The technology divide is only getting wider, and countries that combined social with technological innovation were better able to protect the most vulnerable as COVID-19 spread. Even prior to the pandemic, Estonia made digital skills, internet access and infrastructure a national priority – going as far as classifying internet access a human right in 2001 – which helped it maintain a high level of education delivery and access during COVID-19-related school closures. However, even in advanced countries the biases that can be imparted to algorithms have created problems in terms of hiring and administering justice. The nuances of facial recognition technology in the US, for example, have meant that reading white male faces can be as much as 99% accurate, though that falls as low as 35% accuracy for dark-skinned women. Racial and gender bias can therefore be built into systems, perpetuating oppressive structures by failing to account for a wider variety of physical attributes and abilities in ways that increase incarceration rates for people of colour, and worsen inequality and injustice.

There has been a significant increase in censorship and government control of the internet in recent decades. When governments cannot block specific articles or references on social media posts, they may block entire websites – restricting public access to knowledge and potentially vital information. Often in the name of “protecting” social and cultural norms, governments are quick to clamp down on political content (frequently more quickly than they restrict sensitive content like pornography), though the real aim is often to protect the government’s own authority. China has reportedly developed one of the most advanced internet filters in the interest of controlling information and blocking sites that criticize the communist party or delve into human rights issues. The use of censorship in combination with the weaponization of political or cultural messaging on digital media for geopolitical gain has undermined democracies – though these countries face their own internal challenges in terms of unequal access to and control of technology, which must be addressed in order to better protect human rights, foster greater knowledge and protect democratic processes. Populism thrives on the internet, and we need new models to better control it.

The stabilizing effect of healthy institutions is crucial for any functioning economy or society. Whether it is financial and government institutions, judicial systems, or basic democratic processes, their effectiveness and efficiency can determine the degree of inequality plaguing any particular place. The gains accruing to the world’s wealthiest 1% point to widening disparities, with disproportionate impacts on the poor. Economic inequality is a global problem, though some countries, such as Finland, have managed to simultaneously attain high degrees of wealth, health, and equality. The media tends to portray inequality as a result of personal characteristics, rather than as a consequence of societal flaws and endemic poverty. This can undermine advocacy for more redistributive policies and greater welfare spending – including among those who would directly benefit from such policies (people often tend to favour “fairness” over equality, sometimes believing that certain levels of inequality are tolerable and even beneficial to society). Still, global institutions have forged ahead with projects aimed at bolstering financial inclusion, reducing inequalities, and alleviating poverty not least in places like Africa – where it is believed greater access to financial services like loans and bank accounts can mitigate persistent disparities.

Global institutions have forged alliances with big tech, development banks, and even startups to promote financial inclusion initiatives that advance their own particular interests, rather than those of society as a whole. This form of neoliberal capitalism can result in the exploitation of the very poor by applying systems designed for profits rather than human well-being. To lessen inequalities, a greater emphasis needs to be placed on the role of local governments – which have generally suffered from budget cuts. Across Africa, there is a significant positive association between the quality of local governments and healthy economic development at the regional level (after controlling for institutional quality at the national level). Inequality and democracy are not automatically connected; the degree of inequality is attributable to the particular political processes in any given country, and how they shape the redistribution of wealth and control. Citizen-led action can help reduce inequality, and more direct forms of democracy such as participatory budgeting (as pioneered in Porto Alegre, Brazil), can bring significant benefits. Taking such a decentralized, bottom-up approach to policy-making can address democratic deficits, bring often-excluded people into decision-making processes, improve their quality of life, and increase their prosperity.