclusion by Design or by Assumption? Contextualising Nigeria's Digital Policy through its Mobile Banking Experience | Khadijah Mohammed
- Developing a National Digital Transformation Strategy in the Global South: the case of Guinea-Bissau | João Martins, Beatriz Lanza, Luís Soares Barbosa
- Eastern Africa's Digital Transformation: Assessing GovTech Progress towards AI Implementation in Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania | Tupokigwe Isagah, Soumaya Ben Dhaou, Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen, Charmaine Distor
