UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Opening Remarks on “Dialogue with the Community of Partners on the Development of e-commerce in Jordan”

I would like to start today’s meeting by congratulating the UNCTAD team for their work on eTrade Readiness Assessment which would assist Jordan to assess its e-commerce readiness to better engage in and benefit from e-commerce.       

This project will help Jordan take stock of its e-commerce capabilities, identify barriers impeding the growth of digital trade, and share proposals on how to address and implement them. Furthermore, outcomes of this project would be used during the preparation of a national strategy of digital technologies.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, digital technologies have kept societies functioning and people connected. The use of digital technologies in our economic and social lives can enhance our wellbeing and improve our quality of lives in a balanced, fair, inclusive and sustainable way.

I think we can all testify to the importance of IT over the last year. And countries with the capacity, institutional set up and human capital have been able to further benefit from digital technologies, for examples through ICT infrastructure and ICT services, trade facilitation and logistics, digital payments, access to finance, etc. Together, its creating an ecosystem that would enable building forward better and achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

But the pandemic has also highlighted a yawning gap in access to these tools, including vast gender disparities. As we scale up the digital agenda in Jordan, youth, women and the most vulnerable and marginalized people should be at the centre of our efforts. As the Secretary General set in his 2021 priorities, digital technology must be a great enabler and equalizer. Digital inclusion is critical to this end.

UNCTAD has recently performed national multi-stakeholders’ consultations on key pillars of digital technologies to assess Jordan’s performance. Following these consultations, today’s meeting aims to strengthen collaboration with development partners to enhance coherence and engagement by the international community on the implementation of recommendations.

The UN in Jordan fully supports transformative changes in the country by supporting programmes and initiatives which promote digital technologies and digital inclusion. In 2020, the we developed our Socio-Economic Response Framework and developed our Common Country Analysis.

Both, the SEF and the CCA highlighted the strategic importance of digital technologies and digital inclusion to build a more inclusive, equitable, resilient future in a sustainable way. These efforts aim to minimize gender gap in economic and social lives, improve women’s economic empowerment and reach the furthest behind.

The C-19 pandemic has significantly changed our lives and impacted the role of digital platforms and tools on people’s social lives, international supply chains, modes of transportation/logistics, global production networks and global value chains.

These changes are leading to fundamental/transformational shifts in the global economy. The countries that will be able to transform their economic, social, and political systems to this new ecosystem will benefit the most from these changes.  

Jordan is a small, open economy and has some critical comparative advantages, such as a young population, a dynamic market structure and relative political stability. However, there are also some constraints impeding transformational changes, such as very low women’s labour participation rates, very high level of youth unemployment, large informality in the economy, and fragmentation of the production sectors.

Despite these restrictions, the use of digital technologies would have positive spillover effects, e.g. increased access to digital services, more opportunities for youth, women, people living with disabilities, refugees and migrants, more work flexibility and productivity boost, that would create extra benefits due to its multidimensional characteristics.

We as the UN extensively use digital technologies in a number of sectors and areas, such as support refugees through cash assistance; create digital platforms to sell refugee-manufactured products; utilize blockchain technology to support vulnerable Syrian refugee women; support decent working conditions in manufacturing sectors; strengthen technological capacity of public; provide online learning modules to improve quality of workers; strengthen the e-learning capacity; support development of SMEs by introducing digital technology-based tools such as information systems for customers, job markets and market intelligence. And much more.

In short, digitalization, if underpinned by human rights and by the principle of Leaving No One Behind, can reduce inequalities, minimize gender gaps, strengthen women’s economic empowerment, improve quality of lives and promoting more resilient, inclusive and sustainable economic development.

That’s what makes these efforts so important. As a key enabler to achieve the SDGs, to realise the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Building Forward Better. Together.

Thank you.