Implications for Future Engagement

The portfolio review reveals that the World Bank’s engagement in technology in South Asia’s human capital projects is fairly substantial in total value. However, the use of technology is predominantly concentrated in the build and protect pillar of the human capital framework used in this study—that is, for improving service delivery— and positioned in the piloting stage of technology maturity. Piloting is often necessary when new technologies are being introduced, but over time scaling up is required for the technology to have an impact. A significant proportion of the technology investments in the portfolio is in traditional products such as management information systems, which may reflect the presence of older projects.

The use of technology targeted specifically at marginalized and vulnerable populations to promote inclusion is also not prominent. Many of the converging technologies mentioned in this report and already deployed by the private sector in the region are not in the World Bank’s portfolio.

Finally, the work on developing public regulations and safeguards to address emerging technology impacts on data rights and market dominance in relation to human development programs is still in the early stages.

Harnessing the potential of converging technologies can help to strengthen all three dimensions of human capital in the South Asia region. Priority areas for increasing the application of converging technologies for achieving human capital objectives include optimal targeting of social transfers, at-scale delivery of customized educational content to marginalized groups, and discovery of new approaches in digital health and collaborative medical research. With pressure mounting to increase job opportunities, the rollout of digital platforms and the appropriate use of data-driven technologies has strong scale-up potential to facilitate job matching, offer reskilling and upskilling programs, and customize the delivery of social services, especially at the community level. A particularly important area for intervention is to build community innovation ecosystems that leverage converging technologies to enable the adaptation, creation, and diffusion of technologies and help build resilience to climate change and environmental degradation. Appropriate investments in promoting scientific collaboration, digital infrastructure, data sharing, and high-speed computing, possibly at a regional level, could lead to innovative ways of developing and deploying advanced scientific and technological capacity to address urgent human capital challenges. To foster inclusion and empowerment, reducing inequalities in first-mile digital access, encouraging local content, and developing policies and regulations on data and technology deployment are important areas for future World Bank engagement.

In view of the dynamic technology landscape presented in the previous chapters, the significant uncertainties posed by the COVID-19 crisis, and the wide spectrum of South Asian countries’ ambitions and capabilities in the deployment of technologies, the World Bank’s accelerated use of technologies will require ongoing stakeholder