Wide digital divide between Commonwealth countries

 CMC – The London-based Commonwealth Secretariat has released a report highlighting the wide digital gap between high and low income Commonwealth countries, while offering solutions to tackle the imbalance.

The report, titled ‘The State of the Digital Economy in the Commonwealth’, shows only 18 per cent of people living in low-income Commonwealth countries have Internet access, compared to 85 per cent in high-income countries.

Caribbean countries are among the 54 members of the Commonwealth, many of them former British colonies, that account for almost a third of the world’s population.

According to the report, only six members – the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, Singapore and Malaysia – account for 85 per cent of total online sales to customers, worth US$354 billion in 2015. The same six make up 98.8 per cent of the Commonwealth’s total high-tech exports.

Fewer women have access to the Internet

The report found that women often suffer from a “double digital divide” in poorer countries, where they are 14 per cent less likely than men to own a mobile phone. This means 200 million fewer women lose out on benefits like finding information and managing money online.

The disparities hinder global economic growth by holding back people and businesses from using new technology to trade more efficiently, the Commonwealth noted.

The report outlines steps that governments could take to help close the gap. This includes designing policies and laws that foster digital trade, and up-skilling people in science, technology and maths.

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