Digital oases and digital deserts in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate whether Sub-Saharan African countries are catching up with the rest of the world in terms of online usage. Online service usage is an important component of the discourse of the “digital divide”, an emblematic term for the inequality of information and communication technology access. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a quantitative analysis of internet and Facebook penetration coupled with economic strength (GDP/capita), literacy and degree of rural population. Findings – The findings reveal a heterogeneous pattern with a few African countries being digital oases and close to European levels, whereas the majority of the countries are still digital deserts. A strong correlation is found between economic strength and internet penetration. A generalist picture that Sub-Saharan is on the trajectory of closing the digital divide is an imprecise reflection of the reality. Research limitations/implications – It is argued that instead of measuring supply-side data, which has been the trend till now, the use of demand-side elements such as online service usage tells more about digital inequalities between countries. Practical implications – The research encourages internet firms to open up their eyes for Sub-Saharan Africa as an investment opportunity with an untapped gap of online usage. Social implications – The three-billion internet users on the planet are unevenly spread and under-represented in Africa. By drawing a heterogeneous online usage landscape, digital policy can be accurately steered toward countries with the largest needs. Originality/value – There is a paucity of research going into the depth of online usage in Africa. The paper is a contribution to fill that gap.

Examining country development indicators and e-waste under the moderating effect of country development levels and e-waste policy

“…Some studies have found that the increase in GDP is linked with the increase in the use of the internet (Han et al, 2021;Leoveanu-Soare et al, 2020;Raza and Shah, 2020). The countries with higher GDP have observed a higher rate of internet penetration for their urban population as compared to their rural population (Billon et al, 2009;Coyle, 2014;Geovanny and Suarez, 2008;Wentrup et al, 2016). Therefore, to know the influence of GDP on internet penetration, e-waste and urban population, the following hypotheses were formulated:…”

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“…Observations made by the researchers of this study clearly show that some rural institutions of higher learning are on the wrong side of the digital divide. Digital divide is defined as the "gaps between individuals, households, business and geographic areas at different socioeconomic levels with regard to both to their opportunities to access information and communication technologies (ICTs) and to their use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities" (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2001: 5; Wentrup et al 2016). Persons use ICTs at different levels due to differences in educational, geographic and income levels.…”

“…Inadequate ICT infrastructure adversely impacts teaching and learning at an institution. Internet is at the core of the sociotechnical pattern of an institution and those with little or no access to it are on the wrong side of the digital divide (Thaver 2015;Wentrup et al 2016).…”

“…In support of the above point, Asiyai (2014) argues that universities in the developing world including Africa are faced with outside problems emanating from their location and also inside problems emanating from their own culture and structure, these hinder the use of ICTs in teaching and learning. Idowu and Esere (2013), Ouedraogo (2017) and Wentrup et al (2016) argue that some institutions are not going paperless due to poor and unevenly developed information infrastructure at some African Higher Education institutions.…”

Crossing the Digital Desert in Sub‐Saharan Africa: Does Policy Matter?

“…First, there is a correlation between economic strength and Internet penetration (World Bank, ), and also specifically for the Sub‐Saharan continent (Wentrup, Nakamura, & Ström, ). This is a quite intuitive relation—the richer a country is, the more resources and economic capacity it has to invest in capital‐heavy infrastructure such as broadband networks.…”