How ROAMX helps bridge the digital divide
Digital transformation is accelerating globally, and a new wave of tools is quietly reshaping how countries evaluate progress, confront inequality, and plan for a more inclusive online future.
At the Internet Governance Forum 2025 in Lillestrøm, Norway, experts and stakeholders gathered to assess the progress of UNESCO’s ROAMX framework, a tool for evaluating digital development through the lenses of Rights, Openness, Accessibility, Multi-stakeholder participation, and cross-cutting issues such as gender equality and sustainability. Since its introduction in 2018, and with the rollout of new second-generation indicators in 2024, ROAMX has helped countries align their digital policies with global standards like the WSIS and Sustainable Development Goals.
Dr Tawfik Jelassi of UNESCO opened the session by highlighting the urgency of inclusive digital transformation, noting that 2.6 billion people remain offline, particularly in lower-income regions.
Brazil and Fiji were presented as case studies for the updated framework. Brazil, the first to implement the revised indicators, showcased improvements in digital public services, but also revealed enduring inequalities—particularly among Black women and rural communities—with limited meaningful connectivity and digital literacy.
Meanwhile, Fiji piloted a capacity-building workshop that exposed serious intergovernmental coordination gaps: despite extensive consultation, most ministries were unaware of their national digital strategy. These findings underscore the need for ongoing engagement across government and civil society to implement effective digital policies truly.
Speakers emphasised that ROAMX is more than just an assessment tool; it offers a full policy lifecycle framework that can inform planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Participants noted that the framework’s adaptability makes it suitable for integration into national and regional digital governance efforts, including Internet Governance Forums.
They also pointed out the acute lack of sex-disaggregated data, which severely hampers effective policy responses to gender-based digital divides, especially in regions like Africa, where women remain underrepresented in both access and leadership roles in tech.
The session concluded with a call for broader adoption of ROAMX as a strategic tool to guide inclusive digital transformation efforts worldwide. Its relevance was affirmed in the context of WSIS+20 and the Global Digital Compact, with panellists agreeing that meaningful, rights-based digital development must be data-driven, inclusive, and participatory to leave no one behind in the digital age.
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