Why have the digital revolution’s broader benefits fallen short for development?
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The rapid spread of digital technologies has been a development success. But has it also resulted in successful development? No, not when the basic foundations of economic development are missing, argues the World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends.
Increased prosperity and our incessant desire to stay connected have contributed to the rapid spread of digital technologies. More households in developing countries own a mobile phone than have access to electricity or clean water. Nearly 70 percent of the bottom-fifth of the population in developing countries own a mobile phone. The number of Internet users has more than tripled in the last decade—from 1 billion in 2005 to an estimated 3.2 billion at the end of 2015.
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This post originally appeared in Future Development at Brookings Institution.