President Macky Sall's candidacy for the office of UN Secretary-General counts connectivity among the levers of development. About 2.6 billion people still have no access to the internet. At a time when school, health, money and work run through the network, to be cut off from it is to be held apart from the century.
Offline is out of the game. Without a connection, a pupil does not reach knowledge, a trader stays local, a citizen does not know their rights. The digital divide doubles the inequalities that already exist: it separates cities from countryside, rich from poor, men from women. Each service that goes digital leaves a few more people by the roadside.
Connect as we once electrified. Access to the network belongs to basic infrastructure, on the same footing as water, roads or electricity. Building it takes cables, relays, energy and rules that bring prices down. What states did for electricity in the last century, they owe today to connection.
Connecting is not enough. A network is worth only the use made of it: reading a screen, guarding against a scam, finding a public service online. Digital literacy goes with the connection, without which the gap merely shifts instead of closing.
What the Secretariat can carry. The Secretary-General does not lay the cables, but can make universal connectivity a development goal, support infrastructure financing, and recall that a half-connected world lets slip part of its growth, its security and its justice.
Experience in running a state. Twelve years as head of state and the chairmanship of the African Union in 2022 underpin these commitments. That experience explains why the vision statement filed with the United Nations frames its proposals as obligations: peace, security and development conceived together; a renewed multilateralism; stronger governance of the Organization.
Africa at its heart, the world in its sights.
The International Telecommunication Union's data on internet access are public. Read all public positions at www.mackysall.net