In June 2020, the UN Secretary-General (SG) launched his Roadmap for Digital Cooperation. In this Roadmap, the SG outlines eight action points for digital cooperation, one of which is ensuring digital inclusion. As a first step to advance the digital inclusion agenda, the UN is creating a definition and a framework of metrics for digital inclusion.
RIA’s doctoral fellow Anri van der Spuy was invited by the UN to make an expert statement by way of contributing to this process. Her statement drew heavily on Research ICT Africa’s work, notably issues regarding access to technology and digital inequality.
Van der Spuy commends the UN for going some way towards enabling digital inclusion, but argues that its definition could “go further to ensure digital inclusion efforts actually have beneficial outcomes for people and societies, rather than merely enabling digital inclusion for the sake of digital inclusion”.
Download her expert statement below.
Meanwhile RIA’s Dr Alison Gillwald was appointed to the UN Roundtable on Digital Inclusion. Read more about that here.
