Closing the digital divide is no longer a side issue. It's central to whether the AI era works for everyone, or just a few.
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Getting online is only half of the story. A community with internet access but no digital skills, no say over its own data, and no voice in the rules of the digital economy struggle to access of most of its benefits.
"The benefits of technology can only come down to the last mile, or to the last person, if and only if we make it much more clearly accessible and available to everyone," says Ashutosh Chadha, Microsoft's Senior Director for UN Affairs and International Organizations.
Connectivity has to come paired with something else, he says: "When you provide internet access, you also provide them with the skills and the capacity to use that technology."
Access without fair terms
Access on unfair terms creates its own trap.
A representative of IT for Change, a civil society group from India, warns against "digital trade agreements that are one-sided and that just helps a few countries."
Developing countries, they argue, need "policy space to decide how they will govern their data resources," deciding for themselves whom their data reaches and for what purpose, rather than being pressured to open their digital economies to outside corporations.
Moving knowledge, not just money
That is where technology transfer comes in. Moving knowledge and skills across borders in ways that don't leave countries dependent.
"Technology transfer outside the market route can happen," the IT for Change representative says, pointing to ways of building "democratic, public, accountable and autonomous data and AI infrastructure" in developing countries.
Ghana's Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed, points to what that looks like in practice: Training local technical teams so governments can carry out their policy decisions, diversifying from outside funding.
Industry and governments, together
This is a shift that industry is starting to embrace too.
"Unlike the previous areas when technology used to rush ahead of governance," Chadha notes, governments and regulators are now working alongside technology companies "to make sure that we can impact society at scale and in the right ways."
UNCTAD's role
UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) helps close this gap with practical tools. Its Frontier Technologies Readiness Index benchmarks 170 countries on the infrastructure, skills and financing they need to compete.
Its Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Reviews work directly with governments to redesign national systems for growth, not dependency.
Why this matters now
The urgency is growing.
As world leaders gather in Geneva this month for the AI for Good Summit and the UN's first Global Dialogue on AI Governance, closing the digital divide is no longer a side issue. It's central to whether the AI era works for everyone, or just a few.