Accelerating Digital Transformation in Fragile and Conflict Affected Situations

Key Highlights

• In Niger, the Smart Villages for Rural Growth and Digital Inclusion project, launched in 2020, has provided new or enhanced broadband access to 7.4 million users in over 2,000 mostly conflict-affected villages allowing vulnerable populations to access services and receive alerts that help them avoid high-risk areas and situations.
• In the Federated States of Micronesia, the Digital Federated States of Micronesia Project has provided new or improved broadband internet to nearly 40,000 people and increased internet speed by 20 times, increasing resilience by enabling people in remote locations to access emergency services in the event of disasters.
• In Nigeria, the World Bank has supported a three-fold increase in overall digital ID enrollment from 36.9 million in 2020 to 111.3 million by November 2024, with a special focus on internally displaced persons (IDPs), refugees, and persons with disabilities, enabling access to services for previously underserved groups.
• In Kosovo, the Kosovo Digital Economy Project (KODE) project has trained more than 2,000 youth with digital skills, enabling them to secure digital jobs.

Challenge

Well-designed digital tools can help FCS overcome barriers to development through the promotion of transparency, accountability, resilience, and inclusion. However, a diverse set of barriers affecting FCS, including insecurity, inequality, marginalization, market unattractiveness, and poor governance, undermine progress on digital transformation. As a result, access to connectivity, devices, digital services and digital skills and jobs is generally lower in FCS than non-FCS at similar levels of income. The number of extreme poor living in FCS is expected to surpass the number in all other countries by 2025. FCS are also disproportionately exposed to climate change impacts and host a disproportionate share of forcibly displaced persons. Consequently, this digital divide affects some of the world’s most vulnerable people, disproportionally disadvantaging women, youth and persons with disabilities. Without resolute action, the poorest and most vulnerable countries will fall further behind in their digital transformation journeys, making it harder to progress toward poverty eradication and shared prosperity on a livable planet.

Approach

The World Bank supports partner countries affected by FCV to accelerate digital transformation by strengthening digital foundations, enhancing enablers, and supporting digital service delivery. Projects aim to expand access to digital connectivity and services to strengthen crisis resilience, improve inclusion, and unlock economic opportunities. Supported by the Accelerating Digital Transformation in FCS cross-cutting program hosted within the Digital Vice Presidency, projects take an FCV-sensitive approach to digital transformation in FCS, building on the World Bank’s Accelerating Digitalization Global Challenge Program, ensuring that interventions do not increase or create a digital divide, focus on overcoming systemic constraints and foster resilience, and consider how digital risks are exacerbated in FCS, particularly for vulnerable and marginalized groups. 

In line with the World Bank Group Strategy for Fragility, Conflict, and Violence 2020-2025, projects are designed to address drivers of fragility and help build resilience. They support a range of activities to improve access and use of resilient connectivity and devices in remote and areas, enhance access to cloud computing services and quality data, support the development of digital identification schemes that include refugees, enable the equitable delivery of digital government services to mitigate marginalization, deliver market-aligned basic and advanced digital skills that empower at-risk and vulnerable persons to create economic opportunities, facilitate digital job creation with a focus on youth, and support governments to strengthen digital enabling policy and safeguards.

Results

World Bank-supported digital transformation projects in FCS have yielded strong results, including on expanded and improved use of inclusive and resilient broadband internet and digital services, introduction of reforms in critical areas such as data protection and cybersecurity, and increased digital job creation.

In Niger, the World Bank financed the Niger: Smart Villages for rural growth and digital inclusion project which launched in 2020. As of June 2024, the project has provided 7.3 million people, including 1.8 million women, with new and enhanced broadband connectivity in over 2,000 commercially inviable and often conflict affected villages. Vulnerable populations are using mobile broadband internet to report real-time threats and to receive alerts that help them avoid areas with high security risk. Additionally, the project has enabled more than 62,000 people, of whom over 68 percent are women, to make and receive mobile financial payments for the first time. This has been made possible through digital centers, which are physical one-stop shops offering access to a variety of digital financial services. These digital centers have also benefited more than 350,000 people by eliminating barriers to usage through digital financial and literacy trainings. The combination of expanded and enhanced connectivity and digital financial services has helped build resilience by facilitating incoming remittances to conflict-affected areas.

In Nigeria, the World Bank launched the Nigeria Digital Identification for Development Project in 2020 in coordination with Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) and consultations with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), International Organization for Migration (IOM) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to help improve the country’s low coverage and fragmented identification landscape.  By November 2024, enrollment in the improved national digital ID system surged from 36.9 million to 111.4 million, including removing legal arduous documentation requirements for enrollment of IDPs and refugees in the conflict affected northern areas. Working with humanitarian and civil society groups on conducting annual stakeholder consultations and developing community scorecards to improve quality of enrollment experience for women, the project contributed to a rise in female ID enrollment over the same period from 14.9 million to 48.4 million and child ID enrollment from 750,000 to 17.4 million through school-based campaigns. ID authentication has also helped vulnerable people access critical financial, health, education, and social safety nets related digitally enabled services and removed barriers to livelihood opportunities.

