This book analyzes the use of the mobile Internet against the background of gender bias and
Covid-19 currently two of the most important and pressing problems of the Global South. The
book argues that the degree of benefits from this new technology depends heavily on the way it
is actually used and that most new technologies are developed for the conditions prevailing in
rich countries where they tend to be quite easily adopted and used. In the Global South by
contrast a paucity of digital skills and other factors make the potentially valuable benefits
from the Internet much more difficult to derive. Using empirical data recently provided by the
Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA) the book examines the existence and extent of the
digital divide between males and females in mobile Internet use which constitutes a new form
of divide. It sheds light on the acute difficulty for first-time mobile Internet users in the
Global South and especially Sub-Saharan Africa to learn the digital skills that are needed to
use the said technology effectively with a special focus on how these users acquire the
required knowledge without having undergone the process of learning by doing. The book further
discusses the determinants of digital skills in the Global South as well as major factors
underlying the extent to which different users actually benefit from the mobile Internet such
as gender location age and education. Finally it investigates how womens' use of the
Internet has been altered by the pandemic in the Global South. This book will appeal to
students researchers and scholars of development economics and development studies as well
as policy-makers interested in a better understanding of the impact of gender bias and Covid-19
on mobile internet use in the Global South.
