Socially Just Transition Towards Sustainable Development : The Role of Digital Technologies on Social Development and Well-Being of All

E/RES/2021/10View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the Economic and Social Council, under agenda item 19bSocial development, published in 2021.

Who cites this mandate in the budget?

4 entities

Extracted automatically from each entity’s budget submission.

What subjects does this mandate have?

5 topics

Digital Technology Equality Social Development Social Justice Sustainable Development

What does this mandate say?

39 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General;

Acknowledges the urgent need to accelerate action on all levels and by all stakeholders to fulfil the vision and Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and emphasizes that the international community, through the outcome documents of the major United Nations conferences and summits adopted by the General Assembly, has reinforced, inter alia, the urgency of eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, combating inequality within and among countries, protecting the environment, creating sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth and fostering social inclusion within the United Nations development agenda, including the outcomes of the World Summit for Social Development, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 and the New Urban Agenda;

Reaffirms the commitment to implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development for all by ensuring that no one would be left behind and reaching the furthest behind first, and by recognizing human rights and that the dignity of the human person is fundamental;

Calls upon Member States to ensure the promotion and protection of all human rights, in accordance with their obligations under international human rights law;

Recognizes that the current trajectory of economic development has led not to shared prosperity for all, but to high and rising inequalities within and among countries, in particular in least developed and developing countries, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as environmental degradation, adverse effects of climate change, extreme weather events, including natural disasters, drought, desertification, biodiversity loss, food shortages, water scarcity, wildfires, sea level rise and depletion of the oceans, and unsustainable consumption and production patterns;

Also recognizes that those consequences have taken a toll on social development and on people’s well-being, especially those who are vulnerable or in vulnerable situations, such as all children, youth, persons with disabilities, people living with HIV/AIDS, older persons, indigenous peoples, refugees and internally displaced persons and migrants;

Encourages Member States to promote affordable and equitable access to basic services, in particular quality formal and non-formal education, at all levels, including programmes that promote equality and inclusion through the affirmation of the fundamental dignity of the human person, and health-care services, including through the acceleration of the transition towards equitable access to universal health coverage, as well as access to affordable housing, nutrition and food, and access to employment and decent work, information and communications technology and infrastructure, through advancing gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls;

Stresses the importance of developing policies to expand work opportunities and productivity in both rural and urban sectors by achieving and recovering economic growth, investing in human resource development, promoting technologies that generate productive employment, and encouraging self-employment, entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized enterprises;

Invites Member States to consider adopting labour market policies that strengthen institutions and provide adequate labour protection to all workers, including through social dialogue, especially the most disadvantaged, including through minimum wage policies, while taking into account the role of workers’ and employers’ organizations, as applicable, as part of policies to boost income growth for the vast majority of workers, taking into consideration the specific circumstances of each country;

Stresses the need to address challenges faced by those working in informal or vulnerable jobs, by investing in the creation of more decent work opportunities, including providing access to decent jobs in the formal sector;

Encourages Member States to implement policies that ensure women’s economic empowerment by supporting the full and productive participation of women in the labour market, including women with disabilities and those living in poverty and female heads of household, and to promote equal pay for equal work or work of equal value, the equal sharing of responsibilities between parents, access to childcare facilities, work-family balance, including, inter alia, while caring for children, older persons, persons with disabilities, and by promoting their meaningful participation in the economy and in decision-making processes at all levels;

Invites Member States to support the digital entrepreneurship of women, including in e-commerce, including for micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises, to develop local solutions and relevant content and promote innovation and decent job creation;

Encourages all Member States and other relevant stakeholders to promote inclusive economic transformation in rural areas that increases productivity while ensuring productive employment and decent work, access to quality public services, reliable and appropriate social protection systems, quality and resilient infrastructure, roads and telecommunications, as well as preparedness planning for crises, and reiterates that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the important role of digital connectivity and access;

