Can Digital Infrastructure Drive Climate Resilience? Evidence from Pakistan

Abstract

Pakistan is one of the most disaster-prone nations of the world, but the amount of digital and innovation infrastructure and its disaster risk reduction (DRR) preparedness are inadequately studied in relation to each other. The research questions are: What is the relationship between internet penetration (H1), ICT infrastructure depth (H2), and the moderation of the two by government effectiveness (H3, H4) and DRR readiness measured as ND-GAIN Country Index Readiness Score. Based on the annual time-series data on Pakistan (2005–2023, N = 19), we approximate a set of OLS models with HC3 heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors with extensive pre- and post-estimation diagnostic testing. The findings indicate that ICT infrastructure depth is a robust, highly significant, and positive predictor of DRR readiness (b = +0.175, p < 0.001), which provides the best-fitting parsimonious model of all specifications estimated (adjusted R² = 0.685, AIC = −64.49). The direction of the internet penetration is positive but statistically non-significant in the primary model, which is explained by the presence of severe multicollinearity with the linear time trend and not by the actual lack of the effect. Government effectiveness moderation is directionally consistent with theory, i.e., the marginal payoff to internet penetration is about four times higher at high governance levels than at low governance levels, but fails to attain traditional levels of significance due to the small sample. The ongoing stagnation in governance in Pakistan during the study period indicates the possibility of a structural ceiling of the DRR returns that can be obtained by digital investment in isolation of concomitant institutional reform. These results are the first systematic econometric study of digital facilitators of AI-based climate risk management in Pakistan and have direct, practical implications on the ICT investment prioritisation, governance capacity building, and disaster preparedness policy.

Keywords: Disaster risk reduction, Digital capacity, ICT infrastructure, Government effectiveness, Pakistan, ND-GAIN, OLS, HC3, robust standard errors