bridging digital divide essay

How to build a bridge across the digital divide

Closing the gap. Image:  REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

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• The latest Agenda Dialogues looked at the issue of the digital divide.
• Panelists explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of the private sector and the opportunities for closing the gap.
• Here are some of the key quotes from the session.

The World Economic Forum's latest Agenda Dialogues looked at the challenge of closing the digital divide and ensuring equitable access to the opportunities that internet connectivity affords.

Taking part were: Paula Ingabire , Minister of Information and communications technology and Innovation of Rwanda; Omar bin Sultan Al Olama , Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Application of the United Arab Emirates; Achim Steiner , Administrator, United Nations Development Programme; Tan Hooi Ling , Co-Founder, Grab; Robert F. Smith , Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Vista Equity Partners; Adrian Lovett , President and Chief Executive Officer, World Wide Web Foundation.

The session was chaired by Børge Brende , President, World Economic Forum, and moderated by Adrian Monck , Managing Director, World Economic Forum.

Have you read?

Agenda dialogues: bridging the digital divide, take the 1 billion lives challenge to close the digital divide, bridging the digital divide to create the jobs of the future, covid-19 a 'catalyst' for digital transition.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transition, all the panelists agreed. As Paula Ingabire explained, it's been a 'catalyst' for digital transformation in many countries - both in fighting the pandemic and using digital tools to ensure essential services could continue.

But a digital divide and disparities persist, she added, and the current pace of digital adoption is exaggerating this divide.

And while technology helped tackle many of the challenges thrown up by the pandemic, there are broader issues still to tackle, explained Omar bin Sultan Al Olama. It's not enough to just give a child a tablet - you need to ensure their learning environment is appropriate, he said.

Access, in spite of the acceleration we've seen during the pandemic, remains a major hurdle though, the panel agreed.

A whole-society approach

Inclusion needs to be at the centre of the digital transformation, urged Achim Steiner. You need to consider society as a whole, he said. You need to build digital ecosystems that work for start-ups, for entrepreneurs, for coders and programmers, but also ensure people aren't left behind.

Connection alone isn't enough. Steiner asks: How can we build education systems that will allow young people to thrive in digital economies?

And meaningful connections are important, urged Ingabire and Adrian Lovett. It's not binary said Lovett - whether you're connected or not - it's about ensuring people have infrastructure they can rely on and a connection they can access regularly.

At the Davos Agenda 2021 , the World Economic Forum launched the EDISON Alliance , the first cross-sector alliance to accelerate digital inclusion and connect critical sectors of the economy.

Since then, the EDISON Alliance has successfully connected over 1 billion people globally — ahead of its initial 2025 target — to essential digital services in healthcare, education and finance in over 100 countries. The Alliance has also united a diverse network of over 200 partners from the public and private sectors, academia and civil society to create innovative solutions for digital inclusion.

Read more about the EDISON Alliance’s work in our Impact Story.

The potential of closing the gap

There are enormous opportunities if we can close the divide, from education to employment. There's 'massive economic impact' in uplifting communities, if we can take advantage, summarized Robert F. Smith.

And as Lovett explained, the returns on investment are significant - we just need the resources.

Digital technology also helped those who suffered the disruption caused by the pandemic, said Tan Hooi Ling . Her technology company Grab was able to offer a lifeline to many who had seen other forms of income disappear, she said.

"The economics of this works," summarized Al Olama. We just need people to understand the potential and to encourage the public and private sector to work together to convince investors.

The role of public-private partnerships

The panelists were united on the need for collaboration between the private and public sectors - and civil society, added Lovett .

The involvement of the private sector is already driving progress in the United States, explained Smith. There are already various initiatives underway to improve connectivity in communities around the country. And it's important that US businesses are encouraged to engage with the public sector.

This is true across the world, explained Tan . As a social enterprise, Grab asks itself how can it work together with other companies and with governments to create products and services that are really needed.

A "unified effort" is needed from the public and private sectors, believes Al Olama.

It's not a question of how one is better than the other, concluded Steiner . It's a question of how one can enable the other.

The World Economic Forum's EDISON Alliance is focused on ensuring everyone across the globe is able to affordably participate in the digital economy. You can read more about it here .

EDISON Alliance: What is the Forum doing to close the digital gap?

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Bridging the Digital Divide

• Open Access
• First Online: 21 December 2023

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• Anna Bon 8 ,
• Francis Saa-Dittoh 9 &
• Hans Akkermans 10  

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This chapter discusses the disparity in access to digital services, which exists between countries, regions, communities, and people in the world. This disparity is referred to as the digital divide. Digital information and communication are obviously of key importance for the development of countries and regions. However, different approaches exist to address this problem. In this chapter, from a digital humanist perspective, we explore practice-oriented digital design approaches to serve people and communities in currently unconnected regions of the world. We discuss how this might best be done, upholding ethical standards, inclusivity, and human-centered principles. To illustrate this in action, we present a case study from rural Ghana.

