A report published this Monday by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ensures that within the underdeveloped countries, only 36.1% use the internet in their daily lives. Which means that it is practically half of the Internet users in the rest of the world who do use it, 66.3%.
According to the data from the report, it is recorded that among the 46 poorest countries in the world, 720 million people still cannot afford internet access. But, the country in which the percentage is even lower is in Sub-Saharan Africa, where they note that 28% are unable to use it.
However, not all the data recorded is negative, the number of users in these countries has only increased since the last decade, specifically has increased about 30 percentage points despite the fact that it is still far from the world average.
The countries that have advanced the least
By state, Bhutan is the country in the group of the least advanced in which more people use the internet (85.6%), followed by Tuvalu (71.6%) and Djibouti (68.9%). In contrast, the Central African Republic (10.6%), South Sudan (6.5%) and Burundi (5.8%) are the countries that close the ITU list. The only American country that is part of this group of countries is Haiti, where 38.9% of the population is an Internet user.
Gender gaps in internet users
The digital divide is not the only one for the inhabitants of these countries, the difference that exists between men who use the Internet stands at 43%, and women who do so, 30%. In total they register more than 10 percentage points, more specifically they are 13 pp higher.
Not only are there differences in terms of gender, but there are also inequalities between the younger population between 15 and 24 years old -48% of them use the Internet- and among the older population, only 33% of users who they use the internet. Similarly, onlyl 28% of people living in rural areas in these countries use the internetcompared to 52% who do so in cities.
The ITU attributes these differences in part to the high prices of broadband services and mobile data networks, due to the fact that the price of a basic Internet subscription is four times more expensive for a person in an underdeveloped country. than for a person from a developed country, if their income level is taken into account.
