The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) celebrated this year’s World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) with the ambitious launch of a new fundraising initiative aimed at connecting the world’s least developed countries (LDCs). The United Nations’ (UN) telecommunications agency has set a target to increase the value of pledges for this initiative from $30 billion to a staggering $100 billion by 2026.
This fundraising effort is managed by Partner2Connect, a UN multi-agency program created to connect unconnected populations. Though $30 billion has already been pledged, merely $12 billion worth of concrete commitments have been made so far to help bridge the digital divide.
“Tech is at the top of the global agenda, but the benefits of digital technology are still out of reach for too many people,” stated ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin. She emphasized the need to “take action to accelerate digital transformation for everyone” to provide meaningful and sustainable access to digital connectivity worldwide.
To put the ambitious $100 billion fundraising goal into perspective, one can look at the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility which funds infrastructure in the transport, telecoms, and energy sectors with a budget of €2.07 billion. The Digital Europe program, which supports AI, supercomputing, digital transformation, cybersecurity, and digital skills, has a significantly smaller budget of €7.6 billion.
Nevertheless, the $100 billion target highlights the considerable digital divide between Europe and LDCs. The ITU states that there are currently 2.7 billion people worldwide without internet access, and 27% of these individuals reside in LDCs, many of which face severe structural impediments to sustainable development. Furthermore, among the 46 LDCs in the world, only two of them have access to affordable internet services.
The gap between LDCs and developed markets is continually widening as developed countries improve coverage and deploy fibre and 5G technology. As a result, the ITU reports that the difference in internet usage between LDC populations and the rest of the world has grown from 27 percentage points in 2011 to 30 percentage points in 2022.
There’s also a significant gender gap that must be addressed. In 2022, internet usage among women was at 63% globally compared to 69% for men. This gap is even more pronounced in lower-income nations, where only 21% of women are online compared to 32% of men, with these statistics having shown little improvement since 2019.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres stressed the importance of addressing the digital divide to prevent LDCs from falling even further behind, stating, “We must dramatically improve accessibility and inclusivity and eliminate the digital divide.”