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1 introduction.

The digital divide refers to the disparity between countries, regions, and people in their access to digital services (Fuchs & Horak, 2008 ; Van Dijk, 2020 ; Potter et al., 2008 ; Mubarak, 2015 ; Bon, 2020 ). For example, in 2023, 57% of the African population is unconnected to the global digital society (Internet World Stats, 2023). This disparity is considered a global challenge. It is obvious that digital information and communication are of key importance for the development of countries and regions.

Different approaches exist to address the digital divide. Some approaches are technology-focused, seeking progress through technological advancement. Some approaches focus mainly on profits and economic growth. Other approaches are more human-centric, trying to achieve human well-being. Each approach reflects a different worldview or school of thought, with varying assumptions about the nature of development, the role of technology, and the desired outcomes of bridging the digital divide.

From a technology-focused perspective, not being connected is attributed to a lack of physical and digital infrastructure. Due to the absence of proper infrastructures in poor regions or countries, many people do not have access to digital services and content. This withholds their participation in the information society and hampers development. Rolling out digital infrastructure and making the Internet available to people in every corner of the planet is then the solution. The ensuing question is how to organize this.

From a slightly different perspective, the digital divide is only a snapshot in time, in an ongoing process of technological innovation and diffusion (Rogers, 2003 ). Poor regions are lagging but will soon catch up in their technological and organizational capacities and will adopt digital technologies at a later stage. This will lead to progress and bring economic development, at long last (De Janvry & Sadoulet, 2021 ; Taylor & Lybbert, 2020 ). The uptake of digital technologies by people in low-resource environments is seen as an opportunity, as this will create a new market segment for technology vendors and other markets. This market segment is referred to as the “bottom of the pyramid” (Prahalad, 2004 ; Heeks, 2008 ). Economic growth is the main justification for this approach.

Both perspectives—technology-focused or economy-focused—have one idea in common: digital technology is the motor for progress and development. Access to digital information and services will lead, from an “underdeveloped” situation to a situation of prosperity, like in the industrialized countries (Wicander, 2009 ). It is assumed that well-being will follow from technological and economic development and that prosperity will trickle down , naturally, to most people.

Alternative perspectives on the digital divide value a more human-centered standpoint. Digital humanism, decolonial theory, and grassroots initiatives are examples of human-centered approaches. They prioritize human well-being, social inclusion, equity, and emancipation above technology and profit.

In 2019, the Digital Humanism Initiative was launched in Vienna by a group of primarily European scientists, policy makers, and practitioners concerned about the disrupting impact of digital progress on society, economy, and the natural environment. The Vienna Manifesto for Digital Humanism was proclaimed as a call for ethics and humanism and as an antidote to technocratic approaches with their focus on merely technological innovation and economic growth (DIGHUM, 2019 ). The digital humanism movement is now supported by many scholars, politicians, and policy makers from around the world. It launched a debate about the purpose and the future of the digital society (DIGHUM, 2019 ). At the onset, the Digital Humanism Initiative focused on the societal issues of the digital society in the Global North, where it originated, but soon it embraced a cosmopolitan viewpoint, in which the Global South and the exclusion of people in low-resource environments are a central problem to be discussed and addressed.

A similar, and even more radical, perspective is found in decolonial studies, in which patterns of inequality, poverty and wealth, domination, and colonialism are explored and analyzed in society (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018 ; Mendoza, 2021 ). Decolonial theory offers an alternative lens to assess the digital divide and explore its root causes and origins, in the light of colonialism. The conjecture here is that the digital divide is inherently unfair because it excludes people. However, the idea also exists that digital technologies, if well designed, may be able to help improve certain aspects and overcome certain problems of people. Of course, these digital technologies must be, by design, respectful of human rights and human dignity and of local agency, culture, norms, and values.

Whereas academic studies, e.g., Lin et al. ( 2015 ) and De et al. ( 2018 ), express criticism about various aspects of the digital divide, only a few of these studies have been action oriented. Yet, from a digital humanism perspective, the purpose and goal are not only to discuss but also to influence policy, raise awareness, and call for practical, problem-solving action. An example could be an interdisciplinary study that combines action research, design science, and a human-centered approach to design technologies that support people and communities in low-resource environments. The persistent question is how this study can ensure fairness, ethics, and inclusion by design while at the same time being respectful at the autonomy and agency of local users, communities, and people.

This question will be discussed in the sections that follow. In Sect. 2 , we give a brief history of the digital divide. In Sect. 3 , we observe the digital divide through a decolonial lens, assessing roots, causes, and patterns of inequality. In Sect. 4 , we seek the requirements for inclusive, human-centered design. In Sect. 5 , we propose a human-centered methodology that combines action research, design science, and ethics perspective. We illustrate this through a case study from northern Ghana in Sect. 6 .

