Date: 05/07/2023 Shift: 8:30 AM – 10:30 AM Q. No: 99

The digital divide is emerging as one of the 21st century’s steepest hurdles to global equality. Digital tools and technologies are increasingly becoming integral components of everyday life—mostly accessible however to people living in developed countries. More than a third of the world—2.9 billion people—don’t use the internet. Most of those who are unconnected live in developing countries, where only 57% of people access the internet. This is driven by a lack of key infrastructure and/or compatible devices and further exacerbated by unaffordability of data and a lack of basic skills needed to use the internet.
The Covid-19 pandemic has only deepened this digital divide and progress to bring more people online has slowed down. As essential services have moved online during and in the wake of the pandemic, those not participating in the digital economy are in danger of being left even further behind. Schools have been a prime example of this phenomenon. Public education systems with pre-existing knowledge and experience of running distance and multimodal learning delivery have fared significantly better than in-person systems.
A concerted effort is needed to reduce these deepening inequalities. We must address the accessibility of affordable technology and the availability of digital services to increase opportunities for everyone. But for actors engaged in policymaking or influencing policy, both public and private, it can be hard to know where to start when it comes to furthering digital inclusion. Reliable information from credible sources is often siloed, scattered across thousands of platforms and websites, taking hours to sift through. What’s more, approaches are constantly changing and adjusting to new best practices, meaning that by the time a project design is finished, it can already be out of date. Common protocols, standards and other governance mechanisms required to achieve cohesion between efforts are missing. Therefore, competing interests and redundancy are hindering digital inclusion.