Digital inclusion
Public services

Algeria’s digital society axis: inclusion, participation and national content

The digital society axis asks who can benefit from transformation, contribute to public life and access meaningful national content. Page 20 of the English edition sets Objectives 23–25 for equitable access, participation and content for all social groups. Unlike several other axes, this page does not assign quantitative targets to these objectives. We explain the source’s scope and use W3C accessibility principles to make service-design questions practical.

The main findings

Objective 23 concerns equitable, inclusive access to digital technologies and services.
Objective 24 addresses participation in public life and decision-making, rather than social-media reach.
Objective 25 connects national digital content with cultural identity, added value and accessibility to social groups.
The three objectives on page 20 are qualitative; the article does not invent coverage percentages or delivery deadlines.
W3C’s perceivable, operable, understandable and robust principles offer technical guidance for testing a service experience.

National ambitions and business evidence

The strategy supplies the national targets. Somu Raqami proposes the operational questions and evidence in the other columns; these are not additional official indicators.

Area	Strategy target	Business question	Evidence to check
Access	Equitable and inclusive use	Can the intended user finish the task?	Observed task completion and barriers
Participation	Involvement in public life	Who receives and considers the contribution?	A clear contribution and response route
Content	National content for all groups	Is the information useful and understandable?	Readable text and identifiable sources
Accessibility	Our W3C-informed design guidance	Does the service work with different input tools?	Keyboard and assistive-technology checks

Digital society is about people using the service

Infrastructure provides networks and resources; the society axis concerns participation and benefit. A connection makes a service reachable but does not show that a person can understand its requirements or complete a request. This is why availability, usability and inclusion should be examined as related but distinct questions.

The strategy places citizens and businesses at the centre and includes privacy among its guiding principles. The society axis adds use, public participation and content. For a service team, the practical starting point is to identify the intended users, the conditions of use and the barriers that prevent a meaningful result.

Objective 23: equitable and inclusive access

Objective 23 promotes widespread ICT use for individuals and society and access for a large majority of the population. Page 20 does not assign a specific percentage to this objective. The 100% access ambition in the infrastructure axis should not be copied into this separate objective as though the wording were identical.

For service design, distinguish reaching the page from benefiting from it. A user may have a phone and still be unable to read text embedded in an image, understand an error or submit a form. Examining these barriers gives an organization actionable evidence without claiming that one interface represents every population group.

Objective 24: participation in public life

Objective 24 concerns active citizen involvement in public life through online tools, contributions to decision-making and inclusive governance. It is a civic objective. Marketing reactions, follower counts or website visits do not by themselves establish participation in a public decision process.

The page does not name a new consultation platform or specify its operating procedure. For an actual participation service, our recommendation is to explain the subject, who receives contributions, how they are considered and what feedback is available. A participation button needs an accountable process behind it if the person is to understand its purpose.

Objective 25: valuable national digital content

Objective 25 connects content with preserving national cultural identity, digital inclusion and state values. It describes authentic, culturally rich material that adds value and is accessible to all social groups. It does not prescribe a number of articles, a language quota or a publishing schedule in this section.

A business can contribute by explaining a service, its requirements and its steps in useful, readable text. Language should follow the intended audience and its needs. This is our practical interpretation: multiplying pages or repeating a slogan does not establish that the information helps people understand or complete a task.

Perceivable: provide access to the information itself

W3C explains that non-text content needs meaningful alternatives, including labels, descriptions and alternatives for multimedia. Information carried by an image, chart or recording should be available in a way appropriate to users who cannot see or hear that presentation. The purpose is equivalent access to the meaning, not decorative descriptions.

Our recommendation is to keep essential instructions and results in readable text, label controls by their function, and examine contrast and resizing. These are technical design checks derived from W3C guidance. They are not numerical national targets or an assertion that the strategy page prescribes a particular accessibility certification.

Operable: test more than the usual phone interaction

W3C’s operable principle includes keyboard access, usable focus, sufficient time and ways to control disruptive movement. A service should not trap someone in a component or require a precise movement that has no alternative. Mobile testing is useful, but it does not cover every input method or user need.

