2024-02-27 23:00:00
© Jerome Bossuet / CIMMYT GENEVA (ILO News) – A new publication on the expansion of digital economic activity in developing economies, published by the International Labor Organization (ILO), examines what digitalization means for the structural and productive transformation of countries in the world. Global South.
The paper by Sarah Cook and Uma Rani, titled Platform work in developing economies: Can digitalization drive structural transformation?focuses primarily on work performed through digital labor platforms, such as delivery couriers, drivers, and caregivers, and tasks performed on Internet-based platforms, including professional services such as software programming.
The authors examine the impact of digitalization and how it can contribute to inclusive and sustainable human development, from the point of view of workers and working conditions, and drawing on the experience of workers in the global South.
For many, a central part of the solution to contemporary development challenges – whether to move to a green and digital economy – lies in technology.
However, a key argument of this paper is that, although digital technologies are changing the organization and conditions of work, even in low- and lower-middle-income economies, there is little evidence on whether these changes can generate development and transformation. structural, how and under what circumstances.
Based on a synthesis of existing research, evidence and debates, the document shows that workers in the informal sector have increasingly precarious work. Furthermore, as digitalization advances, even well-educated and skilled workers face uncertain working conditions, both in terms of the content of the work and the conditions under which they work, thus creating a digital labor “sweatshop.” , especially in developing countries. Furthermore, these new opportunities do not contribute significantly to the local economy or facilitate productive structural transformation.
On the other hand, research also shows that the advance of digitalization in developing countries usually occurs in a context of relative weakness of state and institutional capacity, limited fiscal resources, excessive levels of inequality and underemployment or unemployment, unfavorable conditions of global supply chain integration and growing financialization of economic activity.
This context, the authors argue, raises important questions about whether digitalization can help developing countries catch up and achieve economic prosperity and development in the same way that developed countries did through industrialization. Indeed, there is increasing evidence to show that development trajectories are not driven primarily by technological change, but rather that other social, economic and institutional forces are involved.
In their conclusion, the authors point out the key policy measures that would be necessary to steer the digital economic transformation towards sustainable, fair and inclusive development. These include business regulation, social protection, unionization and data transparency. They also consider opportunities to use digital technologies to address issues related to workers’ rights, access to benefits and working conditions, and call for further research to better understand these possibilities.
“Rethinking the links between skills, productivity and wages, including understanding how to use a trained or skilled workforce productively, will be essential,” the research observes, “not only for the workers involved, but also for creating an environment in which the learning, adoption and diffusion of technologies can improve overall economic productivity.
The authors of the paper are Uma Rani of the ILO and Sarah Cook of the Southern Center for Inequality Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China.
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