Suriname Scores 7.5 out of 100 on the Global ICT Accessibility Rights Index — Zero Policy Across All Ten Digital-Accessibility Domains

Suriname ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in March 2017 and has a general disability-rights law in place. But when G3ict, the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs — an independent nonprofit that has worked with UN DESA since 2006 — scored the country on its Digital Accessibility Rights Evaluation (DARE) Index, Suriname received 7.5 out of 100 points, ranking 132nd of 137 countries assessed worldwide and 25th of 26 in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The index breaks the score into three components: laws and regulations (7.5 of 25), capacity to implement them (0 of 25), and actual ICT policy and programme outcomes (0 of 50). On the outcomes component, all ten policy areas the index tracks — web accessibility, TV and multimedia captioning, mobile telephony, e-books and digital content, internet access for persons with disabilities, inclusive ICT in education and employment, e-government and smart cities, assistive technologies, and public-procurement accessibility standards — scored zero, reflecting the absence of any binding requirement, government accessibility unit, or university-level ICT-accessibility training in the country.
A separate, independently conducted digital-readiness assessment for USAID — fieldwork carried out July–November 2021, published September 2022 — reached a consistent conclusion from a different angle: it found that "people with disabilities have limited access to digital devices and online services" in Suriname, even as the country's mobile broadband penetration (137 connections per 100 people) and 3G coverage (95%) are comparatively strong — evidence that broad connectivity has not translated into accessible connectivity for disabled Surinamese.

Read the full analysis: https://www.digitaldevelopment.org/countries/suriname/