According to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), this moment is unique for Latin America because of the confluence of two paths: on the one hand, the acceleration of digitalization due to the coronavirus pandemic; on the other, the need to provide a solid foundation for economic recovery. And investment in connectivity combines both factors. According to a calculation by the multilateral credit institution, an average increase of 10% in broadband penetration would cause a rise of 3.19% in gross domestic product and 2.61% in productivity, helping to create more than 67,000 direct jobs.
The IDB's proposal was presented yesterday in the Report on Digital Society in Latin America 2020-2021, held by Fundación Telefónica, which analyzes the development of the digital ecosystem in the countries of the region in a context marked by Covid-19.
The pandemic accelerated that digitalization process. Between 2020 and 2021, video calls grew by 78%, Internet purchases increased by 53%, e-banking by 62% and the use of digital platforms by 55%. Measured in Internet access, it increased by 8% among 55-64 year-old people, 7% between 65-74 year-old persons, and 5% in those over 75 years of age.
The general orientation of the report is towards closing the digital divide, towards a greater digitalization of production and the creation of a regional digital ecosystem, for which it proposes a series of initiatives and marks regulatory deficiencies whose correction would help to achieve this objective.
One of the main ideas of the document is that collaboration between the public and private sectors, as well as legal certainty and security, are essential to promote investment and new management models that extend access and quality of services on an equal conditions for all actors in the ecosystem.
Likewise, it highlights that small, medium and micro-sized enterprises, which make up the bulk of the Latin American productive fabric, can overcome economic and productive limitations through the use of technology.
To consolidate digitalization, it is key to promote the training of digital skills in workers, since 56% of companies mention the difficulty of finding talent as one of the main barriers to adoption. In addition, advantages can be taken from teleworking and the contractual arrangements it generates. The report indicates that 84% of workers are satisfied with the fact that they have been able to continue their professional work from home.
"What happened in the pandemic showed that, the greater the digitization, the higher the possibility of resisting different contingencies and recovering", said Alfonso Gómez, CEO of Telefónica Hispam in the presentation of the report, which includes the cases of eight selected Latin American countries, identifying those socioeconomic and technological factors that constitute the challenges and opportunities in order to face their digital transformation.