As climate change impacts are getting more intense, all nations around the world are eagerly ramping up joint efforts to ensure the planet's sustainability. Many initiatives are being undertaken with the hope to accomplish the target of net-zero emissions as soon as possible. However, over the past two years the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has heavily impacted global socio-economic conditions and aggravated the challenges being faced by countries. To address these social, economic and environmental issues and “build back better”, the development of advanced tools such as the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technologies would be crucial, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. This paper discusses the opportunities, challenges, innovations and strategies to enhance climate change mitigation with 4IR technologies from sectoral perspectives and provides policy recommendations based on the analysis.
Asian and Pacific Centre for Transfer of Technology
Countries in the Asia-Pacific region are fast embracing the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technologies and the coronavirus pandemic has fast-tracked the adoption of such technologies. At the same time, the pandemic has adversely impacted the advancements towards achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While many developed and some developing countries are harnessing the benefits of 4IR technologies to achieve their SDGs, there is a risk that many developing and least developed countries (LDCs) could be left behind.
Given this situation, this paper presents an overview of the status, opportunities and challenges related to 4IR technologies for sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific and draws some lessons for regional cooperation. It presents a comparison of the countries with respect to adaptation of 4IR, their strengths and the opportunities that they bring to the countries in the region. It presents cross-country examples of enabling policy mechanisms to promote 4IR technology, innovation and its applications for sustainable development; both at the national level and at the regional level. It outlines select initiatives related to facilitating innovation; 4IRbased partnerships/collaborations and transfer of technology. The paper then presents the key challenges related to innovation, development and transfer of 4IR technologies. These include low research and development spending, digital infrastructure and access gap, regulation and policy gaps, and skill and education gaps. These gaps are more prominent for the developing countries and the LDCs and are accentuated by the barriers related to cross-border technology transfer, investment and trade. To overcome these challenges, the paper makes recommendations on (a) how countries in the region can jointly harness the benefits of 4IR (b) work together to address their common concerns (c) learn from each other’s best practices (d) work together to reduce the digital divide and achieve SDGs and (e) how the Asia-Pacific region can utilize the platforms of South-South cooperation and Triangular cooperation for accelerating the adoption of 4IR technologies. The paper presents a ‘regional roadmap’ to accelerate innovation and transfer of 4IR technologies in Asia-Pacific to achieve SDGs by 2030.
The paper lays out a broad framework to reimagine healthcare systems using the digital technologies as one of the core pillars in the Asia-pacific countries. It argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed serious flaws in the design of traditional healthcare systems in both advanced and developing countries of the Asia Pacific. The experiences of the past two years with COVID-19 have proven that any highly infectious disease which make many people sick, will quickly overrun hospitals and lead to the collapse of the health system and economic ruin. Thus, it is clear that the healthcare systems in their present conditions are not able to withstand the pandemic. However, COVID-19 has also triggered a great pivot towards the use of digital technologies, AI, and big data in health industries across the Asia-Pacific region. The emergence such digital innovations have enabled policymakers and innovators to imagine the era of the “hybridtact” healthcare industry, where the traditional “contact” hospital and healthcare systems are “married” with digital and online systems (untact healthcare) to revolutionize how bio-health and healthcare services are delivered to millions of users. This paper lays out a strategic framework for stakeholders in healthcare, and highlights some of the key issues to consider in implementing hybridtact healthcare.
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