Abstract

South Africa continues to record one of the world’s highest youth-unemployment rates amid widening digital inequalities. Telecentres are public facilities offering computers, internet access, and digital skills support and have long been positioned as key ICT4D interventions. Yet, despite two decades of policy investment, their sustainability and developmental impact remain contested. This paper reframes telecentres as spaces of digital resilience that enable unemployed youth to absorb, adapt, and transform amid socio-economic shocks. Drawing on Sen’s Capability Approach, Kleine’s Choice Framework, and the Digital-Resilience model, we explore how telecentres in peri-urban Western Cape enable capability development for jobseekers. Seventeen participants aged 18–30 were interviewed across five municipalities. Thematic analysis using NVivo revealed four capability sets: (1) maintaining access under constraint, (2) learning and experimentation, (3) social-network mobilization, and (4) re-imagining agency. These capability pathways illustrate how youth convert scarce digital resources into functioning outcomes such as confidence, employability, and participation. The paper contributes to ICT4D theory by integrating Digital Resilience into the Capability Approach and by offering a South-African account of resilience-building infrastructures. Policy recommendations emphasize shifting from access metrics toward ecosystemic capability development

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