KEY POINTS
- Zimbabwe’s digital divide leaves rural and low-income communities underserved.
- High costs and limited infrastructure are major barriers to internet access.
- Expanding connectivity can drive economic growth, education, and healthcare improvements.
The web can no longer be regarded as a luxury; it is an imperative to global economies, a communication platform for the communities, and an enabler of human beings.
For Zimbabwe though, this important resource is still beyond the reach of many a citizen.
High costs, inadequate structure, and regional imbalance have further produced millions of excluded people from the digital commerce.
This isn’t merely about making life easier; this is about progress and the welfare of a nation’s population.
The real face of Zimbabwe’s digital divide
Imagine a rural family in Zimbabwe struggling to access the internet while their urban counterparts scroll through social media, attend virtual classes, and conduct online business with ease.
This division perfectly captures the digital divide in the country.
Recent statistics from the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) reveals that only about 70 percent of the population has internet access. But numbers alone don’t tell the full story, most of this connectivity is concentrated in urban hubs, leaving rural areas behind.
Cost is another major hurdle. Many Zimbabweans spend over 10 percent of their monthly income just to stay online, far above the United Nations’ recommended threshold of 2 percent.
To this add the problem of aging infrastructure in rural areas, and many communities continue to experience slow and unreliable networks.
Extremely low power supply to many areas, or even no electricity supply at all for the off-grid locations only exacerbate the position of such places.
Why bridging the gap matters
The digital divide isn’t just a technology issue, it’s a development issue. For Zimbabwe to thrive, internet access must become universal.
With reliable connectivity, small businesses in rural areas could sell their products beyond local markets, schools could access online resources, and healthcare facilities could leverage telemedicine to reach remote patients.
Take education, for instance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools across the globe turned to online platforms.
But in Zimbabwe, many students in rural areas couldn’t join their peers due to poor or nonexistent internet access. These setbacks don’t just affect individual students, they widen the inequality gap and hinder the nation’s progress.
Similarly, healthcare can’t reach its full potential without digital access.
What’s being done to close the gap?
To fill this gap, several organisations are actively trying to fill the gap, mostly by government or private organisations, and emergent movements.
The vision of the Zimbabwean government in its National Broadband Plan is that everyone should have access to the internet by 2030.
There are emerging private companies walking the task for fiber optics and mobile broadband from Econet Wireless and Liquid Telecom while other bottom-up projects such as the Murambinda Works Project are equally making major progress in the rural provinces.
Innovation is also playing a role. In off-grid areas, solar-powered internet kiosks are addressing both energy and connectivity issues.
While these solutions show great potential, they are equally dependent on a high level of synergy between the government, firms, and local stakeholders.
