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Johanna Choumert-Nkolo, third from right, speaking during a panel discussion at the Global Development Conference 2025 in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
– During the Global Development Conference 2025, development experts and researchers kept warning that low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) were being pushed into a wave of digital transformation without the basic statistical systems, institutional capacity, and local context needed to ensure that AI and digital tools truly benefited the poor.
Among the prominent voices shaping this conversation were Dr. Johannes Jütting, Executive Head of the PARIS21 Secretariat at the OECD, and development economist Johanna Choumert-Nkolo, who has over 15 years of research and evaluation experience. IPS interviewed both Jutting and Choumert-Nkolo following the conference, which concluded about five weeks ago, about the issues surrounding digitalization in LMICs. Following is the summary of their responses.
How is Data the Weakest Link?
Much of the conversation around AI’s potential in the Global South centers on the promise of improved governance. But for Jutting, whose organization has been working on AI and data, there is a widening gap between the capacities of countries in the Global North and those in the Global South.
AI, he said, offers enormous potential. “For lower-income countries in particular, the production side is promising because AI can reduce the very high costs of traditional data collection. By combining geospatial data with machine learning, for instance, we can generate more granular and more timely data for policymaking, including identifying where poor populations live,” Jutting told IPS.
“But real challenges remain. Many low-income countries lack the fundamental conditions required to make use of AI. First, connectivity: without it, there is no practical AI application. Second, technical infrastructure such as data centers and reliable data transmission. Third, human capacity and skills, which require sustained investment. And fourth, governance and legal frameworks that must be updated to reflect new technologies,” he said.
There are also clear risks, particularly concerning confidentiality, privacy, and the fact that most large AI models are trained on data from the Global North, he told IPS and added that this creates potential biases and limits their usefulness for national statistical offices in the Global South.
Data collection processes, such as censuses and household surveys, are expensive, slow, and operationally difficult. According to him, many national statistical offices lack the workforce, training, and budget needed to maintain regular, reliable data production.
The challenge, he emphasized, is not simply technological.
“Digital transformation is not just a technology issue. It is a change management issue, a capacity development issue, a skills issue, and a political will issue.”
Dr. Johannes Jütting, second from right, speaking during a panel discussion at the Global Development Conference 2025 in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
Divide Within the Global South and Fiscal Constraints
While global debates often frame digital inequality as a problem between rich and poor nations, Jütting believes the more serious divide is emerging within the Global South itself. He argues that some LMICs are sprinting ahead while others fall further behind, a divergence he calls “one of the most worrying trends in development today.”
“What I see is a divide inside the Global South,” he said. “Countries like Rwanda, Kenya, the Philippines and Colombia are advanced—sometimes more advanced than OECD members. But others like Mali, Niger, and several small island states, are completely left behind.”
This divide is not only visible in connectivity and infrastructure but also in institutional readiness, technological skills and even access to basic demographic data. In some countries, he said, governments still lack reliable records of how many people are born each year or how many people live within their borders.
“How can we talk about fancy AI models when basic population data is missing?” he asked. “We have to start with the fundamentals.”
He also cautioned that development agencies may inadvertently widen this divide by focusing on “low-hanging fruits” that yield quick, measurable results, instead of supporting long-term system-building in fragile countries.
“There is donor fatigue, and funding is shrinking,” he said.
So, how do we move forward? First, Jutting said, every country needs a strong national strategy for the development of statistics (NSDS). This strategy must be fully aligned with national development plans, he said and added that only then can we ensure financing is efficient, coordinated, and aligned with country needs as well as international monitoring requirements, such as the SDGs or Africa’s Agenda 2063.
“Second, viable financing models will require greater domestic resource mobilization. Governments must be convinced to invest in their own data systems—and this requires demonstrating tangible impact.”
And third, he said, donors need to align their spending more effectively. “Our recent work on gender data financing shows a major disconnect: while gender equality funding is increasing, funding for gender data is not. This mismatch risks wasting money and undermining progress.”
He believes that there has to be a change on both fronts: national governments must allocate more domestic resources, and donors must invest in data in a more strategic, coherent, and results-oriented way.
Complexity of Measuring Digital Impacts
While Jütting focused on institutions and governance, Choumert-NKolo approached digitalization through the lens of climate resilience, human behaviour and evidence generation. Unlike many policy conversations that foreground tools and technologies, she emphasized the complexity of understanding real-world impacts.
“Digitalization is reshaping economies at a very fast pace,” she told IPS. “From a climate perspective, we need to understand what this means, both in terms of opportunities and risks.”
Her main concern is the long-term and layered nature of digital impacts. A digital tool deployed today may influence decisions in ways that take years to fully materialize.
“You never know how a tool will be used until people start making decisions with it,” she said. “Understanding behavioural change is complex, and attribution to one digital tool is extremely difficult.”
Despite these challenges, she emphasized that digital tools have significant potential to support climate adaptation. Farmers facing unpredictable weather patterns can benefit from climate information services delivered through mobile platforms. Communities vulnerable to storms or floods can receive alerts even through basic SMS networks. Such tools, she said, can save lives.
But she urged caution in assuming digital tools are universally accessible or understood.
“We must remember that not everyone can read or act on digital messages,” she said. “Literacy and accessibility gaps remain large in many countries.”
Her research experience in East Africa reinforced the importance of context. Mobile money, she said, became a major success story precisely because it solved local problems and fit local cultural and economic realities. But not every challenge requires a digital solution.
“Sometimes nature-based or low-cost solutions work better. The key is context. We must understand what problem we are trying to solve and whether digital tools are the right fit.”
She believes the way forward lies in identifying local needs, drawing from existing evidence and piloting new solutions where knowledge gaps remain. “There is a lot of hype around digitalization,” she said. “We need more comparative evidence on what works best in each setting.”
A Future That Must Be Shaped Carefully
One theme emerged with clarity from both experts: Digital transformation can support inclusive development, but only if countries invest in strengthening their statistical systems, building institutional capacity and grounding innovation in local realities.
“We need more and better data for better lives,” Jütting said. “But we must ensure the poorest countries are not left behind in this digital wave.”
Choumert-NKolo echoed that sentiment. “Digital tools offer huge opportunities,” she said. “But they must be rooted in context, evidence and local needs.”
For LMICs navigating the uncertainties of climate change, economic pressures and technological disruption, these warnings are timely. Digital transformation can be a powerful equalizer—or a new source of exclusion. The difference, experts said, will depend on whether governments and development partners prioritize the foundations that make digital inclusion truly possible.
- “Travel (for reporting this story) to the Global Development Conference was supported by GlobalDev, the research communications platform of the Global Development Network (GDN). The 2026 Global Development Conference was organized in partnership with other members of the Pôle clermontois de développement international (PCDI)—Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (FERDI) and Centre for International Development Studies and Research (CERDI). Reporting and research remain independent.”
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