Chronicle Editor
Mugove Hamadziripi
ALMOST a second year into the Covid-19 wave, the world is in the midst of a fast-moving vehicle by the name Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is as well called the 4IR or Industry 4.0.
This revolution is propelled by digital innovation in the use of information, technology and data. This wave of 4IR is virtually affecting every single society from how we socialise, communicate, to where we operate from (work), cross-cutting into our health system, to politics and local government. The Covid-19 pandemic has played a pivotal role in propelling this digital transformation as we all move towards the virtual engagement.
In the process, we are still or yet to discover the pros and cons of this digital world before us. Today, it can be argued that a universal and equitable connectivity is important for our Zimbabwean societies to embrace the full potential of an inclusive digital economy, by supporting the inclusion of all Zimbabweans and eliminating barricades to information and services.
It can be noted that, bridging the digital divide is a problem that calls for solutions for accessibility, affordability, and digital skills that touch social economics, infrastructure, and technology. Solutions are available using existing technologies that provide quality, reliable, and secure internet access to enable unfettered participation in the digital economy.
It took the Covid-19 pandemic to make us aware of the digital divide. The pandemic made us to resort to work from home, as well as learn from home, and telehealth forced by the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the digital divide in marginalised and underserved communities which are mostly rural in nature.
As we can earnestly deduce, the digital divide before us is not just an issue of access. Covid-19 pandemic exposed the issues of affordability, quality of coverage, and technical skills needed to get school children online. A number, if not majority of school children across the world had and still have no access to internet connectivity at home, let alone an internet-enabled device.
Most vulnerable students are concentrated in rural areas, where there is poor internet connectivity infrastructure.
These rural children, as well as their urban counterparts, have been negatively impacted by a variety of other demographic factors, including poverty and disability.
The reality of the divide was made strikingly obvious to the lucky few students from the elite circles as these schools scrambled to provide laptops and mobile devices to connect students when Covid-19 sent students home to online learning.
Much of the lesson time was spent giving instruction on how to use the tools, find online teaching resources, and modify teaching methods to deliver online instruction.
It’s about time the Government in close partnership with the private sector,prioritise the deployment of broadband networks to every household and educational institution, with steps to improve affordability and delivery of services while including underserved communities in the development of the digital economy.
The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us that broadband is a necessity, not a nicety. A surgical look at urban areas like Harare and Bulawayo, where networks are available, most Zimbabweans have not adopted broadband in their homes or educational institutions. The reasons being either because they can’t afford it or they don’t know how to use it.
This takes us to the notion of the Adoption Gap, which is roughly three times larger than the Availability Gap.
However, one can argue that a digital economy works when everyone has the opportunity to participate. The work from home, and learn from home efforts became the new normal across the world. These trends, coupled with telehealth, won’t disappear just like in this situation we are in, even beyond the post pandemic period.
We are witnessing dramatic shifts in the use of ICT infrastructure that accompany those changes. Today, the once touted quality high-speed internet access at some schools or companies is no longer guaranteed, since a number of households, each with many family members, are all scrambling for access to the internet, thereby demanding increased bandwidth.
The Government should prioritize the following pointers, as adopted from Bhaskar et al (2020) – expanding adoption of digital consumer tools (e-commerce, digital payments, entertainment, and the like); attracting, training, and retaining digital talent; fostering digital entrepreneurial ventures; providing fast, universal, terrestrial (such as fibre optics) and mobile broadband internet access; specialising in the export of digital goods, services, or media and coordinating innovation between universities, businesses, and digital authorities.
In today’s world, a stable and high-performing economy requires a digitally adept base of workers, students, and providers of essential services. It is clear that the workforce of the future is going to be increasingly reliant on locally available, uniform, high-speed internet access as work from home, learn from home and telehealth patterns stabilise—if this requirement is unmet in Zimbabwe (and beyond), the existing problem of the digital divide will only increase.
The good news is that, as a country, we have the human resources and the technology to solve this digital divide before us.
Bridging the digital divide is a problem that requires solutions for accessibility, affordability, and digital skills that touch social economics, infrastructure, and technology.
Solutions require consideration for distribution of online devices, technical instruction to safely and productively use those devices and the internet, geography for the installation of internet access, affordability of that access, quality of access to enable productive work from home participation, and security to ensure that people are not exploited.
If the goal is to have digital inclusion as quickly as possible, then consideration also needs to be made for the cost and timeline to build internet access in underserved areas when choosing between fibre optic, satellite and 5G wireless connectivity.
Technology such as fixed wireless access (FWA), advanced antenna systems (including MIMO), network slicing capabilities, and network automation and performance monitoring can be deployed to optimise the quality of wireless access.
These options are available to us today—it is now a matter of selecting and applying the best technologies to solve the problem. Yes, that’s achievable. We have the manpower and the know-how as a country.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognises that the spread of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate human progress, to bridge the digital divide and to develop knowledge societies. Digital inclusion means ensuring the accessibility of ICTs for social and economic development, especially for people with specific needs, including Indigenous peoples. Together, we can promote inclusive and sustainable development. As part of these efforts, we believe that equipping people with the skills they need is the key to sustainability and to driving the digital economy forward, so we are working with our partners to develop a more robust digital talent ecosystem and bridge the digital divide.
– Mugove Hamadziripi consults with the Centre for Impact Evaluation and Research Design and Erongo Consulting Group. He can be reached at [email protected], Twitter: @mhamadziripi
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