The Digital Divide

If all of those subscribers paid the new price of $1.84, Ethio telecom would lose $9.2 million.

BUT with 10% more people online, the GDP would grow by 2.5%, pumping $2.7 billion into the economy!

So the government could well and truly afford to subsidise the deficit. Increasing the mobile broadband penetration rate is not simply a question of infrastructure availability.

Back to reality…

Despite steady improvement, Ethiopia is still lagging behind the Sub Saharan average.

With only 1 in 4 of us online, the digital divide is widening and it is stifling our economic growth. 

Who are the 3 in 4 disconnected Ethiopians, and why do they remain offline? 

Let's start with a 5-question quiz to test your knowledge of Ethiopia's digital gap.

If you took our quiz from inside Ethiopia, the data shows you are more likely to be a man, under 35 years old, with secondary education and living in an urban area. Chances are, you are also reading this story on your phone.

Keep reading to find out more about the internet in Ethiopia, and our vision for a more equitable internet.

Despite its potential to transform Ethiopia's economy, internet access across the country remains unequal and astonishingly expensive. Large portions of our population are completely excluded from accessing the internet. 

Those who are disconnected are far more likely to be from communities who are already marginalised: people living in rural areas, older people, poorer people, and above all, women.

Rural communities in Ethiopia lag far behind urban centres when it comes to internet usage and, no matter where you live, there is a huge gender gap which has worsened over time. 

In 2018, 9% of men had access to the internet while only 5% of women did, a difference of 4 percentage points. But by 2021, that gap had increased to 9 percentage points, with 20% of men having access compared to only 11% of women (Inclusive Internet Index, 2018-2021).

If you took the quiz, you’ll recall that only 1% of women and 4% of men living in rural areas said they had used the internet in 2015 (USAID, 2016).

Another quiz recap! Younger Ethiopians were also far more likely to have used the internet than people over 30. In fact 3 in 4 of those who used the internet in 2015 were younger than 30, and of those, 6 in 10 were men (USAID, 2016). 

Educational attainment is also a significant determining factor in whether somebody is likely to have access to the internet. 65% of men and 41% of women with a post-secondary school education reported having used the internet at least once in 2015 (USAID, 2016).

In stark contrast, among men and women with no formal education, only 1 in 2000 reported using the internet in 2015.

Most Ethiopians who access the internet do so from their mobile devices. 

According to data from the International Telecommunications Union, there was 1 active mobile broadband subscription for every 5 Ethiopians and 1 fixed broadband subscription for every 500 Ethiopians in 2020. 

This disparity is explained by several infrastructure challenges. Fixed broadband connections need electricity, which is available in less than half of Ethiopia's households (48.2%) according to the World Bank. Those living in rural households are far more likely to be off the grid (only 36.3% have electricity) than those living in urban households (92.8% have electricity). 

A lack of financial investment has limited Ethio Telecom’s ability to build out the infrastructure needed for fixed broadband connections, and the current network equipment is outdated and unable to provide reliable widespread internet coverage.

Despite its wide reach, high-speed mobile internet coverage continues to be poor and has limited capacity. 

6 in 10 Ethiopians had a mobile phone in 2016 (ITU, 2016). And according to Ethio telecom’s most recent business update report, only 1 in 5 Ethiopians has a mobile and data subscription for their phone (Ethio telecom FY 2020/2021). 

As you can see 97% of Ethiopia’s population live within range of a 2G mobile cellular network, but the network only has enough capacity to support 44% of our population. 

The 2G network in Ethiopia is slow. With data transfer speeds as low as 67kbps, modern websites are difficult to load and it is hard to get an email client to work. Forget about watching YouTube at this speed! 

85.5% of us in Ethiopia live within range of a 3G mobile network, which offers connections of up to 2 Mbps.

At 2 Mbps you can browse the internet and use social media and messaging apps, you can also watch videos and listen to music and make video calls.

The 4G network, while covering 7% of the population, is only available in pockets of Addis Ababa, and has a subscriber capacity of 400,000. In real terms, there’s only enough 4G capacity for 1 in every 10 people living in Addis Ababa. 

But to develop a thriving digital economy Ethiopia really needs 4G technology rolled out to a much larger number of people in many more regions.

As if the infrastructural and societal challenges such as gender and economic disparity weren’t enough, there are also significant political challenges.  

Despite recognising the pivotal role that internet access has in order to attain economic development, inclusion and equality, our government — in contrast with its own goals — continues to shut down the internet, often in order to muzzle freedom of expression.

Shutting down the internet not only damages citizens’ trust in the government and negates the government’s commitment to upholding human rights, it also damages our country's reputation on the international stage and jeopardises the progress already made on the government's Digital Ethiopia 2025 strategy. 

The government invokes reasons such as national security concerns, public order, insecurity and the integrity of school exams to shut down the internet, but no matter the reason, the result of any shutdown has extreme economic, reputational and human costs.

During the last five years, there have been at least 17 documented partial and total shutdowns across Ethiopia, disconnecting entire communities from the internet and from each other, and harming businesses and people.

If the Ethiopian government plans to use the internet to spur nationwide growth it will also need to start respecting how its citizens use the internet to live, learn, work and communicate freely. 

This may seem threatening to those in power, but our government said it best themselves in their Digital Ethiopia plan: 

Here at CARD we couldn’t agree more.