The World Bank has hosted its first “global digital summit” to help accelerate digital access, alongside affordability and usability, in low-income countries.
Despite rapid growth in the rate of digital adoption around the world, 2.6 billion people do not have access to the internet, the majority of whom live in poorer countries.
Furthermore, where people are connected, they face slower broadband speeds and higher costs for data than higher-income countries do, according to the bank’s new digital trends report. In fact, average mobile broadband traffic per capita in wealthier countries surpassed that of low-income countries by over 20 times, and fixed broadband traffic by more than 1,700 times.