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Despite the gains and major investments in e-government by many countries, the digital divide persists. Seven out of eight countries with low scores are in Africa and belong to the least developed countries group.

The study examines how technology is misused to facilitate human trafficking, how more than 300 hundreds of tech tools have approached the problem, and how governments, civil society, and the private sector can strategically use tech to combat trafficking.

There are not only more children experiencing poverty than before, the poorest children are getting poorer as well. Before the pandemic, the average number of severe deprivations per child was around 0.7. It is now estimated to have increased by 15 percent to around 0.85.

On humanitarian grounds, the President of Uganda directed its Government to temporarily re-open the Zombo border to allow life-saving aid and protection to be provided to the group of refugees.

The number of Afghan civilians killed and injured in the conflict has failed to slow since the start of intra-Afghan peace talks, although the overall civilian casualty figure for the first nine months of 2020 dropped by around 30 percent compared to the same period in 2019.

Access to mobile phones is associated with multiple indicators linked to global social development, such as good health, gender equality, and poverty reduction. The link between mobile phone access and female empowerment is stronger in less- and least-developed countries.

At least 83 children have been killed in the northern province of Ituri in the Democratic Republic of Congo between April and July, reports Save the Children.

War, rising food prices, a health system overwhelmed by COVID-19, and funding challenges are deeply impacting access to food for children all across Yemen, pushing up the number of children who are on the brink of hunger or even starvation, Save the Children has warned.  

The Rwanda National Police has intervened with drones to raise COVID-19 awareness in densely-populated and hard-to-reach areas of the country.

The surging crisis is a combination of complex causes: intensifying conflict which has brought on an economic collapse, including dramatic food price increases in Yemen’s south, and a fuel import embargo hitting families in northern areas. The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded suffering as remittances have fallen, earning opportunities have dried up, health services been stretched to the limits and travel restrictions have compromised access to markets. On top of that, a locust plague and flash floods have battered local food production in some areas.