Written byHenrietta H. Fore, Executive Director of UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund
Digitalization holds much promise to realize our shared vision of a better, more sustainable future for all. This includes ensuring that every child has every opportunity to develop, grow, and reach their full potential.
But success is not automatic. Unlocking the full benefits of digitalization requires dramatically expanding the reach of digital technology to children everywhere. It also requires protecting children — and their personal information —every step of the way.
Much of UNICEF’s programming is already using the power of digitalization to reach more children with the support they need. Last year alone, we reached more than 50 million children and their families through ICT-supported initiatives in health, education, social protection, and water and sanitation services.
We also research how children use technology, support governments as they develop digital policies to protect and empower children, and invest in digital startups that can improve children’s lives.
We generate and analyze data on the impact and potential of digital technology on migration patterns, national disasters and epidemics. This data not only helps us act quickly and effectively to support children — it also provides an opportunity for citizens and frontline workers to report on the quality of services we provide.
Most recently, digitalization has helped us respond to the COVID-19 pandemic — including by spreading messages about how to stay healthy during lockdown and avoid infection.
We are also using digital technology to provide online distance learning to some of the over one billion children whose schools have been closed by the pandemic.
But this work has also revealed how much further we have to go to ensure that every child can benefit from digitization.
Tens of millions of children live in areas without meaningful digital access. Under the pandemic, their education has ground to a halt. If they are connected at all, they are not connected at a fast speed, at an affordable rate, or with useful content provided in their local language. They also lack the opportunity to learn the skills they need to be safe, critical and empowered online.
In short — without access, digital technology is a great divider, not an equalizer.
At the same time, digital networks and social platforms can disseminate incorrect or harmful information. They can also put children’s identities at risk, through the digital “footprints” that children leave when using technology.
These challenges demand a co-ordinated, global response. Protecting children in a digital environment, while also helping them benefit from it, requires collaboration — not only within the UN system, but with governments, technology companies, and children and young people themselves. It requires all of us working together.
UNICEF has taken this partnership imperative to heart.
With the ITU, we are working to connect every school in the world to the internet by brokering investments with the private sector and governments.
We are working with the public and private sectors to develop guidance and regulations that are child-centered, not child-blind — that open new opportunities for children to benefit from digital technology, while also protecting them and their personal information.
We are working within global alliances — composed of a cross-section of governments, businesses and civil society groups — to protect children from online exploitation and abuse, and end the spread of sexual abuse material.
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals depends on this joint work. As the report of the High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation reminds us: “the rights of children need especially acute attention in the digital age.”
UNICEF is honoured to have been asked by the Secretary-General to co-champion the implementation of the Panel’s recommendations. We look forward to working with our global partners to help every child benefit from the opportunities that digitalization presents.
Together, we can realize their rights and our shared vision of a better, safer and more connected world.