Try the request journey without a mouse, then review whether the user can locate controls and correct an error. Do not rely on colour alone to communicate the required action. Testing outside the designer’s usual habits often reveals where a technically available service remains difficult to use.

Understandable and robust: explain and expose the controls

W3C links understandable content with clear language, predictable navigation and help avoiding and correcting mistakes. Robust implementation concerns compatibility with browsers and assistive technologies, including meaningful names, roles and values for controls. The visible interface and the information exposed to user tools need to agree.

For an Algerian service, review the chosen language, text direction, numbers and field labels alongside its technical structure. A button can look clear and still lack a usable name for a screen reader. Accessibility therefore needs attention to content, interaction and implementation rather than a visual review alone.

Trust and privacy are part of inclusion

The strategy’s principles include privacy and personal data protection; its foundations include security and regulation across the axes. A user needs to understand what information the service asks for and why. Simplifying a form while leaving its data use opaque can undermine the trust that participation requires.

Our design recommendation is to clarify necessary data and the assistance available, while governing access within the organization. This is not a substitute for checking applicable legal obligations. Likewise, openness should not be used as a blanket justification to publish people’s contributions or personal records without defined rules.

Observe a complete task with intended users

Choose a task with a recognizable outcome and observe people who reflect the audience’s different circumstances. The strategy does not prescribe a sample size or test duration here. Record where the person stalls and the help they need, then correct the barrier and repeat the relevant test.

As a hypothetical example, a training-registration journey includes finding the requirements, understanding fields, correcting an input and receiving confirmation. This is an illustrative exercise, not a claimed customer case. It combines information and interaction and makes the organization’s own service result observable.

Define the result without instructions from the designer.
Check phone use, keyboard use, text resizing and relevant language.
Record the barrier and assistance, not just general satisfaction.
Provide a clear help route and verify the corrections.

How to read evidence of progress

Progress needs evidence about access, actual use, public participation and meaningful content, with the population and limits identified. Page 20 provides qualitative objectives rather than numeric milestones or an implementation schedule. Application downloads cannot establish every dimension of inclusion, and no percentage should be invented to fill that gap.

An organization can make its own service more understandable and usable and retain evidence of the improvements. That contribution should keep its scope: commercial engagement does not automatically become public participation. The strategy is most useful when each objective keeps its meaning and local service evidence is distinguished from national progress.

Frequently asked questions

Is a digital society simply widespread phone ownership?

Devices and connectivity help access, but this axis also concerns use, participation and national content. A person may own a phone and still be unable to complete a service. Assess the task and its barriers alongside availability, rather than treating device ownership as sufficient evidence of inclusion.

Do Objectives 23–25 specify percentages?

The English page 20 sets qualitative goals for access, participation and content without quantitative targets for these three objectives. The infrastructure access percentage belongs to a different objective. The article keeps that distinction rather than inventing numbers or moving targets between axes.

Are W3C principles presented as Algerian law?

No. W3C is used as a technical reference for understanding and testing accessibility. The article does not claim those design details are specified by the strategy or constitute an Algerian legal rule. Establishing a legal obligation or full conformance requires checking its own source and scope.

Will adding language versions make a service inclusive?

Appropriate language helps, but the user also needs readable information, workable controls, understandable errors and a clear result. Review direction, labels and assistive-technology behaviour. Test the whole task instead of treating the presence of several language options as proof of inclusion.

How can a private business contribute to this axis?

A business can improve access to its services, publish useful information, organize assistance and protect users’ data. Those are contributions to digital benefit. They do not automatically turn commercial interaction into the public-life participation described by Objective 24, which has a separate civic context.

Explore the strategy and your next step

Websites and applicationsDesign an accessible service your team can operate and measure.The practical strategy overviewConnect the five axes to a focused first project for your organization.Return to the infrastructure axisExamine how this axis depends on the other parts of the strategy.Digital Algeria 2030A reference overview of the five national axes.