Crossing the digital divide worldwide

Affordable and universal access to ICTs and broadband is necessary in order to reach sustainable development goals and achieve gender equality, according to the Broadband Commission.

The commission held its annual meeting on the eve of the opening of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly, where it addressed the question of how broadband can support the equitable provision of health and education in all countries. The meeting also addressed how best to achieve the investment levels required for a rollout of global broadband infrastructure.

“The Broadband Commission’s actions have produced results which are beyond my greatest expectations. It is now taken as a given around the globe that sustainable development is only possible if ICTs, and particularly broadband, are deployed as a cross-cutting catalyst for all three pillars of sustainable development,” said Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General.

“Member States agreed last year in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that information and communication technology (ICT) and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate human progress, to bridge the digital divide and to develop knowledge societies.”

Latest estimates suggest 59 million children do not attend school, while 38 million people die annually from non-communicable diseases. Access to broadband can reduce these discrepancies by making education and public health care more accessible to all.

Figures also suggest that there are currently some 250 million fewer women online than men. In addition, there are 1.7 billion women in low- and middle-income countries who still do not own a mobile phone, and fewer women in the ICT workforce at every level across the entire globe. As a consequence, ITU and UN Women have joined together to launch EQUALS: The Global Partnership for Gender Equality in the Digital Age, a program dedicated to closing the global internet user gender gap.

“The information society is incomplete without the inclusion, contribution and leadership of women and girls,” said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director at UN Women. “They must have access to ICTs, and we must foster their capabilities to use the technology. This is central to the realisation of women’s rights at all levels and can be a real driver of accelerated progress towards the achievement of Agenda 2030.”

Providing girls and women with the right ICT skills could potentially solve the predicted shortfall of over two million jobs in the technology sector over the next five years.

“It’s time to make the world more equal,” said Houlin Zhao, ITU Secretary-General.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Anton Balazh