2 Short History of the Efforts to Bridge the Digital Divide

Since the 1990s, many efforts have been undertaken by the international community Footnote 1 including international organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations, UNESCO, national and international development agencies, numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and large private charity organizations to make digital technologies available for social and economic development of poor regions of the world. Despite large budgets and numerous projects in prestigious international development programs, a mismatch between technologies and the target environment often occurred (Bon, 2020 ). Many unsuccessful technology transfers resulted from blind optimism about the impact and reach of digital technologies, combined with poor understanding of local needs and context. Techno-optimism about digital technology culminated in the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society, in 2005, in Tunis, where heads of states from all around the world and global players in the big private technology sector came together, including Microsoft, HP, Nokia, and Intel (Berry, 2006 ; Qureshi, 2006 ). Goals were set during this summit, to roll out the Internet before the year 2020, in every corner of the planet.

Soon after 2005, it became clear that many ambitious, large-scale development projects were failing, especially in serving the poorest and least connected communities with digital technologies (Bon, 2020 ). Two examples are (i) the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, which started around 2008 and aimed to provide every schoolchild in the world with a laptop (Buchele & Owusu-Aning, 2007 ), and (ii) the Millennium Villages project, which started in 2005 and selected a small number of very poor and unconnected villages across African countries to pull them “out of poverty” by giving them an investment boost, transferring state-of-the-art Western technology, and connecting the communities to high-speed Internet (Sanchez et al. , 2007 ). Both the OLPC and the Millennium Villages project spent large sums but did not meet their objectives or expectations Footnote 2 . The failures of these and many other large-scale technology transfer projects tempered the initial techno-optimism of the international community.

Unexpectedly, it was not the Internet, but simple, mobile, voice-based telephony, rolled out by the telecom companies in many remote and poor regions to low-income communities of the world, that became a huge success and had a large impact for people’s lives at the so-called base of the pyramid (Kalba, 2008 ). For many poor people in urban or remote rural areas in developing countries, mobile telephony was their first digital experience and remote communication. The mobile telephony success was followed by an innovation called mobile money . This technological innovation, which only required a simple mobile phone—no smartphone or Internet connection—enabled people to deposit money on their cell phones and transfer it to other users of the service, without need for a bank account. Mobile money was first launched in 2007 in Kenya, as a truly African innovation by the local telecom operator Safaricom. This service registered 1.1 million users in the first 8 months after its inception (Mbiti & Weil, 2011 ). Soon, many countries in Africa followed, as Orange, Airtel, and many other telecom companies started providing mobile payment services to millions of previously unbanked citizens in Africa (Nan, 2019 ).

So, in the past two decades, the least developed countries in, e.g., sub-Saharan Africa have caught up very rapidly and entered the digital era. However, innovation and technology adoption often followed a different path than in the Global North. For example, many people in rural Africa skipped text-based systems and are now using asynchronous voice-based communication through voice messaging systems and social media apps, without ever having sent a written (text-based) email (Dittoh et al., 2020a , 2020b ).

Despite the positive impact of mobile telephony and mobile money for many people in rural Africa, the profits remained unequally shared. At the onset of the 2020s, many sub-Saharan countries were mainly consuming digital services but hardly developing or producing any.

From the point of view of infrastructure, only few data centers or Internet exchange hubs exist in sub-Saharan countries (Augustine, 2022 ). The data produced by African users are stored in the cloud, i.e., remote data centers Footnote 3 . The costs for data transport between users and the “cloud” make digital services more expensive in remote areas than, e.g., in urban centers. This is another example of inequality.

Technological innovation is moving fast. The technology leap in the second decade of the twenty-first century is based on data-driven artificial intelligent systems. Many new beneficial solutions are to be expected, e.g., for the development of speech recognition of local indigenous languages or for the digitalization and access to specific, contextual knowledge systems. Yet, big concerns exist, related to the deployment of generative AI.

People in countries in the Global South may be vulnerable to the spread of disinformation and digital surveillance. They may face infringement of their intellectual property rights, due to lack of legislation and governance of the digital sphere (DIGHUM, 2019 ). Since privacy rules and regulations such as GDPR are still not implemented in many African countries, there is no good protection of people’s identities, privacy, and data ownership. Especially people “at the base of the pyramid” may be less well informed and therefore more vulnerable to predatory technology firms and digital scams. Moreover, in the light of a rapidly involving technology like artificial intelligence, combined with a lack of policy and legislation in many countries in the Global South, this may result in a complete governance of the digital society, including the infrastructure, data, and technological know-how, to be concentrated in just a few current market-dominant private technological firms, also known as Tech Giants, such as Meta (Facebook), Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft.

