- While Internet usage has increased in each African country between 2014—2022, GDP per capita has decreased in 20 countries, the worst affected being Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Chad.
- A drop in GDP per capita has not affected Internet uptake in Libya (70.7% increase in overall Internet users since 2014), Namibia (47.4% increase), Algeria (41.7%), and Equatorial Guinea (48% increase).
- Six of the top-third African countries for GDP per capita growth were among the bottom-third African countries for Internet usage growth.
Our World in Data recently highlighted nine African countries where incomes have more than doubled since 1990.
In these nine African countries, average incomes have more than doubled since 1990—
— Our World in Data (@OurWorldInData) November 28, 2024
(Written by Max Roser)
Economic growth is most important for the world's poorest people, and most of the world’s poorest live on the African continent. Are Africa’s economies growing?
The… pic.twitter.com/Jhii8s4B6x
Given that the Internet is a luxury utility for most people in the developing world, I was interested in seeing if this rise in average income has resulted in an increase in Internet usage and if countries are investing in their Internet ecosystem’s resilience.
Higher Incomes Don’t Necessarily Translate to Higher Internet Usage
The first Internet connections to Africa were established in 1991, and in some countries, they didn’t connect to the Internet until the 2000s.
Retail Internet connectivity didn’t become popular in many African countries until the 2010s, so I’ve skipped forward to 2014 for this analysis. Below is a comparison of the growth of Internet users and GDP per capita for each African country (sans Eriteria and South Sudan) from 2014 to 2022 (View).
Note that while Internet usage has increased in each country, GDP per capita has decreased in 20 countries, the worst affected being Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Chad. However, some of these have seen the greatest uptake in Internet usage, including Libya (70.7% increase in overall Internet users since 2014), Namibia (47.4% increase), Algeria (41.7%), and Equatorial Guinea (48% increase). Besides Equatorial Guinea, these countries haven’t experienced a significant increase in population to skew their GDP per capita results, which begs the question, what has driven Internet usage growth if not more money for people to afford to use it?
If we look at the other end of the spectrum, six of the top-third African countries for GDP per capita growth—DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe—were among the bottom-third African countries for Internet usage growth.
Guinea is perhaps the greatest outlier when considering the preface that greater income allows people to afford luxury items and utilities such as the Internet. As per the Pulse Country Reports, just over a third of the Guinean population uses the Internet, ranking it 32nd in Africa.
One reason more users are not using it may be due to its low performance and reliability, which we can see via its Internet Resilience Index profile and the four Internet shutdown events that we’ve recorded on the Pulse Internet Shutdown Tracker. Other reasons may include a lack of digital literacy, relevant content, or content in local languages.
Internet Poverty Index Provides Further Clues (And Questions)
World Data Lab’s Internet Poverty Index is another useful data point to consider in this discussion. It seeks to measure how many people can or cannot afford a minimum package of 1GB per month of 10 Mbps mobile Internet.
Note that the percentage of a country’s population living in Internet poverty rarely equals the percentage of the population that is not using the Internet. In the plot below, this is only the case for Lesotho and Guinea-Bissau.
Outside of these, the most significant discrepancies are apparent among:
- The countries in the lower left corner (Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire) where Internet Poverty is below 20%, and in the extreme case of Ethiopia, so too is Internet usage, which begs the question of what other challenges are impeding Internet growth?
- Niger, Uganda, and Central African Republic, where Internet usage is extremely low (between 6—17%), but there is plenty of scope for growth based on Internet poverty ranging from 51-62%.
- South Africa, where a larger percentage (31%) of overall Internet users are experiencing Internet poverty, indicating a lack of quality, affordable Internet, no doubt against a backdrop of high inflation (7.2%, December 2022).
Given that this data is a few years old, we will wait and see if this increase in GDP will translate to greater Internet adoption and resilience, and the economic, educational, and health benefits that the Internet can provide.
Photo by Benjamin Dada on Unsplash