The Digital Divide: Who Is Really Connected in West Africa

A phone in nearly every pocket, yet a majority of the population offline: this is the West African paradox. In 2024, according to the World Bank, internet penetration ranges from 15.6% in Niger to 72.2% in Ghana, a gap of more than 56 points between two countries in the same sub-region. Yet the most revealing divide does not show up on that map. It is internal to each country: it sets those covered by a mobile network against those who actually use it, the city against the countryside, men against women. As long as public policy steers connectivity by the number of SIM cards, it will keep measuring a progress that exists only by half.

A region moving at several speeds

The 2024 snapshot reveals three groups. At the top, Ghana (72.2%) and Senegal (60.1%) have crossed the threshold of a connected majority. In the middle, a cluster around 35 to 42% brings together Côte d'Ivoire (41.4%), Nigeria (41.2%), Togo (39.5%), Mali (36.8%) and Benin (34.0%). At the bottom, Burkina Faso (28.3%) and above all Niger (15.6%) remain on the sidelines. Nigeria deserves attention: as the region's most populous country, it shows only a moderate rate of 41.2%, which in absolute terms represents several tens of millions of people offline. Reducing the divide to a country ranking is therefore misleading: an identical average rate can hide millions more excluded people depending on population size.

Ghana proves nothing is settled in advance

Faced with these gaps, one question shapes every public decision: is the divide a geographic fate or the product of policy? The trajectory since 2010 comes down clearly in favour of the second hypothesis. Ghana gained 64.4 points in fourteen years, rising from 7.8% of users in 2010 to 72.2% in 2024. Benin illustrates a more recent catch-up dynamic: starting from 3.1% in 2010, it progressed by 11.9 points over the 2020 to 2024 period alone (from 22.1% to 34.0%). Niger, for its part, remained below the 1% mark until 2010 (0.83%) and only truly took off after 2014, without exceeding 15.6% in 2024.

The comparative lesson is decisive: in 2010, Ghana (7.8%) and Benin (3.1%) started from broadly comparable levels, within a few points of each other. Fourteen years later, 38 points separate them. The difference does not lie in geography, but in the tempo and consistency of access policies. For a decision-maker in Benin or Niger, Ghana is not an exotic case: it is a neighbour in the same sub-region that has shown a rapid digital transition is achievable within a decade.

The real divide: owning a phone is not being connected

This is where the data change in nature. Across the region, mobile subscriptions far exceed internet access. Côte d'Ivoire counts 183.9 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, but only 41.4% of its population uses the internet: the gap nears 142 points. Benin shows the same paradox, with 125.9 mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants against 34.0% of internet users. Everywhere, the gap between mobile equipment and internet use ranges from 30 points (Nigeria) to 142 points (Côte d'Ivoire). The phone is almost universal; broadband, however, remains a privilege.

Across the continent, 66% of the population owns a mobile phone, but only 38% uses the internet. The divide is no longer primarily a network problem: it is a usage problem.

Why an available signal does not become use

To understand this paradox, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) offers an illuminating breakdown of the divide into two distinct components. The first, the "coverage gap", measures the share of the population reached by no mobile broadband network at all. The second, the "usage gap", measures the share of the population that is covered by a network but does not use the internet. This distinction changes everything, because the two gaps call for different remedies.

In Africa, the usage gap now dwarfs the coverage gap. In 2024, according to the ITU, only 14% of the African population has no access to any mobile broadband network (the coverage gap), a share that rises to 25% in rural areas. But the yawning gap lies elsewhere: 66% of the population owns a phone, while only 38% uses the internet. In other words, the vast majority of unconnected people live under an available signal they do not exploit. Building new towers will therefore solve only a fraction of the problem.

The drivers of this usage gap are identifiable and measurable. The first is cost: in 2024, according to the ITU, a basic 2 GB mobile data plan cost on average 4.2% of income on the continent, more than double the 2% affordability threshold recommended by the United Nations. The second is equipment: a subscription may serve only for voice or messaging, for lack of an affordable smartphone. The third and fourth are digital literacy and the relevance of content in local languages. None of these obstacles is solved by infrastructure alone.

• Cost of data: a 2 GB plan costs 4.2% of average income, against a UN target of 2% (ITU, 2024).
• Equipment: a SIM card is not enough; without an affordable smartphone, the subscription stays confined to voice and SMS.
• Digital skills: knowing how to use an online service remains a barrier, especially outside major urban centres.
• Content relevance: the availability of services and content in local languages drives sustainable adoption.

