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Geography Development Gap

In: Computers and Technology

Submitted By YelloHello
Words 464
Pages 2
Assess the extent to which you agree that some parts of the world remain disconnected from technological developments.
There is great disparity across the world across technological developments, certain regions such as sub Saharan Africa have very limited access to mains electricity, the internet and other technologies. Much of South East Asia is also ‘switched off’. However within countries there is a large variation in level of development. Rural areas are typically far more disconnected and access to technology is very limited. In cities, especially Capitals and larger cities, for example Lagos in Nigeria have widespread technological access.
Figure 1 – Energy consumption per person, by country, 2009
Figure 1 – Energy consumption per person, by country, 2009
Sub-Saharan Africa is the most ‘switched off’ region in the world with less than 2% of the population with internet access and widespread ‘low human development’ ranking in over 25 African countries. The vast majority of sub Saharan Africans fall under the lowest two categories of energy consumption, this means they use less than 9 btu a year. This compares with an average of 313 million btu/yr in the USA. (See Figure 1) However some technology is prevalent; mobile telephone technology is on the rise, mobile devices are increasingly popular in Africa, with many people owning their own phones despite not having electricity access in their homes. This has had a knock on effect with many mobile phone charging businesses starting. Africa has ‘leapfrogged’ the landline telephone stage of telecommunications technology and mobile phones are widely used.
However not all African countries are disconnected. South Africa for example ranks 5th in the world for mobile date usage and internet user growth was 140% between 2010 and 2012 and still rising. There are many technology companies based in South Africa and

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