Ramp up digital tech to deal with future crises

In periods of crisis, digital technologies provide a lifeline that keeps people, communities, and businesses functioning. From the Covid-19 pandemic to violent conflicts and natural disasters, being connected has allowed us to continue working, learning, and communicating.

How policymakers have responded to these emergencies has played a large part. In particular, as new paper by the World Bank Group’s Development Committee shows, more agile regulation has accelerated digitalization and unleashed innovation. In today’s global context of several overlapping crises, this needs to become the norm. Secure and resilient internet infrastructure is a fundamental necessity.

During the pandemic, as more and more of our lives went online, internet usage spiked worldwide. In 2020, 800 million people went online for the first time, and 58 low- and middle-income countries used digital payments to deliver COVID-19 relief. To manage that surge, governments and regulators in more than 80 countries moved quickly to change rules, including those governing the allocation of radio spectrum – the electromagnetic waves used for wireless communications. In Ghana, regulators assigned temporary radio spectrum to networks in high demand, and all mobile-service providers were granted permission to expand coverage. This resulted in better-quality service for more than 30 million mobile subscribers, letting them “go” to work, learn online, and access essential services.

Agile regulations have also helped digital technologies offer critical support to people in fragile and conflict situations. In Ukraine, the presence of a strong internet connection through satellite links, even while terrestrial infrastructure is under attack, has enabled the government to communicate with its citizens in real time. At the beginning of the war, shelling and cyberattacks were predicted to take down the internet, but innovations such as the satellite hookups have kept the country online. Here, too, the Ukrainian government moved quickly to speed up permissions and adapt rules.

But a digital lifeline is effective only if it is safeguarded from cyberattacks, something that Ukraine knows well. For many years, the country has been a testing ground for strikes on infrastructure. Hackers carried out waves of attacks that hit Ukraine’s distribution centers, call centers, and power grid.

And it’s not just Ukraine. All countries are vulnerable to these incursions. The United States fell victim to cyberattacks last year that took down its largest fuel pipeline, leaving many Americans in long lines to fill their gas tanks. And in Africa, Kenyan internet users endured more than 14 million malware incidents in 2020.

Like cyberattacks, nature can cause damage to communications infrastructure that demands an agile reaction. A volcanic eruption in January this year sent the island nation of Tonga into digital darkness. The eruption cut Tonga’s single undersea telecom cable and threw the country into 38 days of isolation from the internet and much of the outside world. This crisis has prompted discussions about how to strengthen the network and emergency-response systems, so Tongans are not at risk of digital darkness again.

Riccardo Puliti is Vice President for Infrastructure at the World Bank. - Project Syndicate