Digitalisation towards Sustainable Development

Digitalisation towards Sustainable Development brings together contributions from researchers across Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia to examine one of the defining questions of contemporary global policy: how does digital transformation impact sustainable development and how it can be governed in the public interest?

Drawing on empirical research conducted within the EU Horizon-funded PRODIGEES project, the volume offers a genuinely comparative perspective, contrasting experiences from the European Union with those of Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa. It argues that digitalisation is neither an automatic pathway to sustainability nor an inevitable source of harm, but a contested transformation process whose outcomes depend on governance arrangements, institutional capacities, and the distribution of power between states, firms, and communities. Organised around four thematic parts – framing the digital turn, governing digitalisation, reshaping sectoral pathways, and contesting digital orders – the volume covers artificial intelligence, digital public infrastructure, platform economies, central bank digital currencies, environmental monitoring, space technology partnerships, disinformation, and cultural production.

Directly engaged with policy debates around the UN Global Digital Compact, the G20 digital agenda, and the SDGs, the book is essential reading for postgraduate students, researchers, and policy professionals working at the intersection of digital governance, sustainable development, and global affairs.