African Countries, the Least Connected in the World – ITU

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of people offline out of the 3.6 billion without access to internet connection, a new report by the International Telecommunications Union, ITU, has revealed.

According to the report, Europe is the region with the highest Internet use (82.5 per cent), while Africa is the region with the lowest (28.2 per cent).

By the end of 2019, ITU estimates that 57 per cent of households globally will have Internet access at home. However, the number of households with a computer at home is only expected to rise by about one percentage point – to 49.7 per cent – between 2018 and 2019.

“ITU’s Measuring digital development reports are a powerful tool to better understand connectivity issues, including the growing digital gender divide, at a time when over half of the world’s population is using the Internet,” said Houlin Zhao, ITU Secretary General.

While the digital gender gap has been shrinking in the Commonwealth of Independent States and Europe, it is growing in the Arab States, Asia-Pacific and especially in the Africa region, the report said.

Meanwhile, consumers in African countries are paying some of the highest rates in the world for internet access as a proportion of income, according to a report released last month by The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI).

The A4AI assessed 136 low and middle-income countries for their annual Affordability Report.