Economist, The

Internet inclusion is not guaranteed. Because of the Internet’s power and reach in our lives, uneven access can compound existing social and economic inequalities. The latest edition of the Inclusive Internet Index reveals that progress on closing the digital divide between low-income countries and the rest of the world has stalled, reflecting slow growth in internet connections and 4G network coverage in the past year.

“Desigend by Apple in California. Assembled in China”. For the past decade the words embossed on the back of iPhones have served as shorthand for the technological bargain between the world’s two biggest economies: America supplies the brains and China the brawn. Not any more. China’s world-class tech giants, Alibaba and Tencent, have market values of around $500 billion, rivalling Facebook’s. China has the largest online-payments market. Its equipment is being exported across the world. It has the fastest supercomputer.

The Index provides an international benchmark of internet inclusion across four categories: availability, affordability, relevance and readiness. Among the countries included in the Index, the proportion of men that access the Internet is, on average, 33.5% higher than the proportion of women. Among low-income countries, the gender gap is 80.2% in favour of men.