What national averages erase: city, countryside, gender

A national rate, even an accurate one, is an average that conceals two massive social divides. The first is territorial. Across Africa, internet use reaches 57% in cities but only 23% in rural areas, the widest urban-rural gap of all the regions tracked by the ITU. A country can post a flattering average rate, driven by its capital, while leaving its countryside in near-total exclusion. Here, the national average lies by omission.

The second divide is gender, and it carries an economic inclusion stake. Again according to the ITU, in 2024, 43% of men used the internet in Africa against 31% of women. The GSMA, which tracks mobile internet specifically, estimates that in Sub-Saharan Africa women are 32% less likely than men to use mobile internet, a gap that narrows only slowly (it stood at 34% in 2017). In absolute terms, that represents more than 200 million women offline on the continent. The barriers are well known: cost, smartphone access, literacy, social norms. A digital policy that ignores gender mechanically reproduces existing inequality.

A national rate of 38% can hide 57% in cities and 23% in the countryside, 43% among men and 31% among women. It is disaggregated data, not the average, that shows where to act.

The cost of inaction: growth left on the table

The digital divide is not only an equity issue: it is a measurable loss of growth. The ITU's econometric studies estimate that a 10% increase in mobile broadband penetration in Africa translates into a gain of about 2.5% in GDP per capita, an effect above the global average. Conversely, every year the usage gap persists represents an uncaptured growth dividend, one that compounds year after year.

The scale of the untapped potential is also visible in the continental trajectory. Thanks in particular to the World Bank's Digital Economy for Africa initiative, broadband access in Africa rose from 26% in 2019 to 36% in 2022. The World Bank projects that the digital economy could contribute up to 712 billion dollars to African GDP by 2050. But realising this potential depends precisely on closing the usage gap: as long as two-thirds of covered people remain offline, most of the value stays theoretical. The cost of inaction is therefore not neutral; it is cumulative, and it penalises first the countries that started furthest behind.

For Niger or Burkina Faso, where penetration stalls below 30%, the stake goes beyond telecommunications. Without mass connectivity, digital public services (civil registration, health, payments, distance education) remain inaccessible to the majority, and productivity gaps with better-connected neighbours widen. The digital divide then becomes a development divide outright.

Closing the usage gap: a demand challenge, not only supply

The strategic implication is counter-intuitive. For two decades, African digital policy has been conceived as a supply policy: deploy towers, lay fibre, extend coverage. That effort remains necessary for the 14% of the population still without a signal, and more so in rural areas (25%). But it can no longer be the main axis. When 86% of the population is covered and only 38% connects, the bottleneck has shifted from supply to demand.

Acting on demand requires levers distinct from laying infrastructure. Bringing the cost of data below the 2% of income threshold mobilises competition between operators, sector taxation and device-access policies. Making use worthwhile requires relevant online content and public services, in the languages spoken, along with mass digital literacy. None of these tasks falls to the telecommunications ministry alone: they engage education, finance, public administration and the private sector. This cross-cutting nature explains why the usage gap is so resistant, and why measuring it precisely is the precondition for any inter-ministerial coordination.

Financing follows the same logic. Donors and regional programmes, such as the World Bank's Digital Economy for Africa initiative, first financed infrastructure, with tangible results (broadband access rose from 26% to 36% between 2019 and 2022). The next step, harder to fund because less visible than a tower, is investment in adoption: targeted smartphone subsidies, training, local content. That is where the move from today's 38% towards a connected majority will play out, and with it the effective capture of the growth dividend of 2.5% of GDP per capita for every 10 points of broadband.

The CRAD angle: measure finely to decide rightly

From this analysis follows a methodological conviction. Steering the digital transformation by the number of mobile subscriptions alone confuses equipment with use, and structurally overstates inclusion. The right unit for steering is not the SIM card, it is the real user, disaggregated by territory, sex and income bracket. It is precisely this work of fine-grained, geolocated and disaggregated measurement that makes it possible to distinguish a coverage gap (which calls for infrastructure) from a usage gap (which calls for affordability, skills and content).

International sources, the World Bank, the ITU and the GSMA, provide the regional framing. But they stop at the national or continental average. Public decisions, however, are made at the level of a municipality, a district, a social group. It is this last statistical mile, from the regional figure to actionable local data, that separates a diagnosis from an effective policy. This is CRAD's craft: turning field data into territorialised decisions.

← All insights