“4billion People Don’t Have Access to Internet” – W’Bank Report

The World Development Report 2016 has revealed that about four billion people around the world don’t have any internet access and nearly two billion do not have a mobile phone.

The World Bank report which focused on the digital dividends says, the digital divides persist across income, age, geography, and gender both in access and in capability, adding that six billion people do not have high-speed broadband internet.

“In Africa, the richest 60 per cent are almost three times more likely to have internet access than the bottom 40 per cent and the young and urban have more than twice the access of older rural citizens.

Among those connected, digital capabilities vary greatly. In the European Union, three times more citizens use online services in the richest countries than in the poorest, with a similar gap between the rich and the poor within each country,” the report said.

A new report says that while the internet, mobile phones and other digital technologies are spreading rapidly throughout the developing world, the anticipated digital dividends of higher growth, more jobs and better public services have fallen short of expectations and 60 per cent of the world’s population remains excluded from the ever-expanding digital economy.

According to the new ‘World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends,’ authored by Co-Directors, Deepak Mishra and Uwe Deichmann and team, the benefits of rapid digital expansion have been skewed towards the wealthy, skilled and influential around the world, who are better positioned to take advantage of the new technologies.