Access

Reliable, affordable, and high-quality internet connectivity is now essential for development. It underpins economic growth, enables governments to deliver services more effectively, and connects people to education, finance, health care, and markets. Connectivity is also increasingly central to jobs. It allows entrepreneurs to launch and scale businesses, helps small firms reach new customers, and enables workers to access training, digital platforms, and better employment opportunities. As economies adopt digital technologies and AI, access to the internet becomes critical for productivity, competitiveness, and job creation.

Yet despite global progress, about a third of the world’s population remained offline in 2025. Gaps are widest in rural, low-income, and fragile settings, and disparities persist for women, the elderly, and marginalized communities. When connectivity fails to reach communities, the constraint is rarely a lack of available technology. Financing alone is seldom the binding barrier. Instead, many unconnected or under-connected areas are commercially unattractive due to low population density and limited incomes, reducing incentives for private operators to invest. Weak regulatory frameworks, limited competition, high deployment costs, and fragmented or uncoordinated planning can further slow expansion.

Without deliberate action, these gaps risk widening inequalities in income, opportunity, and access to jobs. Closing the digital divide therefore requires coordinated policy reform, targeted public support, and private investment to ensure that connectivity reaches underserved communities and becomes a platform for inclusive growth.

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The World Bank Group works with governments and the private sector to expand and upgrade broadband networks while strengthening the enabling environment for sustainable investment. This includes support for sound regulatory and policy frameworks, transparent spectrum management, infrastructure sharing, and competitive telecommunications markets that help crowd in private capital and lower costs for consumers.

Recognizing that market forces alone may not extend networks to underserved areas, the World Bank Group supports innovative financing solutions to address viability gaps. These include public–private partnerships, results-based subsidies, and blended finance approaches, alongside risk mitigation instruments provided through IFC and MIGA. By aligning public resources with private investment, these tools help scale digital and data infrastructure in challenging markets.

Digital access is also a driver of jobs and productivity. Reliable connectivity enables entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses, farmers and small firms to reach new markets, and workers to access online platforms, training, and higher-quality employment opportunities. It supports governments in delivering digital services more efficiently and helps firms adopt new technologies, including AI, to improve competitiveness and create better jobs.

Affordability, inclusion, and sustainability are central to the work. Beyond network expansion, the World Bank Group promotes digital literacy, supports access to affordable devices and services, and addresses social and gender barriers that limit meaningful use—ensuring that connectivity translates into opportunity for all.

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