Near 224 million people, or 32%, in Latin America and the Caribbean have no internet access, according to a joint report by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Microsoft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case study in 24 countries reveals that 71% of the urban population has connectivity options against less than 37% in rural areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Based on the numbers of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), 81% of households of the highest income quintile (quintile V) has internet connection versus 38% and 53% of households of the first and second quintiles, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Latin America and the Caribbean has the highest technology inequality in the world, further aggravated and visualized by the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) reckons that some US$68.5 billion would be needed to overcome the digital gap, and that 59% of this amount should be used to improve connectivity in the cities. Private communications companies usually take on such task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, 41% of the lump sum should go to rural areas, where public investment tends to be the main financing source. The case study suggests that more public-private partnerships are required to meet the demand. Precisely rural areas, a vulnerable sector, are among the priorities in the regional plans of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having remarked that the lack of connectivity poses a challenge for the region, Ambassador Clarems Endara, the Permanent Secretary of SELA, has insisted on the need to work on it, particularly in rural areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ambassador Endara pointed out that, while much progress has been made with digitalization, the region is still behind some other regions as regards connectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For access of all the countries in the region on equal footing, high-quality infrastructure and affordable prices are of the essence.
Data of CAF-development bank of Latin America show that digital inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean has become glaring in the post-pandemic era. Less than 50% of Latin American and Caribbean people have broadband connectivity and as low as 9.9% has good-quality fibre optics.
High cost of internet services and electronic devices (smart phones, tablets and laptops) is among the potholes. On average, the cost of a plain data plan of 1GB represents 2.7% of the monthly family income, far beyond the affordability threshold of 2% of the International Telecommunications Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of note, some projects as the initiative of \u201cInternet for All\u201d in Peru, undertaken by CAF, have succeeded in connecting 2 million people. Also, in Argentina, telecommunications services are provided to 10,000 rural schools and 2,000 health sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such initiatives will continue to overcome digital inequality in Latin America, involving all of us in the connectivity network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Near 224 million people, or 32%, in Latin America and the Caribbean have no internet access, according to a joint report by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Microsoft. The case study in 24 countries reveals that 71% of the urban population has connectivity options against less […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":121585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}