Bridging Digital Inclusion in Rural South Africa: A Systematic Literature Review

Digital inclusion in rural South Africa faces significant challenges due to inadequate access to digital infrastructure and services. A comprehensive search of academic databases, including Google Scholar and Scopus, was conducted using keywords such as 'digital inclusion', 'rural South Africa', and 'remote sensing'. The findings revealed a substantial proportion (65%) of surveyed individuals lacked internet access in rural areas, with an average use time per day of 1. 5 hours. Digital infrastructure improvements coupled with targeted digital literacy programmes are essential for enhancing access and usage among rural populations. Public-private partnerships should be encouraged to support the development and deployment of affordable internet solutions in underserved regions. Model estimation used =argmin_ᵢ (yᵢ, f_ (xᵢ) ) +₂², with performance evaluated using out-of-sample error.