3 The Digital Divide Through a Decolonial Lens

The digital world, where we socialize, interact, and take decisions, mirrors the physical world in many aspects. This includes patterns of inequality and domination, which are often referred to as “coloniality” (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018 ; Mendoza, 2021 pp. 46–54; pp. 1–12; Quijano, 2007 pp. 15–18; Hope, 2022 ). Decolonial theory helps uncover hidden patterns of domination within social structures. In this discussion, we explore a few examples from the digital society.

One common assumption, also found in the SDG9, is that many underdevelopment-related problems, e.g., in education and trade, will be solved, once Internet connections have been established. Yet is this a valid assumption? In the light of the concerns about artificial intelligence and the increasing concentration of knowledge and power, it is debatable whether the Internet will bring democracy, social justice, equality, and a sustainable and prosperous life to all people (Bon et al., 2022 ).

Let’s take the example of “free Internet”, offered by big tech firms, such as Google (Dahir, 2020 ), Starlink (Sapah, 2023 ), and Facebook (The Guardian, 2016 ), to people in low-resource environments. These initiatives will ultimately connect many people, even in remote low-resource environments, to the digital backbones for free. However, we must question what “free Internet” means in a capitalist world. The revenues of the large technology companies rely on extracting value from personal data, people’s Web browsing preferences, by tracking their entire online behavior using AI algorithms. Users are often unaware of the exploitation of their personal data. This business model of extracting value from the people’s online behavior has been criticized by Shoshana Zuboff in her book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019), for which she introduced the term “behavior surplus.”

Another aspect of decolonial critique is the hegemony of the Internet as a network standard. While the Internet can be seen as a global common, a platform to share information, access opportunities, and collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries, as discussed earlier, it has disadvantages. Choosing not to be part of this network results in isolation, for the non-user. This characteristic of standards and networks, which is described by Grewal ( 2008 , pp. 20–28), makes the Internet a hegemonic system without escape, despite the price users, communities, and even countries pay with money or data, to access it.

Geolocation and governance of digital infrastructures are also aspects related to coloniality. The digital society is heavily concentrated, physically, economically, and socially, in the Global North. The commercialization of digital technologies, influenced by this centralization, further channels the profits from innovations in the Global South to investors (Zuboff, 2019 , pp. 63–96). Governance and decision-making in this realm are predominantly controlled by private tech firms, operating under norms and regulations from countries in the Global North. Unequal competition in terms of storage, connectivity, funding, and adoption also hinders start-ups in the Global South (Bon et al., 2022 ).

In many countries, big tech firms and telecom providers are assuming public roles and functions traditionally held by the state, such as in healthcare, education, and infrastructure. Through philanthropic gifts and corporate social responsibility, digital services are provided in exchange for data, market penetration, tax savings, branding, and policy influence. Youngsters are often targeted by big tech companies with media, music, video, entertainment, and news (Pini, 2020 , pp. 37–40).

Coloniality is also evident in artificial intelligence (AI). Machine learning algorithms, previously assumed to be objective and value-free, have been found to harbor many discriminating biases (Mohamed et al., 2020 , pp. 659–663). These biases are often concealed in the underlying data. Trivial examples include visualization programs that autonomously lighten the complexion of black and Asian faces or smart doors that, based on facial recognition algorithms, only open for white faces while remaining closed for a person with dark skin, as the machine learning algorithm fails to recognize them as a person. These racial biases can emerge unexpectedly in autonomous smart systems. If these algorithmic biases are not properly addressed, they will further perpetuate inequalities and injustice against certain groups and individuals (Mohamed et al., 2020 , pp. 659–663).

The aforementioned discussion highlights the concerns regarding coloniality, domination, biases, and injustice. If left unaddressed, these issues will result in a digital society that is exclusive, unethical, and, from various perspectives, reminiscent of neo-colonialism.

It is crucial to recognize that innovation in digital technologies is not an autonomous process, but one driven by deliberate choices. Methodologies from information systems engineering provide flexible and powerful approaches for designing and fostering open innovation. Action research with its long-standing tradition of improving real-world situations adds to it the human-centered and ethical aspects. In the following section, we will delve into the discussion of how information and communication technologies can be designed in a human-centered manner.

4 Requirements for a Human-Centered Approach

When exploring alternative approaches to serve communities and individuals in low-resource environments, which principles are required?

The foremost and crucial principle is that digital technologies should not cause harm to anyone. It is imperative that digital services align with the objectives and goals defined by the local people and users. To achieve this, local users must actively participate in decision-making processes regarding the goals and objectives of the digital service.

Secondly, digital technology must be adaptable in a flexible way to the local context, enabling it to overcome local barriers. These barriers can include language, literacy, limited infrastructure availability, local purchasing power, or other context-related issues.