Recognizes that nationally appropriate social protection systems for all address multiple, often interrelated and complex causes of poverty and inequality by easing the burden of certain expenditure during periods of unemployment, contributing to health-related goals, gender equality and decent work, and facilitating the full inclusion of persons with disabilities;

Also recognizes that nationally appropriate social protection systems make a critical contribution to the realization of human rights for all, in particular for those who are trapped in poverty and homelessness, and that promoting universal access to social services and providing nationally appropriate social protection floors can contribute to reducing inequality and poverty, addressing social exclusion and promoting inclusive economic growth, and in this regard takes note of the Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202), of the International Labour Organization;

Encourages States, when designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating social protection programmes for social development, to ensure gender mainstreaming throughout this process;

Recognizes the important role that families can play in combating social exclusion, and highlights the importance of investing in inclusive and responsive family-oriented policies and programmes in areas such as education, training, decent work, work-family balance, health-care services, social services, intergenerational relationships and solidarity and targeted cash transfers for vulnerable families, in order to reduce inequality and promote the well-being of all persons of all ages, as well as to contribute to better outcomes for children and other vulnerable family members in vulnerable situations and help to break the intergenerational transfer of poverty;

Encourages Member States to provide universal age-, disability-, gender-responsive and family-oriented social protection systems, which are key to ensuring poverty reduction, including, as appropriate, targeted cash transfers for people and families in vulnerable situations, such as when headed by a single parent, in particular those headed by women, and which are most effective in reducing poverty when accompanied by other measures, such as providing access to essential services, high-quality education and health-care services;

Stresses the need to better coordinate social protection policies and measures with poverty reduction programmes and other social policies to avoid excluding people in informal or precarious jobs;

Invites Member States, in the context of their national sustainable development frameworks and the associated integrated financing frameworks, to formulate and implement national strategies to extend social security and essential social services to all, that are responsive to shocks, sustainable in the long run and with a focus on those furthest below the poverty line and negatively affected by climate change and natural and human-made disasters, within their economic and fiscal capacities;

Recognizes that information and communications technologies have the potential to provide new solutions to development challenges, particularly in the context of globalization and the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and can foster sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth and sustainable development, competitiveness, access to information and knowledge, trade and development, poverty eradication and social inclusion, accordingly reaffirms its commitment to bridging the digital divide, and calls upon Member States to implement policies and to accelerate their efforts to close the digital divide, as a measure to attain the social inclusion of all, with a focus on children, youth, women, persons with disabilities and older persons, without any discrimination;

Urges Member States, in collaboration with other stakeholders, to close the digital divides and promote digital inclusion, by taking into account national and regional contexts and addressing the challenges associated with access, affordability, digital literacy and digital skills, and awareness and by ensuring that the benefits of new technologies are available to all, taking into account the needs of those who are vulnerable or in vulnerable situations;

Also urges Member States, in collaboration with other stakeholders, to promote digital inclusion, by implementing inclusive policies and measures that aim to tackle the challenges associated with equal access, in particular, the lack of affordability, including by, where appropriate, considering providing targeted subsidies, proportionate taxation or the provision of a basic digital basket, as well as engage in multi-stakeholder cooperation, national and regional broadband strategies, and facilitate public-private partnerships in order to significantly increase access to information and communications technology, address specific barriers to inclusion by promoting the availability and supply of information and communications technology, and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet, and also notes the potential of relevant regional and international initiatives to achieve this goal;

Encourages Member States, in collaboration with other stakeholders, to address the lack of efficient, affordable and accessible digital technology infrastructure, especially in rural and remote areas, and engaging the private sector as a relevant partner to enhance infrastructure finance and network deployment;

Also encourages Member States, in collaboration with other stakeholders, to seek to achieve universal connectivity to ensure that every person has affordable access to quality broadband Internet by 2030, including by catalysing essential partnerships, as well to apply an age-, disability-, gender-responsive and family-oriented approach to all interventions on digital technologies;

