The Alliance for Affordable Internet “Affordability Report 2021” has revealed that despite the impact of ICTs, vast inequalities persist throughout the globe with women, especially rural women, mostly excluded from the ‘digital revolution.
According to the Report which was recently released,
digital inequalities persist across gender, geography, and income. And on
average, women are less likely to use the internet than men, adding that they
are also less likely to own a smartphone, and even where the gender ratio in
internet use is near equal, other inequalities reduce women’s likelihood to
have higher-quality means of meaningful connectivity.
“Across different parts of the world, people living
in rural areas are less likely to use the internet than those in urban areas.
Both within and across countries, lower incomes correlate with lower rates of
internet use. In turn, those disadvantaged across multiples of these
inequalities, for example, rural women, who tend to also have lower than
average incomes are the most likely to be excluded from the digital world,” it
stated.
To buttress its claim that these inequalities limit
the potential of the digital economy, holding consequences for us all, the
report cited recent research from A4AI-Web Foundation which studied the digital
gender gap in 32 low and lower-middle-income countries around the world and
estimated the cost of this exclusion amounts to over $1 trillion USD over the
course of the past decade.
“The lost economic opportunity from the ability of
the digital economy to scale — because of inequalities along the lines of
gender, geography, and income — impedes the potential for the digital economy
to meet the ambitions that political leaders describe,” the report confirmed.
As a consequence the report further noted, if
policymakers cannot make the necessary investments in universal access estimated
to be $428 billion USD for universal 4G mobile broadband access, then the
consequent economic ambitions will never be realized.
“This holds micro-and macroeconomic consequences for
the economy and affects the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals
across multiple thematic areas,” it stressed.
It
then challenges governments looking to grow their digital economy to focus on
inclusive foundations like making internet access universal, affordable, and
meaningful for that growth.
“Without
these policy goals and interventions, access remains limited and unequal, and
the contribution of ICTs to the economic and social goals of a country remains
partial,” it emphasized.
By: Kanto Okanta
