Digital is once again at the center of the global conversation. World leaders and policymakers are increasingly realizing that digital is in the bullseye of the solution set for the world’s most pressing challenges. This is a belief NetHope has held since its inception.
NetHope’s New Digital Divides strategy is the culmination of years of research, in-depth stakeholder conversations, and work towards digital transformation in the nonprofit sector. It reflects what we believe are the key opportunities and risks international NGOs face when using digital to accelerate their programs. To bridge these new digital divides will require robust collaboration, but by tackling them thoughtfully, contextually, and collectively, the NetHope Global Community will advance humanitarian, conservation, and international development efforts worldwide.
The transformative potential of digital to advance global good is a belief that runs through NetHope’s new strategy. So, to participate in the UN General Assembly meetings in New York and COP 28 in Dubai and hear world leaders emphasizing the importance of digital in building solutions to global challenges is exciting because it validates the work our community is doing and intends to do.
Building on two decades of collective action
We are in the right place at the right time, with the right set of priorities. We can’t claim to directly solve the most pressing problems humanity is facing, but we can be there to enable impact with those who can: our 65+ world-changing nonprofit Members. Every day they work to make positive change in the lives of more than 1.6 billion people around the world and NetHope’s role is to better enable their responses and solutions through collaboration, collective action, and smarter use of technology.
At the time of NetHope's founding, our focus was on the original digital divide. There was a widespread belief that the increasing spread of online technologies would exacerbate inequality and lead to an uneven distribution of benefits unless there were corrective interventions to ensure equity. Fast forward 23 years, and more people are online than ever before, yet there are still digital divides that, like the ones from more than two decades ago, will only get worse if we indiscriminately accelerate the spread of today’s new digital technologies.. Through our strategic alignment process with our Members and partners, along with conversations with external thought leaders and experts, funders, and government and policymakers, we’ve identified the most pressing digital divides of today that threaten the mission advancement of the nonprofit sector and slow the global progress on the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
The New Digital Divides
Today’s five new digital divides— skills and leadership, inclusion, protection, transformation and innovation, as well as digital for climate adaptation and resilience— are distinct. But they’re also five pieces of a puzzle, reinforcing and intersecting with one another to create system change.
Digital now permeates every aspect of an international NGO’s operations and programs, which means that non-traditional IT roles in our organizations now often require deep digital skills. As a result, we need to expand our digital skills and leadership capacity beyond the C-suite and IT roles to ensure everyone from fundraising leaders running CRMs to field program workers collecting data are equipped to operate efficiently and safely.
Digital inclusion and digital protection sit alongside a solid foundation in skills. Digital holds the potential to level the playing field, but only if deployed consciously and with awareness of existing inequalities and threats, otherwise it will most likely amplify them. Building inclusivity into all our digital endeavors –in access, in training, and in the design of technology— will help prevent the perpetuation of the very problems we seek to address.
Given increasing demand on the humanitarian sector, digital innovation and transformation are essential if we are to have any chance of meeting the rising needs of people around the world.New innovations like generative AI are changing what’s possible with technology, but they are generally not equitable when adopted out of the box. NetHope has a role in not only helping our Members upskill but also helping them assess the risks- and ensure that protection and inclusion are prioritized as these new technologies mainstream and become more a part of the international NGO toolkit.
Lastly, we have climate adaptation and resilience, a real-world contextual variable that negatively impacts the work of every international nonprofit, and an area where digital technology is being used to support people. Digital for climate resilience intersects with all the above, as innovation, inclusion and skills are essential if we are to help already vulnerable communities adapt to climate instability. We must use information technologies to effect more equitable responses to extreme climate events, and to help the voices and perspectives of the most vulnerable find their rightful place in national adaptation plans (from which they are largely and conspicuously absent Digital innovation can help communities with early warning systems in the face of oncoming disaster, and it can support their own localized responses, and Equipping community based organizations, national nonprofits, and implementing partners with the digital skills and leadership needed to respond to such an enormous challenge will not be easy, but it will help drive localized solutions to these issues, and is the right thing to do.
These brief descriptions only scratch the surface of the five, system-level digital divides the NetHope community is seeking to focus on, but I hope as you are reading this our explanations and our plans will help inspire you to embark on the journey with us.
NetHope: an indispensable partner
Digital holds the power to dramatically accelerate the good work of the nonprofit sector, and left unchecked and without good governance, can also undo it. We want to invest in our global community of nonprofits to support the responsible and ethical use of technology to drive operational efficiencies and deliver outsized positive programmatic impacts. We can deploy technology with inclusion, safety, and protection at its heart, ensuring that we upskill its users and help them responsibly take advantage of the latest innovations. By doing so, we can help the humanitarian, conservation, and development sectors step up to perform at the higher levels being demanded of them.
Working together to harness the potential of digital, and sharing that knowledge with each other, is the way NetHope has always worked. Today, by deepening this practice together through NetHope, international NGOs can do better for more people and the planet than they can by working alone. This group-level transformation has been called “the NetHope Effect” and there is data to back it up. Research shows our Members— powered by NetHope’s unique collective action for collective impact model — achieve faster, more effective, and more scalable digital transformation. Moreover, digital transformation isn’t the goal in itself. Rather, through it, we help our Members create systems-change that result in them carrying out their missions more effectively, collectively helping a world of people in need.
NetHope is a partner for the journey. A catalyst for impact. And together with our Global Community, we will bridge the New Digital Divides.
Don't miss...
Every installment of our six-part series exploring how NetHope’s 2024-2030 strategic plan is tackling the New Digital Divides:
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