Invites Member States, in collaboration with the international community and United Nations entities, to develop, as appropriate, a holistic approach and targeted strategies and policies to address specific barriers to digital inclusion and close the digital divides, also in collaboration with other stakeholders, including the private sector, academia, science and civil society organizations, including representatives of those who face barriers to digital inclusion;

Encourages Member States, in collaboration with other stakeholders, to harness scientific research and expertise and realize the potential of technology and of rapid technological change to focus on, inter alia, the individual, social, educational and health implications of ageing, in particular in developing countries;

Also encourages Member States, in collaboration with other stakeholders, to increase access of all women and girls to digital technologies to foster their education and training to enhance their digital skills and competences, as well as the productivity and mobility of women in the labour market; enhance efficiency, accountability and transparency of social protection systems, public services and sustainable infrastructure through enhanced use of information and communications technologies for the benefit of all women and girls, including for those hardest to reach and who face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, and work towards closing the gender digital divide and promoting equal access to information and communications technologies and to the Internet for women and girls, explore appropriate ways to address any potential negative impact of new technologies on gender equality; and ensure that programmes, services and infrastructure are adaptable and suited to technological barriers, including literacy, and reaffirms the commitment to ensuring women’s full participation in decision-making processes related to information and communications technologies;

Further encourages Member States to, by 2030, reduce to less than 3 per cent the transaction costs of migrant remittances and eliminate corridors with costs higher than 5 per cent, including through the use of digital technologies;

Recognizes that information and communications technologies present new opportunities and challenges and that there is a pressing need to address the major impediments that developing countries face in engaging with and accessing new technologies, such as an appropriate enabling environment, sufficient resources, infrastructure, education, capacity, investment and connectivity, as well as issues related to technology ownership, setting standards and technology flows, and in this regard urges all stakeholders to consider ensuring appropriate financing of digital development and adequate means of implementation, including strengthened capacity-building of developing countries, particularly the least developed countries, towards a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy;

Also recognizes that domestic resources mobilization, underscored by the principle of national ownership and supplemented by international assistance, as appropriate, will be critical to realizing sustainable development and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals;

Reaffirms the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, and recognizes the need to take steps to significantly increase investment to close resource gaps, including through the mobilization of financial resources from all sources, including public, private, domestic and international resource mobilization and allocation;

Also reaffirms that international cooperation has an essential role in assisting developing countries, including highly indebted poor countries, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, small island developing States and middle-income countries, in strengthening their human, institutional and technological capacity;

Encourages developed countries to implement their official development assistance commitments, including the commitment by many developed countries to achieve the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income for official development assistance to developing countries and 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of gross national income for official development assistance to the least developed countries;

Welcomes the contributions of South-South cooperation to poverty eradication and sustainable development, and reaffirms that South-South cooperation is an important element of international cooperation for development as a complement to, not a substitute for, North-South cooperation, and commits itself to strengthening South-South and triangular cooperation as a means of bringing relevant experience and expertise to bear in development cooperation;

Stresses the essential role that official development assistance plays in complementing, leveraging and sustaining financing for development efforts in developing countries and in facilitating the achievement of development objectives, including the internationally agreed development goals, in particular the Sustainable Development Goals, and welcomes steps to improve the effectiveness and quality of aid based on the fundamental principles of national ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing for results and mutual accountability;

Encourages the international community to intensify development cooperation, including through South-South, North-South and triangular cooperation, as well as multi-stakeholder partnerships, to support countries, especially developing countries, upon their request, in building their national capacity for science, technology and innovation for social development, as well as to support research networks that reach across borders, institutions and disciplines;

Invites all relevant stakeholders, including the United Nations system and civil society organizations, to continue to promote the exchange of information and good practices on programmes, policies and measures that successfully reduce inequality in all its dimensions;

Invites the United Nations system to continue to support Member States in their pursuit of socially just transitions towards sustainable development and facilitate international cooperation in the field of digital technologies for developing countries, upon their request, with the aim of achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development for the common future of present and coming generations.

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