In the current scenario, when everything is locked or shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Offices, malls, cinemas, gyms, and businesses are shut down and people are working from home. Now, everything is going towards technology. People use gadgets to work from home, now gadgets are more important for working rather than meetups. Seminars converted into Webinars. Before this pandemic, no one even thinks that they can operate their offices from home, they can run their businesses from the digital market. Now, the world knows the importance of digitalization. Every country is planning programs related to increasing more usage of digitalization in their countries. The digital economy is estimated to be worth more than USD 11 trillion and is expected to grow more in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to this rapidly increasing graph of the digital economy, now countries collaborate with different nations to work jointly in the field of digitalization.
Recently, Saudi Arabia join forces with four nations to launch the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO). The DCO has been established under an initiative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that has also invited other countries to join as founding members, including Bahrain, Pakistan, Jordan, and Kuwait. The DCO aims to strengthen the collaboration among member nations as they adapt to a global economy increasingly defined by technological innovation and also set up to promote the vision of a digital future for the countries.
Last week, DCO was unveiled at a digital launch event attended by a variety of key players in the region, such as the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union, Houlin Zhao, and the President of the World Economic Forum, Borge Brende. In this situation, Abdullah Al-Swaha, Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology, talked about the importance of the organization. He said:
“We are joining hands together toward a commitment to drive consensus on digital cooperation to make sure that we seize an opportunity for our youth, our women and our entrepreneurs with the ambition to grow our combined digital economy to $1 trillion in the next three to five years”
Borge Brende, the President of the World Economic Forum also appreciate this initiative and he said:
“I think the GCC countries and governments have been extremely successful in doing so; they set up a lot of funds. They injected a lot of funds into startups and helped them grow and led to the different success stories that we hear about today.”
The DCO, driven by a mission to soon digitize these nations, seeks to inspire today’s women, youth, and entrepreneurs to help policymakers realize a digital economy for their respective countries and to come up with imaginative and groundbreaking solutions to the challenges that their people face every day. The launch of the DCO follows the conclusion of the Saudi Arabian G20 Presidency to sustain the momentum of the Kingdom to promote the development of the digital economy around the country and across the globe, as nations everywhere expand their acceptance of remote learning, telemedicine, and contactless economic structures to survive and prosper beyond the social and economic effects of COVID-19.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, H.E. Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi added:
“Pakistan is privileged to be a founding member of the Digital Cooperation Organization and to work closely with our partners to guide and lead a global digital agenda.”
The event also featured a group of leading private sector startups from the area who addressed their role in driving digital transformation. They expressed views on future possibilities for crowdsourcing ideas and technologies between policymakers and the public as well as issues in terms of the policy, workforce skills, global competitiveness, technology, and financing.
One of the things the world had learned in 2020, is that economies are as strong as their digital economies. In the present era, your digital economy is the top priority for every government. Countries need to focus to initiate such programs that promote or allow entrepreneurs, women empowerment, and the freelancers community because they are the backbone of the digital economy. Now, collaboration is a major factor, we have to make up teams, we have to join hands with other nations, we have to engage our entrepreneurs before making any policies.
DCO’s main objective is to develop such programs that increase the digital economy throughout different regions. DCO also approaches different entrepreneurs to make collaborate with the organization and work together for the betterment of the digital economy. Up till now, the aim and objective of this organization is the demand of the current situation and I also believe that if the organization sticks with their plans, this organization will surely give some major impact on the digital economy in the coming years. The DCO can prove to be an excellent strategic step soon for the five countries involved, and possibly many other countries and regions that choose to join the organization.
