COMMENT
Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, Secretary-General of UNCTAD.
The sharing economy is booming
on many accounts. Although most
peer-to-peer businesses are recent,
some such as Uber, Airbnb, eBay, have
evolved into multi-billion companies,
serving millions of clients and
expanding consumer choice.
However, the sharing economy’s net
impact remains unclear. It exposes
users to cybercrime. And it may
actually harm inclusiveness, as its
cost-cutting features risk (i) reducing
earnings of traditional firms, (ii)
providing fewer jobs with less job
security and fewer benefits than
traditional employment, and (iii)
publicly accepted quality standards.
The sharing economy also essentially
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exempts entire classes of businesses
from safety regulations or taxes just
because they provide their services
online. These worries concern
consumer protection and social
protection of the many part-time
employees that often provide peer-topeer services. Peer-to-peer transactions
also tend to erode tax revenues, which
hampers the public provision of basic
goods and services example water
and sanitation that the poor need,
but that the sharing economy does
generally not provide. Only universally
applicable regulation can address
these concerns.
A deeper understanding of the
changes taking place in our
economies, societies and cultures is
essential to harness the ICT-induced
transformations of economies and
societies for the SDGs. Going forward,
constructive international cooperation
will be vital to address a host of
emerging issues, from concerns
about cybercrime to questions of
inclusiveness and the fact that ICT
can magnify tax avoidance with
potentially worrying impacts on the
provision of basic goods and services.
At UNCTAD, we have been
addressing these issues, including
through serving as the secretariat
for the Commission on Science
and Technology for Development,
and will continue playing our role
in harnessing ICTs for sustainable
development.
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