Widening Digital Divide Will Foster Inequality in Developing Economies, Says UNCTAD
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
By Alkesh Sharma
Most of the wealth in the digital economy is “highly” concentrated in the world’s two biggest economies – the US and China – with the rest of the world “trailing considerably far behind”, according to a new UN report.
This divide threatens to leave developing nations, especially less well-developed countries in Africa and Latin America, even further behind in the coming years, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said in its report.
It said that under current policies and regulations, the digital wealth gap would continue to widen.
“We must work to close the digital divide, where more than half the world has limited or no access to the internet,” said UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, commenting on the report.
The US and China are home to some of the world’s top digital platforms – 90 per cent of the market capitalisation of the world’s 70 biggest digital platforms comes from companies based in either of the two countries.
Photo courtesy of pixelfusion3d.
Source: The National (link opens in a new window)
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