Author: Jayant Menon, a Visiting Senior Fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore, and Adviser to the IDRC Project on the Impact of Covid-19 on Inclusive Development and Democratic Governance
One of the supposed silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the acceleration towards a digital economy. Lockdowns and social distancing measures have hastened the adoption of technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) that enable work-from-home arrangements, remote learning, telemedicine and other novel forms of service delivery. While this acceleration is generally welcome, there is concern that it may increase inequality within and between countries. The adoption rate of these technologies has favoured the more developed countries, threatening to increase the digital divide in ASEAN and beyond. This is of particular concern to the transitional economies of the Mekong regions – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV).
