8/8/2019 Position Paper of Honduras on Digital Divide

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Position Paper of Honduras on Digital Divide

The Republic of Honduras is the second poorest country

amongst the Central America countries. Our country’s HDI is

around 0.6, which is far below the average of countries in

Latin America and the Caribbean. Nevertheless, our country is

showing constant improvement towards achieving theMillennium Development Goals, including technological

development.

The percentage of telephone subscribers has rapidly increased in the past ten years. In 2000, only

7% of the population had telephone access. This number has since increased to 10%, while

mobile cellular usage has reached 100%. However, the wealth of our country is not distributed

equally. Our GINI coefficient is 53.8, which makes us 15th of the most unequal countries in terms

of income distribution. In spite of the high telephone subscriptions, many people may own

multiple phone numbers, so an unequal proportion of the population actually has access to

telephones.

Furthermore, our country’s illiteracy rate is at 16.4, implying that 1.3 million people are not

receiving a good quality of education. This becomes a barrier to digital development, as the keys

on the keyboards would become meaningless to the illiterate people. This situation has to be

improved, to help more people enjoy the benefits of improved technology level.

The problem of a population with access to the World Wide Web at only 9% is caused by the high

costs of service and more than 50% of the population living in rural areas, increasing the

difficulty for everyone in the country to access the internet. Moreover, our country is vulnerable

to the frequent earthquakes, damaging hurricanes and floods. These disasters increase the

difficulties in building all the infrastructure needed for internet access.

Our position is to implement telecommunication privatization schemes. By allowing private

operators and providers to run their own business and invest on infrastructure, the expansion of 

public networks may be achieved. This reduces the economic burden of our country, attracts

technological specialists and narrows the digital divide. Our country has applied such strategy to

increase the number of subscribers to mobile cellular phones, so the same strategy can be applied

to increase the number of internet users.

Due to the large amount of people living in rural areas, the usage of 3G technology would become

a more efficient method in allowing more access to the World Wide Web. The users only need a

3G signal receiver, rather than miles of wires connecting to provider. This method reduces the

amount of infrastructure needed, thus, less vulnerable to natural disasters.

For Honduras to narrow the gap of digital divide is possible, however, our country requires

assistance from other countries. Our country needs assistance in economic aspects, as well as

importing specialists from foreign countries to increase the quality of internet service.