UN wants $100 bn to boost digitalisation in poor countries

Geneva: The United Nations on Wednesday demanded a tripling of pledges aimed at filling the global digitalisation gap, asking countries and the private sector to hike the funding to $100 billion by 2026.

Around 2.7 billion people around the world were offline in 2022, according to data from the International Telecommunications Union, the UN’s telecoms agency.

“The digital connectivity divide separating the least developed countries from the rest of the world is widening,” the ITU warned, launching an appeal for far more resources towards ensuring meaningful connectivity and digitalisation in the world’s least developed countries (LDCs).