Industrial Development
AI and the Global South: Impacts, Opportunities, and Policy Approaches
By Danish
Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to transform economies and societies worldwide, with significant implications for people and the planet. For developing nations, AI will bring both transformative benefits and risks, requiring a proactive approach to its regulation that builds safeguards while promoting innovation. This paper therefore provides an assessment of the potential multidimensional impacts of AI on the people and countries of the global South, particularly on their digital transformation, labour and industrial development.
The paper further emphasises the need for developing nations to consider flexible policy frameworks for AI governance, tailored to their own unique needs, priorities, and capacities. Emphasising the importance of multistakeholder engagement, such as through opportunities provided by the India-AI Impact Summit, the paper underscores the need for effective international cooperation to build safe, trustworthy AI that promotes sustainable development.
(more…)
Policy Dilemmas for ASEAN Developing Countries Arising from the Tariff Moratorium on Electronically Transmitted Goods
By Manuel F. Montes and Peter Lunenborg
This paper examines the policy dilemmas facing developing countries in ASEAN in working within, and participating in, international negotiations toward making permanent the WTO tariff moratorium on duties applicable to electronically transmitted goods. In the context of ASEAN’s countries’ trade-oriented development strategies, the analysis considers the moratorium’s impact on tariff revenues, economic performance, and industrial development prospects. The paper presents estimates of tariff impacts and studies the national policy implications of the moratorium. An extension of the moratorium would establish a special regime for a class of goods whose components are contentiously defined but with a potential of being an important source of tariff revenue and of having an impact on industrial development in the future for developing ASEAN countries. This special regime for electronically transmitted goods cannot be justified as a global public good and is unnecessary. The removal of the regime would restore national space in developing ASEAN countries and allow them to obtain tariff revenues from the trade of these goods and to upgrade domestic capabilities in participating in the digital economy.
(more…)
