Internet Penetration and Social Media Usage in the SADC Region: *Note: Sub-Titles are not Captured in Xplore and Should not be Used

Abstract

Africa has a lot of economic opportunities that exist in various sectors. Much of the population is very youthful and must take advantage of opportunities brought about by digital transformation and internet penetration in the continent to make digitally enabled socio-economic development a high priority. For an innovative, inclusive and sustainable growth, Africa should embrace Digital Transformation as a driving force. This will help in reducing poverty and inequality, thereby allowing creating goods and services, that will help the continent in achieving its goals in the Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals. African leaders need to prioritize the acceleration of digital transformation so that their countries can have a comprehensive strategy so that they can have a common, coordinated plan for them to reap the benefits of the fourth industrial revolution. In this paper we conduct desk research to ascertain the level of Internet penetration in the SADC regional block of Africa. The results show that in most SADC countries, the majority of the people live in rural areas except for South Africa, Seychelles and Namibia who have 31.7%, 41.6% and 46.2% rural populations, respectively. Internet penetration in most SADC countries is still less than 50% of the population except for Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, Namibia, Seychelles and South Africa, who had more than 50% of the population with Internet connection. Mobile phones have become a central part of people's lives and have a great economic importance since most people in the SADC region use their phones for financial transactions. In all countries, the number of mobile connections were more than 100%, except in Angola, Comoros, Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique. This substantial number can be attributed to the fact that a lot of people in all corners of the world use at least one mobile connection. These Internet connections may either be, for example, one for work and the other for personal use. So, it is expected for figures of the mobile connections to rise depending on the population. The research also looked at the use of social media as a measure of use of Internet in the population. The social media looked at were Facebook, Instagram, Facebook messenger, LinkedIn, and Twitter. In the whole of SADC countries, only Mauritius and Seychelles had more than 50% of the population using social media, with 78.6% and 74%, respectively. We also collected data on the percentage of the population with mobile connection. From the research we concluded that, in most SADC countries, more effort is still required to bridge the digital divide. There is need for more people to be afforded the chance to have an Internet connection by providing financial opportunities for citizens to buy mobile phones and to have a fixed Internet connection. Governments should make policies that will encourage the use of ICT for social-economic development of the continent towards attaining Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable development goals.