The NGO Digital Divide: Structural Barriers to Digital Transformation in Nigerian Non-Governmental Organizations

Abstract

The international humanitarian system’s localization agenda increasingly relies on digital technologies to coordinate local and global actors. While NGO literature emphasizes digital literacy (DL) as the primary driver of transformative digital integration, this study examines how environmental constraints shape the relationship between DL and NGO digital integration outcomes. Through a comparative analysis of 16 Nigerian NGOs across infrastructure-rich Ogun State and infrastructure-poor Borno State, findings reveal that environmental barriers create a skill-implementation gap where even highly skilled NGOs cannot translate capabilities into transformative integration due to three barriers: infrastructure gaps, bandwidth ceilings, and beneficiary connectivity limitations. Borno NGOs consequently experienced constraints in maintaining digitally mediated accountability to donors, beneficiaries, other NGOs, and staff. These findings reveal that digital skill building alone cannot address humanitarian accountability challenges without parallel infrastructure development.