WeeklySA_AdminGAP: Nearly 2.2 billion people remain offline as artificial intelligence reshapes the global economy. Closing the digital divide is no longer simply about internet access — it is about ensuring that technology becomes a tool for inclusion rather than a driver of deeper inequality…
By Steven Seaman
A quarter of the world’s population, 2.200 billion people, still lack internet access, according to data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). This digital divide risks widening with the rise of Artificial Intelligence.
In 2025, 85% of urban residents used the network, but almost half of the rural population (58%) still did not.
The digital divide also exhibits a marked gender bias: it affects 52% of women compared to 42% of men. These inequalities are exacerbated by geographical, socioeconomic, and educational factors, generating new forms of social exclusion in an increasingly digitized economy.
Just as roads, railways and electricity powered the industrial age,
AI will become the infrastructure of the smart world.
The challenge is ensuring everyone can access it…
In your report “The next great divergence”The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) warns that inadequate management of AI threatens to widen economic, skills, and governance gaps between countries, reversing decades of progress in reducing inequalities. AI could increase inequality between countries by widening these gaps, since the starting point is already hugely unequal.
The Chinese telecommunications company Huawei has made digital inclusion one of its top priorities. In recent years, it has provided digital connectivity to nearly 170 million people in more than 80 countries, explains Joyce Liu, the company’s Director of Market Operations and an expert in digital inclusion.
Since 2019, the Chinese technology company has launched programs to combat the digital divide under the slogan “Tech4All” (Technology for all) that mainly cover four major areas: education, environment, health and development.
“In education, we have a program with UNESCO through which we build equipment and provide connectivity to rural schools, in addition to training and providing digital skills to teachers,” explains Liu.
This program, launched in 2020 and called “Open Schools with Technology for All”, has been implemented in countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Brazil or Thailand, where 44 “smart schools” have been built that have benefited “more than 20.000 teachers and students in remote areas”.
Digital trucks
In addition, they have launched the “Skills on Wheels” project in 27 countries – many of them African, but also European countries like France or Norway or Latin American countries like Peru.
The program consists of the use of “digital trucks”, which can be easily moved, in which technical experts provide digital training in rural areas with little connection and knowledge, especially to children and the elderly.
This project complements the “Schools on Wheels” program, launched in 2019, which transforms used transport containers and buses into “mobile classrooms equipped with smart screens and computers that can reach remote areas.”
These are initiatives aimed at a period of two or three years in which Huawei also collaborates with other local and global partners, such as the Vodafone Foundation, some contributing funds or their staff in different countries.
“We cannot say how much money Huawei invests in these programs since there are several collaborators; in the UNESCO program we are the sole donor, but in other projects we have several partners who may not contribute money, but their employees do,” Liu points out.
The digital inclusion expert states that in education they have reached 1.790 schools with “more than 700 000 people benefiting”, while in the environment their digital solutions have improved the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable use and management of natural resources in 95 protected areas around the world.
“In 2020, Huawei and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) launched the global alliance Tech4Nature (Technology for Nature) to expand the impact of nature conservation through technological innovation,” he explains, adding that projects have been implemented in countries such as China, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Kenya, and Turkey.
Specifically, in the Soure Extractive Marine Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon, low-cost environmental sensors have been installed to collect real-time data on water temperature, salinity, and other parameters, in order to monitor the impact of climate change on the local mangrove ecosystem.
In the Dzilam de Bravo State Reserve in Mexico, infrared cameras have been set up to monitor 7.000 hectares of protected land, which by the end of 2025 had identified 16 wild jaguars.
In the health sector, the projects include digital skills training for people with disabilities and accessibility improvement technologies, such as devices for people with visual or hearing problems “which are already used by 8 million users.”
Liu warns that the digital divide “creates many differences and it is crucial to fight against it,” especially after the introduction of Artificial Intelligence, which could “widen the divide even further.”
“Just as roads, railways, and communication networks were the infrastructure of the industrial age, AI will become the infrastructure of the smart world,” he emphasizes.
In this sense, he believes that to achieve inclusion in AI, it is necessary to “focus on the accessibility and ease of use of its technology.”
“All parties must collaborate to bridge the infrastructure and skills gap, making AI an infrastructure as easily accessible as water and electricity.”
Huawei’s goal, it says, is “to build a sustainable and fully connected smart world where all people, including the most vulnerable and disabled, can enjoy digital technology”. – Globalter
Steven Seaman is an Irish journalist, specialising in technology and economic news
Comment
Digital predators target Africa
The collapse of two sophisticated online investment schemes within days of each other should serve as a loud wake-up call, not only to investors but also to governments, regulators and law enforcement agencies across Africa.
The victims of the SGK and Morita Forestry scams are not merely people who made poor financial decisions. They are ordinary citizens caught in the crosshairs of increasingly sophisticated international criminal syndicates exploiting economic hardship, technological innovation and the promise of quick financial relief.
The formula is becoming disturbingly familiar: build credibility through social media influencers, promise guaranteed returns, reward early investors to create trust and encourage members to recruit friends and family. Then, when the flow of new money slows, they disappear with the proceeds through cryptocurrency networks that make tracing funds extraordinarily difficult.
The human cost is devastating. Families lose savings, workers sacrifice transport and food budgets, and friendships fracture under the weight of misplaced trust. Communities are left to rebuild while the masterminds remain beyond the reach of local authorities. The timing of these collapses is equally troubling. They follow the dismantling of an alleged online fraud operation in eSwatini involving Chinese nationals facing deportation, reinforcing concerns that Southern Africa is becoming fertile ground for organised cyber-enabled financial crime.
This is not uniquely an African problem. Cybercrime is one of the world’s fastest-growing forms of organised crime, costing economies billions every year. But Africa’s rapid digital adoption, high youth unemployment, financial exclusion and uneven regulatory capacity make the continent especially vulnerable to criminals selling dreams of effortless wealth.
Technology itself is not the enemy. Cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and digital finance are creating genuine opportunities. The danger lies in innovation outpacing regulation, financial literacy and international law enforcement cooperation.
The response must be equally modern. Regulators, banks, telecommunications companies and social media platforms must strengthen early-warning systems and act swiftly against fraudulent schemes before they gain momentum.
Greater cooperation between African governments and international agencies is essential if those hiding behind encrypted wallets and overseas shell companies are to be identified and prosecuted.
Whenever an investment promises extraordinary returns with little risk, demands recruitment of others or insists on payments into personal accounts or cryptocurrency wallets, scepticism is not cynicism—it is self-preservation.
Africa’s digital economy holds enormous promise. But, unless vigilance keeps pace with innovation, that promise will continue to be exploited by digital predators who see desperation not as a tragedy, but as a business model.
