"This report details the urban-rural connectivity gap in nine low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and what that means for their potential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals [...] Across all nine countries [Colombia, India, Indonesia, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique, South Af ... rica], roughly only one in ten people have meaningful connectivity. In urban areas, this increases to one in seven. In rural areas, the ratio drops to one of every twenty. This disparity becomes even worse in the two LDC countries in our study: in Mozambique and Rwanda, fewer than one in every fifty people in rural areas have meaningful connectivity. This should alarm policymakers because as a share of the world’s rural population, one in four lives within an LDC country: as part of the world’s online population, only one of every twenty users connects from an LDC country." (Executive summary, page 3) more

"Governments are missing out on hundreds of billions of dollars because of the digital gender gap. Closing this gap in the next five years gives policy makers a $524 billion USD opportunity. Across the world, millions of people are still unable to access the internet and participate online — and w ... omen are disproportionately excluded. Men are 21% more likely to be online than women globally, rising to 52% in Least Developed Countries. Various barriers prevent women and girls from accessing the internet and participating online, including unaffordable devices and data tariffs, inequalities in education and digital skills, social norms that discourage women and girls from being online, and fears around privacy, safety, and security. While digital exclusion limits the opportunities for those women and girls unable to connect, it also has broader societal and economic impacts that affect everyone." (Executive summary) more