Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-04-07
Source: The Conversation – in French– By Fabrice Lollia, Doctor in Information and Communication Sciences, associate researcher at the DICEN Ile de France laboratory, Gustave Eiffel University
From Madagascar to Mauritius, from the Comoros to the Seychelles, the digital transition is often presented as a driver of modernization. But without appropriate skills, without protection for workers, and without information governance, it can also exacerbate inequalities, weaken career paths, and undermine institutional trust.
In the Indian Ocean, digital technology is oftentoldsuch as the simple promise of more connections, more services, more jobs. On the ground, the reality is more ambivalent. A smartphone, a mobile connection, and a few applications can indeed open unprecedented access to economic activity. But these same tools can also bring thousands of workers into aunstable usage patterns, poorly protected and dependent on rules they do not control.
That is the whole challenge of the ongoing transformation I havestudiedin the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and the Seychelles. Digital technology is advancing everywhere there, but at different rates and in very unequal contexts. It directly affects employment, skills, forms of work, and modes of public governance.
The real issue is therefore not only to know whether the region is digitizing, but to understand what kind of work, protection, and trust this digitization produces.
AsresearcherIn information and communication sciences, I study the social effects of digital technology in African and island contexts. My work focuses in particular on platforms, labor, and the security governance of information.
A regional transition, but very contrasting trajectories
First observation: the digital transition is widely shared, but it remains unequal.
Mauritius and Seychelles benefit from more structured environments. Madagascar and the Comoros face stronger constraints in terms of infrastructure, training, and institutional capacities. Despite these disparities, digital technology is emerging throughout the region as a key driver of economic and social modernization.
The comparative table of thereportreveals four distinct profiles.
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Mauritius has a robust digital environment, with value-added services and interconnected infrastructures, but the country still faces a gap between available skills and market needs.
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Seychelles has further integrated digital technology into a resilience logic (that is to say, a capacity to better manage the structural vulnerabilities of a small island state by using digital tools to anticipate, coordinate, and protect), environmental management, and public services.
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Madagascar combines strong human potential, a large youth population, and growth in mobile usage with deep digital divides and a high level of informal employment.
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Comoros, finally, is moving forward on an emerging trajectory, but still hindered by weak infrastructure and operational capacities. The strategyComoros Digital 2028supports the development of online services, digital financial services, and governance, with initiatives such as e-government, e-Registry, or DIMAKOM, which are still fragile at this stage.
This contrast recallsthat the same technology does not produce the same effects depending on the social, educational, territorial, and institutional contexts in which it is embedded. Digital technology is therefore not reduced to a matter of equipment.Researchshows that digital transformation can disrupt professional benchmarks, weaken organizational trust, and increase workplace tensions when technical systems are not supported by appropriate regulatory frameworks
The report highlights that the digital sector does indeed create new employment opportunities, especially for young people. But these opportunities remain conditioned by three factors: the match between skills and market needs, the ability to supervise new forms of digital work, and equitable access to training.
Without appropriate support, the risk of increased precariousness and widening inequalities intensifies.
It is precisely for this reason that thenotion of decent workis central. The International Labour Organization (ILO)recallsthat the digital transition should not be considered an end in itself, but as a means to achieve decent work, taking into account its effects on employment, workers’ rights, social protection, social dialogue, and inclusion.
The report identifies several tensions: the creation of digital jobs can be accompanied by increased forms of job insecurity, automation is transforming the required skills, and unequal access to skills is widening the gaps between regions, genders, and levels of qualification.
In other words, digital technology can create activity without securing career paths. It can generate income without guaranteeing rights. And it can open market access while leaving some workers outside any protective framework.
The gig economy, between opportunities and new dependencies
It is in platform work that the ambivalence of the digital transition appears most clearly. In the Indian Ocean, the gig economy, in other words an economy based on short, flexible missions organized via digital platforms, is already advancing through online micro-tasks, occasional services, delivery, or services coordinated by mobile applications. This so-called “modeluberization” (direct connection between clients and providers, via digital platforms) appeals because it offers a flexible entry into the labor market and additional income, especially in contexts of high informality.
But this flexibility masks anew addiction. Income, the visibility of workers, and their access to clients often depend on opaque systems of rating, ranking, and automation. Added to this is a frequently insufficient protection framework: low social protection, limited job security, unclear recognition of employment, and difficulty in collective representation. In island contexts, this situation particularly increases the vulnerability of young people and low-income workers.
Digital technology therefore opens up opportunities, but it also introduces new vulnerabilities. Without regulation, the promise of autonomy can quickly turn into lasting precariousness.
One of the major contributions of the report is to show that the digital divide is not limited to access to networks or devices. It also refers to inequalities in skills, usage, cultural capital, and social inclusion, which makes it aquestion of social justiceas much asconnectivity.
It is also informational. The rise of platforms is accompanied by ainformational disorderwhere misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation overlap, with direct effects on institutional trust and social cohesion. These dynamics directly affect social cohesion, social dialogue, and the quality of working relationships.
Platforms are not merely technical supports. They organize what becomes visible, credible, and legitimate, and thus influencepower relationsin the digital space. This is why the report stresses that without information governance, the digital transition cannot be fully sustainable. Organizing, regulating, and securing information flows becomes an essential condition to preserve trust and social cohesion.
What answers?
At the regional level, four challenges stand out: developing digital skills, reducing social and territorial divides, better regulating new forms of work, and strengthening information governance. These issues call for coordinated responses between States.
The report proposes several avenues: structuring regional expertise on digital technology and work, better targeting vulnerable populations, supporting platform work through social dialogue, and integrating information governance into digital, employment, and training policies.
The underlying idea is simple: in the Indian Ocean, digital technology cannot be considered merely as a technological dissemination. Its success will be measured less by the number of connections than by its ability to produce sustainable skills, real protections, decent work, and an information environment reliable enough to support trust.
Without social and informational governance, digital technology modernizes tools without necessarily strengthening societies.
Fabrice Lollia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
–ref. In the Indian Ocean, digital technology can create opportunities… or establish a new form of precariousness –https://theconversation.com/in-the-indian-ocean-digital-technology-can-create-opportunities-or-establish-new-precariousness-279788