Harnessing E-Commerce for sustainable development

As the digital economy expands and touches more business activities, it is important to consider how policies can help to harness e-commerce for sustainable development. This chapter examines the potential of developing countries to engage in and benefit from the expansion of e-commerce. It presents recent estimates of the value of global e-commerce, identifies related opportunities and challenges, gauges the e-commerce divide, and considers the extent to which countries are ready to engage in e-commerce. Finally, it identifies key policy areas to be addressed in national e-commerce strategies and highlights the need for more concerted policy efforts to support developing countries in this area. It discusses how to create synergies and greater scale in the overall efforts of the international community to enable more countries to engage in and benefit from e-commerce, and considers how aid for trade can support the strengthening of e-commerce readiness in developing countries.