This archive report was first published on 21 August 2021.
Published on August 21, 2021, The East African highlighted the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Africa due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Decades of concern about the digital divide have come to fruition as the pandemic has exposed the entrenched asymmetry in the global economy. While digitisation has increased access to some services in the developing world, it has not changed the structure of the economy, which remains slanted in favour of those who control global capital.
As the pandemic has demonstrated, tech giants have emerged as a potent power, far more powerful than even sitting governments in the poor parts of the world. African leaders are aware of this asymmetry but appear unconcerned about the social maps and the distribution of economic opportunity in their own countries.
The pandemic has forced governments to interrupt learning, grounding an education system that relied heavily on the private sector as a provider of education. However, the shutdowns have not been universal or effective, with urban and mostly private schools catering to the middle class creating digital windows for enrolled students to continue learning.
Only a small fraction of millions of learners whose academic progression was cut short have access to these new tools of learning, leaving many behind due to infrastructure deficits and lack of money to buy data and electricity.
The emerging picture is one where Covid-19 disruption is widening the gap between the rich and the poor by denying the latter opportunities that the former can access. This has grim implications for the economy, as business needs an educated and skilled population to drive growth.