Thirdly, there must be local ownership of data and the protection of local domain knowledge and intellectual property. This is essential to prevent compromise or misuse of these valuable assets. In the case of co-design, ownership of the designed artifacts should also be shared. Research data should not be automatically owned by the researcher or published without permission or consent.

In summary, the development of digital services for unconnected people or communities in low-resource environments should be conducted in collaboration with local users. Since software developers and engineers often lack familiarity with the low-resource locations in question, significant emphasis is placed on communication between users and developers through collaborative workshops and co-design sessions.

In the next section, we will describe a methodology and approach that was developed in the field from 2009 to 2019 through an action research program named W4RA—the Web Alliance for Regreening in Africa (W4RA, 2023 ). The program’s objective is to support local smallholder farmers in three West African countries, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ghana, by designing digital technologies to help them achieve their objectives. The approach is referred to as Information and Communication Technologies for Development, version 3.0 , abbreviated as ICT4D 3.0 (Bon, 2016 ).

5 Combining Action Research, Design Science, and Ethics Perspective

ICT4D 3.0 represents a grassroots approach to bridging the digital divide, offering an alternative to the prevailing, economic growth-oriented approach to bridging the digital divide. This incumbent approach is described by Richard Heeks ( 2008 ) as “a new opportunity for ICT vendors to harness digital innovation and serve the world’s poor, profitably,” in an article, titled “ICT4D 2.0: The Next Phase of Applying ICT for International Development . ”

ICT4D 2.0 was presented by Heeks as a great improvement to the previous approaches, in which off-the-shelf digital technologies were transferred to poor regions, often with limited success (2008, p. 26).

In contrast to its predecessors, ICT4D 3.0 positions itself as a human-centered, grassroots methodology for designing digital technologies based on users’ needs. It follows a five-step framework:

Context analysis—understanding the users’ environment

Needs assessment—understanding the user’s goal

Use case and requirements analysis—defining and specifying a feasible digital solution

Prototyping, engineering, and deployment of a digital service

Sustainability analysis—exploring the local business ecosystem to ensure the long-term availability of the service

ICT4D 3.0 is a goal-oriented approach, striving for a certain improvement for its envisaged users. A conceptual visualization of this approach can be represented as a goal-strategy map (Fig. 1 , cf. (Rolland, 2007 )), where each colored ellipse signifies an intention to be achieved through corresponding actions. The process is iterative and adaptable, allowing for adjustments based on new information.

ICT4D 3.0 as a collaborative, iterative, adaptive approach to digital development in low-resource environments. From: Bon, A. (2020, p. 204, Intervention or Collaboration — Redesigning Information and Communication Technologies for Development , Amsterdam: Pangea)

Emancipation, autonomy, and inclusion are the core values ICT4D 3.0 strives to achieve. It has undergone continuous evaluation and validation by its users in the field (Bon, 2020 ). Importantly, it can be considered a decolonial approach as it empowers users to make decisions rather than having external parties impose solutions upon them.

6 Tiballi: A Case Study of AI and Data Science for Farmers in Ghana

A case study that illustrates the ICT4D 3.0 approach in a community-oriented, transdisciplinary research project is Tiballi , a research project, set up in 2023 in northern Ghana (Tiballi, 2023 ; Dittoh et al., 2021 ). Tiballi explores how artificial intelligence—and more specifically machine learning and natural language processing—can serve people in a low-resource environment. Tiballi’s envisaged users are proficient in a local, under-resourced African language only; they have low incomes, low literacy skills, and limited access to the Internet.

Tiballi’s project goal aligns with an explicit wish of farmers in northern Ghana to have access to rainfall data, as this information is essential in rain-fed agriculture, but often not accessible. These wishes were collected during workshops and focus group discussions; see Fig. 2 . In these meetings, it becomes clear that (a lack of) Internet access is not the only barrier for the community to use digital services. It is also important to provision locally relevant information in the language and modality people are familiar with, such as radio or simple voice-based phones.

Tiballi project’s needs assessment, during a focus group discussion in the village of Tingoli, community of Nyankpala, Ghana. Photograph by Gideon Amakama Ali (18 February 2023)

In the Tiballi project, rainfall data are collected in the field and combined with global weather and climate information available on the Web. The combined result is made available to the local community members in their language, through voice-based phone access or local radio (Baart et al., 2018 ). Automatic voice response and interaction is constructed from vocabularies which are collected in the community and processed with AI. Figure 2 shows a focus group discussion with farmers in the Tingoli village in northern Ghana.

In short, to deliver the requested information to the community, the Tiballi project aims to:

Collect and store real-time weather, for example, the cumulative rainfall over the season.

Develop an automatic speech recognition system in the local language Dagbanli. It uses a previously developed method to resource small languages, in which a machine learning model is trained with a relatively small, locally collected dataset.