Ethiopia is undergoing significant ICT sector reforms, including the passage of a new Communication Services Proclamation (2019), the establishment of an independent sector regulator, the Ethiopia Communications Authority (ECA, 2019) and the licensing of a new full-service telecom operator (Safaricom consortium, 2021). These reforms have been supported by the World Bank under the Digital Development Partnership (DDP)-funded technical assistance and the Ethiopia Digital Foundations Project, in collaboration with the International Finance Corporation. Since launching in 2021, efforts under the Ethiopia Digital Foundations project have enabled 4.1 million new broadband internet subscriptions and enhanced internet services to 10 million existing subscribers through a reduction of more than 90 percent in mobile data bundle prices. The project has supported the ECA in licensing 3,051 digital firms to provide a variety of digitally enabled services in the country, creating nearly 4,000 new digital jobs. Additionally, there are now 60 million users of mobile money services which offers great promise for increased resilience, reduced risks, and extended financial services to the large unbanked population in Ethiopia. The passage of the project supported Digital ID Proclamation in April 2023 and the Data Protection Proclamation in April 2024 are significant achievements given the importance of safeguarding sensitive information, reducing fraud and corruption, and maintaining trust and stability in Ethiopia’s conflict-prone environment.

In the Federated States of Micronesia, the Digital Federated States of Micronesia Project provided new and improved broadband internet to nearly 38 percent of the population and improved internet speed 20-fold to 10,000 kilobytes per second. Increased connectivity is key to enhancing resilience in contexts such as Micronesia, enabling people in remote areas to gain access to emergency response services following typhoons and other disasters, which are becoming more frequent and severe with climate change.

In Kosovo, the World Bank funded Kosovo Digital Economy Project (KODE) provided internet connection to over 110,000 people, helping achieve nearly universal internet usage and placing Kosovo among the countries in Europe with the highest share of population subscribed to fixed broadband services. The project also helped connect all public institutions, including healthcare and education establishments, to high-speed internet and improved digital connectivity for 197 schools. To create digital jobs and boost the local digital economy, the project has to date trained over 2,000 youth with digital skills and reached 100 percent of households with a digital awareness program.

Recognizing the potential of digital solutions to address drivers of fragility and conflict and support stability, the World Bank is further improving the FCV-sensitive approach to ensure that key risks are better identified and mitigated, while deploying innovative design and financing modalities to allow for more flexibility and scale. For example, the Eastern Africa Digital Regional Integration Project Series in Somalia and South Sudan is designed to advance regional digital integration to have spillover impacts on building economic stability and resilience. The project aims to provide low-cost online facilities such as Wi-Fi hotspots covering 4.4 million and 2.8 million people in host communities and IDP and refugee camps in Somalia and South Sudan respectively. In Chad, the World Bank-funded Chad Digital Transformation Project, launched in 2024, has adopted a simplified design and institutional arrangement to suit the country’s fragile context and limited capacity. It aims to increase affordable broadband internet usage for 4.5 million people, including 2.2 million women and 1.8 million youth, and extends critical public digital services to 2 million people, including 1.4 million women and 900,000 youth.
 

World Bank Contribution

From 2018 to 2024, the World Bank has supported 23 digital operations with approximately $2.72 billion in financing in FCS. This includes about 2.6 billion from the International Development Agency (IDA) and $120 million from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).

Collaboration Across the WBG

Strong partnerships have been central to achieving progress on digital transformation in FCS. Reflecting the commitment to a One World Bank Group approach, IBRD/IDA has partnered with IFC on eight projects in FCS since 2018 with the goal of fully maximizing finance for development (MFD)-enabling approach. IFC has leveraged its network and expertise to mobilize strategic private sector partners and assess funding options, including for broadband infrastructure and national public data hosting to enhance long-term sustainability of investments.

The Inclusive Digitalization in Eastern and Southern Africa (IDEA), a regional Multiphase Programmatic Approach (MPA) presents a framework to accelerate solutions to address the digital divide in both FCS and non-FCS. Leveraging the ‘One World Bank’ approach with IFC and MIGA to crowd in private capital, the program is expected to cover over 15 countries and aims to increase broadband internet usage for 180 million people and digitally enabled services for 100 million people by 2032. As part of the MPA, the Democratic Republic of Congo Digital Transformation Project aims to increase internet usage to 30 million people, and expand digital service usage by enhancing cybersecurity, data protection, and e-signature adoption while also providing advance digital skills training to 3,000 people and supporting 100 digital start-ups.

Partnerships

The Digital Development Partnership (DDP), a World Bank initiative supported by development partners, countries and foundations who bring in their unique experiences, aims to advance digital transformation in low- and middle-income countries by building strong digital foundations and enablers while facilitating use cases for digital economies to thrive. In 2023, DDP supported the preparation of the ‘Digital Hotspots - Developing Digital Economies in a Context of Fragility, Conflict and Violence’ report. The report provides the analytical backbone to underpin financial commitments to growing digital economies in FCV countries and presents case studies of countries that are recovering from different levels and stages of conflict, with a view towards identifying needed actions to keep ICT sectors afloat in FCV economies. DDP 2.0 is currently supporting approximately 15 FCV countries across five regions focusing on key areas for digital transformation such as rural broadband expansion, data hosting strategies including solutions for hosting government data, and support to regulators and policymakers.

Looking Ahead

Since 2020, the World Bank has committed over US$2.5 billion in financing for digital transformation in FCS. In the coming years, this substantial engagement will serve as the foundation for further accelerating and enhance digital transformation in for the most vulnerable. As the evidence on the benefits of digital technologies as a tool to address risks, impacts and drivers of FCV grows and as capacity building effort help policy makers expand their understanding of how they can design and deploy digital solutions in their specific contexts, demand for digital transformation support in FCS expected to continue to grow, supported by the policy commitments and record financing envelope under IDA21. In alignment with the Global Challenge Program to accelerate digitalization, the World Bank will work with partners to develop modular and scalable approaches to strengthen crisis resilience, improve inclusion, and unlock economic opportunities in FCS to help countries escape fragility and build resilience to shocks as a global public good.

Learn More:

Kosovo’s digital revolution: A success story

The World Bank and Digital Transformation