GLOBAL online population is expected to increase by as much as 43 per cent by the end of 2015, going by the increasing access to digital technologies.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations (UN) specialized arm for the global development and regulation of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), which predicted this, recalled that in the year 2000, there were only 740 million mobile subscriptions globally, which resulted in the world having just seven per cent of the population online because there were no tablettes, smart phones, and social media.

“But by the end of this year, there will be 7.1 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide. And approximately 43 per cent of the global population will be online”, ITU stated.

The United States Census Bureau estimated that the world population exceeded seven billion on March 12, 2012. According to a separate estimate by the United Nations Population Fund, it reached this milestone on October 31, 2011.

Already, about 85 million Nigerians currently access the Internet space through the GSM platform, the narrow band. Nigeria is also working to ensure wider access to the Internet with a 30 per cent broadband penetration by 2018.
ITU said it recognized the overwhelming importance that technology – and especially ICT plays in peoples’ lives currently.

“What we may forget is how small a role ICTs played back at the beginning of the millennium, when the MDGs were set.

“But the growth in this sector has been tremendous, and the potential for innovative development solutions is infinite. For example – mobile ICT banking systems, created in Africa for Africans, that have given millions of people much needed economic confidence and security.”

According to the body, while the world has begun to see an avalanche of innovation that access to ICTs can create, there are gaps that remain.

These gaps, according to ITU include access gap, an affordability gap and a digital gender divide.

Speaking on behalf of ITU Secretary- General, Houlin Zhao, at the high-level political forum on Sustainable Development in New York, USA, at the weekend, Doreen Martin-Bogdan, said that a study released last year noted that connecting everyone in developing countries to the same levels as in developed economies could create 140 million jobs and lift 160 million people out of poverty.

According to Martin-Bodgan, ICT and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate human progress.