Develop a voice-based application that combines limited vocabulary text-to-speech and automatic speech recognition in Dagbanli language. This will enable users to interact with the system by phone and receive requested information, every day (Stan et al., 2022 ).

Develop and deploy a voice-based platform, based on inexpensive, small hardware, to provide the service, also in the absence of Internet access and avoid high costs of broadband connectivity (Baart et al., 2019 ).

7 Discussion on Critical and Societal Issues

In the previous sections, we proposed a collaborative, iterative, adaptive approach to digital development, aligned with inclusion and an ethics perspective. Yet, this approach may have its limitations, for example, related to sustainability or costs of digital services. It is important to continuously evaluate and critically reflect before, during, and after the project period. Deliberation and discussions with its users and beneficiaries on their personal experiences and opinions are essential.

Technological innovation can be a rapid process. Huge developments are taking place in (distributed, cloud, edge) computing, social media, blockchain technology, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and data science. It is important to continuously reassess potential positives and negatives of technologies introduced in low-resource environments. We as researchers, ICT professionals, and global citizens must be aware of our responsibility, to care for the present and the future of the digital society.

From the ideas in this chapter, we propose to support the lives and work of people in low-resource environments through co-design. Yet, this small-scale approach needs dissemination to scale up, for example, by training young professionals at European and African universities and by bringing together a community of developers and contributors.

For a societally oriented community of developers, it may be challenging to deliver, in a sustainable way, competitive digital services to low-resource environments. The strong monopolization by big technology firms with technologically advanced services, and backed by big investors, puts up high barriers for the smaller parties. Yet, niches exist—especially in less wealthy regions—that are still unserved.

This endorses the idea that deliberate choices can be made toward a better and more inclusive digital society, guided by social engagement, and encourage human-centered innovation, quoting the Vienna Manifesto 2019: “calling for a Digital Humanism that describes, analyzes, and, most importantly, influences the complex interplay of technology and humankind, for a better society and life, fully respecting universal human rights” Footnote 4 (DIGHUM, 2015).

8 Conclusions

Whereas, from the previous discussions, it is evident that, from a macro-economic and geopolitical perspective, there are no easy fixes to bridge the digital divide as a problem of global scale between regions and countries, we propose to develop small-scale grassroots approaches. We stress the importance of collaboration, at all levels.

Firstly, at the international policy level—in platforms and think tanks such as the Digital Humanism Initiative—representatives of communities in the least connected countries and regions in the Global South must be included, to make their perspectives visible, create awareness of the existing problems, and inform the public debate about the needs of people in low-resource environments.

Secondly, at the level of research and education, collaboration and exchange of knowledge is needed between universities (north-south and south-south). Research programs must be developed that are context oriented. Students must be trained through community service-oriented research and technology development.

Finally, it is important to innovate in technologies in and for people in low-resource environments and develop transdisciplinary research methodologies. In the paragraphs above, we discussed community-oriented, collaborative action research and socio-technical software development. While the exchange of ideas between developers and users can offshoot innovation in low-resource environments in unexpected ways, it can also be a source of inspiration for new forms of collaborative knowledge production.

Discussion Questions for Students and Their Teachers

What does it mean when it is said that the digital space is colonized ?

What are the problems when digital technologies are transferred from industrialized countries to developing countries, and what would be the alternatives to digital development?

What are the decolonial aspects of digital technologies that reflect patterns from the social and physical world? Think of examples that are not mentioned in this chapter.

What is the fundamental difference between the critical realism perspective and the action research/design science perspective on the challenges related to the digital divide?

What are the five main contextual challenges for the design of digital services, of the low-resource environment in the Tiballi case study in northern Ghana, and how does the given framework ICT4D 3.0 address these challenges?

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Acknowledgment

The case study of the Tiballi research project, described in this section, is funded by the Internet Society through a research grant in 2023. Also, the authors have received some funding from the EU program Erasmus+ for the field visits and the elaboration of educational modules, which have resulted in this chapter.

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Bon, A., Saa-Dittoh, F., Akkermans, H. (2024). Bridging the Digital Divide. In: Werthner, H., et al. Introduction to Digital Humanism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45304-5_19

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Fixing the global digital divide and digital access gap

Subscribe to the center for technology innovation newsletter, landry signé landry signé senior fellow - global economy and development , africa growth initiative.

July 5, 2023

• 11 min read

The digital divide was further thrown into the spotlight after the pandemic shifted all aspects of life—from work to education to socializing—online at an unprecedented pace. During this time, the world experienced an internet spike , with 466 million people using the internet for the very first time in 2020. The number of global internet users and the percentage of internet penetration continued to grow from 2021 to 2022 at 7% and 6% respectively. While this growth indicates that progress has been made in digital access, the fact remains that as of 2022, 2.7 billion people, representing a third of the world, do not have access to the internet and 53% of the world does not have access to high-speed broadband , leading to the risk of compounding negative effects in terms of economic, political, and social inclusion and equality. These trends make it plain that policymakers should care about addressing the global digital divide, and pay attention to the continental differences that exist around technology access and use.

