Expand access to internet as a public good
A woman uses her mobile phone to check Facebook and other mobile apps in Yangon on February 4, 2021.
What you need to know:
- Learning has also moved online in major ways, enabling studies to be undertaken beyond school hours and even across borders.
The dawn of the information age has been heralded by a rapid increase in access to electronic devices in Kenya, especially laptops and internet-enabled phones.
Tied to this is the increased competition among mobile and internet service providers to give access to each megabyte for fewer shillings.
When we consider this alongside the increased access to electricity and the growing urbanisation occasioned by devolution, it would be easy for anyone to think that Kenya has successfully crossed over into this important period in global history.
There is another side to this coin. This great leap forward for some also implies that several others have been left behind. People who do not have internet-enabled devices, or who cannot connect to the internet, or who do not know how to use it, all suffer the same fate.
They are unable to communicate or get information in a timely way. Certain government services are further out of reach. Booming e-commerce opportunities are starting to favour those who can reach the highest number of customers, not the ones offering the best goods or services for the best rates.
Digital migration
Learning has also moved online in major ways, enabling studies to be undertaken beyond school hours and even across borders. All this digital migration has been catalysed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The digital divide has catalysed wider inequality in Kenya. The digital gender gap is of particular interest: globally, fewer women own internet-enabled phones than men.
The 2020 Mobile Gender Gap Report cites the top three significant barriers to mobile phone ownership for women in Africa as affordability, lack of literacy and skills for use, and lack of family approval.
This digital divide is also wider for older people, those living in extreme poverty, people living in rural areas, people with a disability, the internally displaced or refugees, and more.
The biggest bridge to this gap comes from macroeconomic solutions. For a start, the internet, and internet-enabled devices, must stop being considered luxury goods, and must now be seen as a necessary part of improving quality of life, access to essential information, and economic productivity for all.
Public engagement
All costs per megabyte must be reduced further and faster. Provision of free internet in public places – throughout urban and village centres, transport hubs and stations, libraries, social halls, and public hospitals and schools – can help reduce the burden on the individual.
People may be connected, but there is a need for continued public engagement about people who can and should use the internet. The conversation about computers, learning and the internet has to become wider than a political focus on laptops for primary school pupils. The whole Kenyan population stands to gain from broader internet access.
Effective and well-implemented strategies to bridge this gap would enable us to take a giant step in negotiating with the larger inequalities that we continue to battle with as a people.
