World Bank: Global internet users hit 3.2bn

The World Bank says the number of internet users globally has tripled within a decade, from 1billion in 2005 to about 3.2billion at the end of 2015. This was contained in the World Bank Report for 2016, which was made available, during the presentation of the World Development Report ( WDR 2016 ) on Digital […]

The World Bank says the number of internet users globally has tripled within a decade, from 1billion in 2005 to about 3.2billion at the end of 2015.
This was contained in the World Bank Report for 2016, which was made available, during the presentation of the World Development Report ( WDR 2016 ) on Digital Dividends, by the World Bank, in Abuja last week.
The report also noted that more households in developing nations owned a mobile phone than they  have access to electricity or clean water, adding that an estimated 70 per cent of the bottom fifth of the population in developing nations could boast of owning a cell phone.
“This means that businesses, people, and governments are more connected than ever before. The digital revolution has brought immediate private benefits-easier communication and information, greater convenience, free digital products and new forms of leisure. It has also created a profound sense of social connectedness and global community”, the report said.
It further explained that maximising digital dividends would require better understanding of how technology interacted with other factors that were important for development, describing it as “analogue complements”.