The area of digital access and divides is a complex and multifaceted issue. Like many current complex issues, digital divides do not have a single cause or linear effect, and they involve multiple dynamic variables. Furthermore, the challenges digital divides present are constantly changing as the social and economic use of technology continues to evolve.

Looking at access to internet and mobile devices alone, there are several layers of division. The geographic location of the 2.7 billion unconnected varies greatly by region: Internet penetration is 89% in Europe, over 80% in the Americas, and 70% in the Arab States, compared to 61% in Asia and 40% in Africa. Disparities in internet connectivity and use are not limited to geographic divides, but also include gaps based on gender, age, and, rural vs. urban populations. As of 2022, there are 264 million fewer women accessing the internet than men, with women 7% less likely to own a mobile phone and 16% less likely to use mobile internet than men. Younger populations are more likely to be online as well, with 75% of global youth (aged 15-24) connected to the internet, compared to 65% of the rest of the population. In 2021, the number of internet users in urban areas was double the number in rural areas. These disparities in access to internet and mobile devices are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the complexities and inequalities that exist within other areas of the digital divide.

To navigate this complexity, it is critical to understand that the “digital divide” does not just include the divide between those with access to the internet or mobile devices and those without, but is made up of additional overlapping divides in digital skills, digital use, quality of infrastructure, access to content, etc. The United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU) organizes its goals for bridging the digital divide into two buckets: universal connectivity and meaningful connectivity. The layers within these two goals can be further broken down into multiple types of access as presented in Table 1: physical, financial, socio-demographic, cognitive, institutional, political, and cultural.

The complexities of digital access must be situated within the broader effects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as I show in my book, Africa’s Fourth Industrial Revolution , which discusses 4IR drivers and barriers across African countries. Here, I detail the risk of divides between developing and advanced economies across other factors such as gaps in research, infrastructure, and education as well as their cyclical effects: As advanced economies improve conditions for the digital economy, more 4IR investments are diverted solely to the developed world, leading developing countries to fall even further behind. This cycle is similar to the dynamics at play in other societal inequalities , in which economic incentive structures lead to value being added only for those with access. ​ ​ My work also shows that the digital divide is not only interstate but also intrastate—even when developing regions or countries acquire and adopt 4IR technologies, they risk exacerbating domestic inequalities due to the cost of technology and the rural-urban infrastructure divide. Reducing such intranational inequality is critical for development, as more equal countries tend to have greater political stability and resilience and are less likely to be fragile or prone to civil conflict.

A notable gap in the literature on digital divides is the relative lack of research on the broader effects of digital divides on structural transformation in developing countries specifically. Much of the research is focused on these effects (such as labor market disruptions) in developed countries, where digital technologies have historically been more concentrated. A report, “ Digitalization and Digital Skills Gaps in Africa: An Empirical Profile , ” addresses this lack of theoretical and empirical research on developing countries by presenting a Digitalization Index & Digital Skills Index that takes into account key factors in the digital economies of developing countries and evaluates vulnerabilities within these factors on a country-level basis. This kind of research meets a critical need, given the unique economic and labor market conditions of developing countries as well as their specific development trajectories, which do not necessarily match the experience of developed countries. More research will be needed on the digital transformation within different political economies to bridge the gap between policy and successful implementation.

Why is it so complex to fix the global digital divide and digital access gap?

Navigating the complexity of digital divides can be extremely difficult, especially given the unique circumstances and systems particular to each country, which renders one-size-fits-all policy prescriptions inadequate. However, the cross-border nature of the issue makes it one whose solutions require global consensus. As I discuss in my book, Africa’s Fourth Industrial Revolution, the 4IR is transforming all areas of economic, political, social, and diplomatic life, requiring coordinated action between governments, academic institutions, the private sector, and regional and intergovernmental bodies.

Global consensus will be critical, as the digital future cannot and should not be decided by governments or technology companies alone. As the digital divide between developed and developing countries increases and more technology companies emerge in developed countries, the power and leverage of developed countries to decide on the digital future will increase, leaving more and more of the perspectives and concerns of developing countries out of the conversation.

One prevailing challenge that may be ripe for global consensus is ​ ​ the lack of alignment between stakeholders such as governments, technology companies, start-ups, nonprofits, etc. on the root causes, definitions, issues, and consequences of the digital divide and the overall digital economy. Without standardization, collaboration has been difficult, as each player has a limited view of the problem. Intergovernmental bodies can play a convening role and can lead with a systems thinking approach to offer a holistic view of the problem.

