The United Nations aims to provide every person with access to the internet by 2030 in line with Sustainable Development Goals. Yet, about 3 billion people are still totally offline today. New EPoS research on how to bridge the digital divide in Colombia shows that internet literacy plans work best in poor neighborhoods – doubling internet access. This research result is published by the EPoS Economic Research Center of the Universities of Bonn and Mannheim in the discussion paper “Internet (Power) to the People: How to Bridge the Digital Divide”.
“Our results show that non-price policy tools aimed at internet diffusion are more vital than pricing subsidies for the poorest, less-internet savvy consumers,” says author Michelle Sovinsky of the EPoS Economic Research Center. “For policymakers this means: A policy targeted at providing both, more internet plans to choose from as well as internet literacy programs to increase diffusion in the neighborhood, is most effective at closing the digital divide. This holds true for markets with the poorest populations and in markets with the lowest connection rates. Such a policy combination may be more costly in the short-run, but will pay off in the long-run. Our findings are particularly salient for developing countries.”
Connecting 75% of the world to broadband
Access to the internet has a direct impact on, for instance, education, timely health information and resource distribution. To that end, UNESCO and the International Telecommunication Union have a joint target of connecting 75 percent of the world’s population to broadband by 2025. However, finding effective solutions to bridge the divide is a prominent challenge for policymakers and evidence on the effectiveness of interventions in developing countries has so far been scarce.
FULL TEXT PRESS RELEASE at: https://www.crctr224.de/newsroom/press-releases/3-billion-people-have-no-internet-access-why-teaching-programs-work-better-than-subsidies-epos-economic-research-center-reports
Access the full discussion paper here: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp461
Authors
Julian Hidalgo, Ph.D. Candidate in Economics, KU Leuven
Michelle Sovinsky, Professor of Economics, University of Mannheim, CEPR, MaCCI, and EPoS Economic Research Center
The Collaborative Research Center (CRC) Transregio 224 EPoS
CRC TR 224 EPoS–Economic Perspectives on Societal Challenges — crctr224
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