Pathways team arrives in New Delhi ahead of GDN conference sessions

Pathways academic director Stefan Dercon has arrived in New Delhi, along with Policy and Outreach Manager Toby Phillips and Research and Policy Officer Sophie Ochmann, ahead of the upcoming Pathways events at the 18th Global Development Conference.

The team have a busy few days ahead - on March 23 Stefan will be making a keynote address on how improved digital technologies may hinder or help poor people to be more included in the labor market. He will discuss an economic framework to assess this, along with the evidence that is emerging, as well as the key issues that need to be considered for appropriate policy responses.

You can watch the keynote address here: http://www.gdn.int/live at 09:00 IST on March 23.

Also on 23 March, the team will be holding a panel session on Including the Poor in the Digital Age. The panel team consists of: Anit Mukherjee (Center for Global Development), Ron Abraham (IDinsight, Delhi), Reetika Khera (IIT Delhi, India), Neeraj Trivedi (Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD), Delhi), Prakhar Misra (IDFC Institute), and Francois Bourguignon (Paris School of Economics, France). The discussion will be moderated by Stefan Dercon, and will discuss some of the opportunities and challenges related to including poor and vulnerable people in the digital age via social programmes.

This is sure to be a lively discussion, and well worth watching. We will be live streaming this event from 11:30 IST on March 23.

Lastly, there will be a closed session, which will not be recorded and will aim to find common ground on two themes:

1. What could be done in India to take advantage of and improve Aadhaar and aspects the emerging digital infrastructure for benefits and service delivery, but also what steps could be taken to ensure the poorest will be most appropriately included?
2. What are the lessons for other countries from the way India approached the infrastructure, the enrolment, the regulation and more?

We hope you can tune in, and look forward to sharing the outcomes and lessons from these sessions!

Please note that if you cannot attend the conference or view the keynote or panel sessions live, you will still be able to view the recordings of these two sessions on our website at a later date.