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 $\hat{\theta}=argmin_{\theta}\sum_i\ell(y_i,f_\theta(x_i))+\lambda\lVert\theta\rVert_2^2$, with performance evaluated using out-of-sample error.