India has 1b people who are not on the internet yet

Skipping the PC era, many go online only on phones. Photo credit: Stefano60.

India tops the list of the world’s offline populations, followed by China and Indonesia, revealed a new World Bank study (PDF link).

Titled Digital Dividends, the World Bank’s World Development Report 2016 found that there were 3.2 billion internet users globally against a total population of 7.4 billion, which leaves 57 percent of the world unconnected.

While the numbers used to rank countries are absolute, it reflects the total population that is still offline.

Image credit: Express Tribune; data from World Bank.

Pakistan ranks fourth, one place above Bangladesh. Pakistan is below the global average in terms of connectivity as 165 million people or 83 percent of the population (200 million) were found to be offline in the country.

“In many instances, digital technologies have boosted growth, expanded opportunities, and improved service delivery,” the report says. However, the broader development benefits of these technologies have fallen short of expectations, the report remarked regarding digital dividends.

The growth of mobile technology did not result in citizen empowerment or government accountability.

With its cellular teledensity standing at 65 percent, more than half of Pakistan’s population has access to mobile phones, but the country’s internet penetration still remains in the 12 percent range – little wonder why the report puts Pakistan among other South Asian and Sub-Saharan African nations that have the lowest internet adoption rate, between 0 and 19 percent.

“There was the hope that technology would provide additional incentive to make massive improvement. Unfortunately, this is where we actually see the biggest disappointment,” US News and World Report said on its website, quoting Deepak Mishra, co-author of the report. “We were expecting much more benefit than what we found.”

The US-based news site said the advent of internet and growth of mobile technology did not result in citizen empowerment or government accountability. “Consistent, organised access to basic services like a functioning energy grid, trash collection, filing taxes and voting, which are frequently lacking in developing countries, have not been affected.”