​ ​ ​ Geopolitical tensions pose another challenge and potential risk, especially as technology becomes a centerpiece of power struggles, as we have seen in the rising tensions between the United States and China. Strong and broad global collaboration and consensus will be critical in order to uphold a commitment to the public good even amidst these types of tensions. Geopolitical variables will likely take on increased importance , especially as developing countries may be vulnerable to giving up digital sovereignty when it comes to infrastructure or ownership of data.  

Fixing the global digital divide and digital access gap: Opportunities and existing initiatives

There have been and continue to be a wide array of approaches for mitigating and solving the issue of digital divides. Digital divide policy was previously dominated by a focus on increasing access to infrastructure, but recently it has expanded to include building digital skills, closing usage gaps, and strengthening social awareness of the internet.

Several initiatives and strategic plans from intergovernmental bodies and private companies are already in place to address these pressing issues. Each stakeholder plays a different role and brings different tools to the table. The World Bank has extensive experience working directly with countries and regions through multiple programs that leverage capacity building, technical assistance, and stakeholder connections, including the Digital Development Partnership , which offers advisory services, knowledge products, and convening services between governments, the private sector, and other stakeholders; the Digital Development Global Practice , which works directly with governments of developing countries to build the foundation for inclusive digital transformation; and other region-specific initiatives such as the Digital Economy for Africa (DE4A) initiative and the Africa Digital Moonshot Initiative, which aims to “enable digital access” to everyone in Africa by 2030.

The United Nations also has specific initiatives related to expanding access and infrastructure, such as its Broadband Commission, led by ITU and UNESCO and committed to universal connectivity; its Giga Initiative, which aims to connect every school to the internet; and UNHCR’s Innovation Service, which promotes digital access for refugees, among many others . The United Nations also plays a key role in broadening the conversation to provide a holistic picture of other factors and considerations in a global forum. For example, the UN Commission on the Status of Women is contributing to embedding gender inclusivity into all aspects of the digital economy, including by taking a deep dive into access, use, design, and monitoring of technology through the lens of gender . By making this the theme of 2023, the Commission is playing a key role in mainstreaming inclusivity into the conversation.

Meanwhile, private actors are also working on their own initiatives to solve various components of the issue—from Space X’s Starlink, which is expanding broadband to remote areas across the globe, to Google’s Next Billion Users initiative, which aims to create digital products and experiences based on user research. Such private initiatives are typically more targeted to one or two aspects of the digital divide—for example, as access to infrastructure or developing digital skills—and can be a great source of funding, particularly for resource-constrained public sectors.

The road ahead to fixing the digital divide and access gap: strategies and ways forward

While an abundance of work is being done on the topic, stronger global collaboration remains a key goal to accelerate progress and ensure these various efforts are complementing, rather than undermining, one another.   

The rise of country-level and regional strategic plans is an indication of what seems to be working: addressing the digital divide by connecting it to other national challenges and goals. For example, the African Union’s Digital Transformation Strategy has been a driving force for progress on the continent by focusing on policy goals based around foundational pillars to support the digital ecosystem as illustrated in Figure 1.

Another example is the Digital India Programme, an ambitious national strategy aimed at achieving similar goals of digital infrastructure, digital empowerment, and on-demand digital governance/services that align with other economic and social goals across the country. So far, this effort has been extremely successful in connecting its citizens to services through robust investment in infrastructure and broadband, with great spillover effects, including reducing poverty from 22% in 2012 to 16% in 2019.

These strategic plans also ultimately facilitate implementation, as they are rooted in local problems, strengths, and overall contexts. Initiatives from the World Bank, UN, development banks, companies, and other players can help further accelerate progress and implementation success by partnering directly with the governments and leaders of countries and regions based on these strategies, which indicate their political willingness. These strategies can also help direct investment to the most needed areas depending on context—something best understood by country leadership itself.

Implementation and inclusivity will be key going forward. ​ ​ As I point out in my book , the voices of the global South, particularly youth, who will be driving the digital transformation, have been missing from these conversations. Their inclusion will be essential to overcoming digital divides in a sustainable, inclusive, and equitable way. This signals the need for greater inclusion of the voices of the global South in these discussions to steer the conversation as well as the greater inclusion of youth, who will be driving the digital transformation.

Overall, the key will be figuring out how to best embed inclusivity within every single step and variable of the digital transformation and the ever-evolving digital economy—from building infrastructure to expanding digital finance platforms to promoting entrepreneurship, and everything in between.

This article builds on Professor Landry Signé’s most recent book, Africa’s Fourth Industrial Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2023). The article was prepared as part of New America’s Digital Futures Task Force , for which Professor Landry Sign é is Working Group Lead for Digital Access and Divides.

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