New Delhi, October 23 (IANS). World Development Information Day is celebrated every year on 24 October. It emphasizes on dissemination of development related information to the common people through information and communication technology (ICT), internet and media.
In fact, the biggest testament to the positive impact of inclusive information systems is India's 'Digital Public Infrastructure' (DPI), where the Unified Payments System (UPI) has set a historic record of growing from just 0.01 crore monthly transactions in 2016 to more than 2,000 crore monthly transactions by 2025.
Historically, October 24 is not only celebrated as 'United Nations Day', but it has also been dedicated as 'World Development Information Day' in memory of the 'International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade' adopted on this day in the year 1970.
In 1972, when the world was at the height of the Cold War, international cooperation was hampered due to geopolitical tensions and the flow of information was extremely limited. To break this deadlock, the idea of widespread dissemination of information to solve development problems came to the fore in the third session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
As a result, the United Nations General Assembly, in its 27th session, passed historic resolution number 3038 on 19 December 1972, laying the foundation of 'World Development Information Day'. Policy-makers such as Chidambaram Subramaniam and Adebayo Adedeji interacted at the first World Development Information Day conference held on 24 October 1973, and in October 1974, eminent economist John Kenneth Galbraith addressed the global forum.
According to the principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter, the basic objective of this day is that the ultimate objective of development is to continuously improve the welfare of every individual and extend its benefits to all sections of the society. The United Nations clearly underlines that development fails in its original purpose if unfair privileges, wealth inequality and social injustice persist in a society.
The central pillar of World Development Information Day is 'mobilisation of public opinion'. According to the United Nations, governments of developed countries have a responsibility to explain to their citizens the interdependence of global development and to provide resource and technology transfer to developing countries. Globally, 79 per cent of youth aged 15 to 24 years are using the internet, hence the need of the hour is to connect the digital energy of youth with creative development.
In this direction, India's 'Digital Public Infrastructure' (Aadhaar, UPI and India Stack) has emerged as a proven model for the developing world, being ranked among the top 10 most effective reforms in the world. In the context of UPI, which processed transactions worth more than US $ 1 trillion in the financial year 2021-22 alone, a World Bank study proves that banks joining this digital platform have registered 2 percent more growth.
–IANS
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