Pandemic deepens impact of global technological gaps

Outlook

Some degree of social distancing will continue pending new drugs, and the COVID-19 pandemic may not be eradicated for years, if at all. These realities will accelerate global use of the internet: for delivering essential services, economic activity, education and communication. This will impede the near-term recovery of technologically disadvantaged regions and social groups, as well as their longer-term readjustment to a new normal.

The ability of developing countries to expand digital access rapidly will be hindered by strained public finances. Women seem less likely than men to die of COVID-19, but like ethnic minorities, they are less likely to have broadband access at home to make full use of digital opportunities, and are disproportionately concentrated in lower-paid health and education sectors that require in-person contact.

Impacts

• Essential communication on health issues via mobile texts would have the widest reach given the ubiquity of the technology.
• Women’s economic recovery from the pandemic is likely to take longer than men’s in critical areas such as employment, wages and education.
• The development of gender- and minority-friendly recovery plans will continue to be slow and regionally uneven.