The paper highlights the following key messages:
• The pandemic underscored the vital role of ICT in the crisis’s periods. Various Digital tools
helped governments to slow down the spread of COVID-19 via e.g. monitoring of people’s
contacts, the real-time observation of quarantine periods, emergency communication and
supporting overstretched healthcare systems. Internet access helped to firms, institutions and
individuals to continue business and study through restructuring their work towards remote mode
of operation.
• Pandemic has also revealed the yawning gap between under-connected and hyper-digitalized
states in Asia and the Pacific, with those that are less digitally equipped are more vulnerable to
the devastating effects of the pandemic.
• The paper underscores importance of a resilient ICT infrastructure with two mains aspects of e-resilience: ICT for its own resilience and ICT for societal resilience, which are interdependent and are especially critical in times of crisis. Strengthened ICT infrastructure and improved access to Internet would ease the response and societal resilience to the possible future
crises, as for example current COVID-19 pandemic, and ensure the post-crises recovery phase.
• It’s important for governments to have a tool helping to assess the resilience (or vulnerability)
of their digital infrastructure. It includes the importance to measure e-resilience from different
perspectives (e.g. technological, human, political, etc.), in order to help countries better
understand their strength and weakness and in turn develop effective policies.