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Digital Villages Initiative in Asia and the Pacific

Digital Village: Wusi Town (China)

Wusi Village, China, employs the 'Digital Village on One Map' platform to integrate smart governance, improve public services, and address community challenges, setting an example for digital transformation in rural areas across the country.

Wusi village is located in Deqing county in the prefecture-level city of Huzhou, Zhejiang province, and spans an area of over 5 square kilometers with a total population of just over 1 600 people. The village has achieved a collective economic income of more than CNY 8 million at the local level, and a disposable income of CNY 57 000 per capita for rural residents. It has received several national honors. Wusi village has struggled with high visitor traffic and bureaucracy, making it challenging to achieve full villager coverage with just the efforts of village committee members and grid clerks. To address this issue, Wusi village has taken the lead in adopting the approach of ‘comprehensive perception of Wusi village with one map’.

Digital Ecosystem

The Wusi village initiative in adopting a digital, data-led rural governance model integrates all rural resources and industry information into an electronic map with various information links and many available services, such as dynamic monitoring of village conditions, online investment promotion, village organization services and more. Beginning in 2019, the project was directly led by the secretary of Deqing County Committee and implemented by the Deqing Big Data Bureau and the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Its main objective is to visualize the dynamics of planning and operation, environmental protection, services and governance of rural areas.

The ‘Digital Village on One Map’ has adopted a top-level design, incremental development and an iterative upgrade methodology. The system mobilizes different sectors to co-build practical applications for various scenarios. With a focus on promoting rural governance and services by meeting problem-oriented needs and constructing a complete rural governance and service system, the village is committed to continuously enriching products, innovating business models, strengthening functionalities and building user-friendly digital applications that are easily accessible and more efficient. These efforts ultimately aim to meet the development needs of the village and the daily life requirements of the villagers.

Digital Innovation

To date, the system has identified and resolved over 100 000 problems, and collected and responded to over 200 000 pieces of feedback from the villagers, establishing a closed-loop livelihood governance chain. The rural governance model has thus shifted from government-led governance to joint governance involving multiple parties, including villagers. With regards to governance, social governance has been more precise and efficient. Platforms such as ‘I, Deqing’ and ‘Digital Village on One Map’ have enabled the automated discovery of issues. A closed-loop system has been formed for automated remedies including water control, the demolition of illegal structures and the improvement of human settlements. The focus is also on providing comprehensive services for villagers’ everyday lives. Measures have been taken to promote mobile government services that enable convenient access to services related to smart healthcare, smart transportation and smart elderly care.

Photo Credit: FAO

At present, the ‘Digital Village on One Map’ innovation of Wusi village has been popularized and applied in many places in the province, including, but not limited to, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Anhui.

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Digital Villages Initiative in China
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Digital Villages in China