UN General Assembly’s 78th session President Dennis Francis praised Bharat’s digitisation efforts, attributing the lifting of 800 million people out of poverty in the last five to six years to the widespread use of smartphones.
During his lecture at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN on ‘Accelerating progress towards Zero Hunger for the current and future generations,’ Francis highlighted the transformative impact of digitalisation in rural Bharat. He noted that people in remote areas can now make payments and pay bills with the touch of a smartphone.
“Providing the basis to rapid development, such as through digitalisation. Take, for example, the case of Bharat… Bharat has been able to lift 800 million people out of poverty over the last 5 to 6 years simply by the use of smartphones,” Francis said.
He stressed that high internet penetration in Bharat has enabled significant benefits that many other countries in the Global South have not yet experienced.
“Rural farmers in Bharat who never had a relationship with the banking system, are now able to transact all their businesses on their smartphone. They pay their bills, they receive payments for orders. 800 million people lifted out of poverty. Because there is a high level of internet penetration in India, almost everyone has a cellphone,” Francis stated.
Francis called for initiatives to address the digital inequality in other parts of the Global South. “That is not the case in many parts of the Global South. So, there has to be equity demands, there has to be some effort, initiative to address this inequality as an initial step in negotiating the global framework for digitalisation,” he added.
Digitisation has been a primary focus of the Narendra Modi Government over the past decade, with a significant rise in digital payment transactions. The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has been a major contributor to this growth.
PM Modi has promoted digitisation through the JAM initiative — Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, and Mobile. This initiative encourages people to open bank accounts linked with Aadhaar, facilitating direct transfers of social benefits and government scheme payments to people’s bank accounts, even in rural areas.
