According to World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends, recently launched by the World Bank, the number of Internet users from across the world exceeds 3.2 billion – three times higher than the figures registered in the last 10 years. Therefore, the experts predict that the number of Internet users will increase by about 5 times over the coming decade.  

At the same time, the report underlines that over 60% of the world population has not an Internet connection today, which is a problem, given that it is not fully involved in the development of the digital economy. The rest of about 40% of the world population enjoys an advanced experience in the digital economy.  4.2 billion searches on Google are carried out every day and 6000 tweets are written each second.  “The digital technologies are important, given that these promote the inclusion, efficiency and the innovation”- the experts in the field declare.

In addition, the World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends shows that many households in developing countries have a phone mobile, even if their members have no access to electricity or drinking water. In addition, 70% of households in developing countries are in the same situation. 

A curious thing mentioned in the report is that in the middle – income countries, the digital ID is increasingly used and it slowly replace the physical identity. Successful examples can be found in Albania, India, Moldova and Pakistan.  

„Many governments use the digital technology, but these did not manage to solve two crucial problems: to improve the management of the relationships with the public sector and to involve the citizens in the process. At global level, the transparency level of the governments is very low, though it can be improved by means of digital technology”, the World Bank report shows.

The World Development Report  is the most important analytical publication of the World Bank, drawn up since 1979. Each year, this focuses on an interest topic related to a widely development of the society. The 2016 report is oriented towards a higher level of understanding of the impact of the digital technologies on a global level. 

As a reminder, according to National Survey “Perception, uptake and support by the population of the e-Government transformation in Moldova, the citizens of the Republic of Moldova perceive the Governance e-Transformation as an important reform for the society, 79% of respondents stated that they support the e-Transformation, which represents an increase of 6% comparing to 2014 and of 21% comparing to the research data in 2012.