UNICEF releases child-centered digital framework to address inequalities in children’s lives

A new child-centred digital framework proposed by UNICEF paints an equitable digital future, highlighting the need for a shift from digital inclusion to digital equality, as well as increased participation from relevant stakeholders.

Given that digital exclusion mirrors and magnifies existing social, cultural, and economic inequities and pushes vulnerable children closer to the edges of marginalisation, the digital transformation of society has an uneven consequence on all children. To address the effects of the shifting digital and governance landscape, as well as emerging and embedded technologies, on children’s experience with digital technologies, a future-oriented framework for an equitable digital future was proposed by UNICEF. The framework highlights the need to move from digital inclusion to digital equality.

The framework can be used as a foundation for developing and evaluating digital inclusion policies, as a roadmap for structuring the involvement of pertinent stakeholders in achieving digital equality for children, and as a tool to assist in the design of policies and interventions by state authorities, civic groups, and the private sector. For this framework to effectively respond to new trends and technologies, a wider range of stakeholders must be engaged in its implementation.