IGF 2025 - Day 4 - Workshop Room 3 - WS #225 Bridging the Connectivity Gap for Excluded Communities

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Good morning, everyone. Hello. And welcome to this session titled, Bridging the Connectivity Gap for Excluded Communities. My name is Nnenna Paul-Ugochukwu. I'm a chief operating officer at Paradigm Initiative a nonprofit dedicated to digital inclusion and digital rights in Africa and the Global South. I'm honoured today to guide today's conversation on a challenge that sits at the intersection of infrastructure, equity, and human rights.

Asking the question how do we ensure meaningful and affordable and inclusive connectivity for all? While internet access significantly expanded globally, millions remain unconnected, particularly if rural, remote, and underserved regions. Bridging the last mile connectivity gap is crucial for ensuring digital inclusion and ensuring access for all.

Today's conversation will explore innovative solutions and policies and business models aimed at addressing last mile challenge, including community network, public‑private partnerships, emerging technologies like Low‑Earth Orbit satellites, 5G expanding and management approaches.

This session aims to generate actionable insights to inform global governance discussions making sure underserved populations benefit from the digital economy and essential online services. So today to have this conversation and to bring it all together, I have with me, starting from the far left, Chris Locke and MD internet society foundation who spent decades building digital economies with GSMA mobile and caribou digital.

I have on my immediate left, Thobekile Matimbe, senior manager partnership for Paradigm Initiative and also an expert in human rights based advocacy. I also have with me, Onica Makwakwa, Executive Director of digital global inclusion partnership. She worked for 25 years driving gender and equity focused policy. And I also have with me, Cristian Leon Coronda the director of Digital India.

And I have my colleague online who will be moderating and gathering questions and discussion during plenary at the end of the panel discussion.

Welcome once again, and I think we will dive right in and go for it as my colleague always says. I'll start the conversation today with Chris. Drawing your from your leadership and back ground in building digital economies how can emerging technologies like I mentioned Low‑Earth Orbit satellites and 5G be leveraged to bridge the connectivity gap in a sustainable way?

>> CHRISTOPHER LOCKE: Thank you, and thank you for inviting me to the panel. It's lovely to be here. We are relatively agnostic at the internet Society about what connectivity platforms people use to connect remote communities and the work we do with our community‑led connectivity program. We have programs around the world that use a wide variety of platforms. Whether it's fios or LEO or mobile. But what we have seen in the work that we do is how LEOs can bridge remote communities for the obvious reasons. Having satellites to get connectivity to communities that would not be covered by fibre platforms and other platforms. And we see that particularly in some island states. There's a focus in the new 5G strategy for the internet connect on connecting small island states. What we see in the Pacific region is the satellite is becoming the no norm for connectivity and helping to connect remote islands in exciting new ways. Indeed in some cases we are seeing communities and islands where Starlink is becoming the largest ISP on the island and the majority of the internet is coming over satellite platforms. So there are huge opportunities for the way that LEOs can work. And as more launched and the prices come down it becomes more affordable.

Sustainability we think is still an issue. And sustainability comes from two different areas. First obviously is price. We are still in the very early stages of LEO internet. And not only is the price initially expense but also we are increasingly seeing as the networks become clogged the prices sometimes are quite dynamic based on demand.

Having coverage from a LEO constellation and a LEO provider can provide connectivity to a remote area. But if the pricing is a, again, unstable. And as we are seeing in the moment with some African city with Starlink they are pretty much booked out in term of connectivity and are availability then the sustainability issues around price are going to be significant.

And also that level of service and the contention ratio that is a you get from the LEOs mean delivering the demand that the market has is always going to be an issue as well. So there are opportunities of LEOs. So certainly when we work in some of our most remote areas it's the most effective way of bringing internet to people. But the cost issue and the sustainability are going to be there.

5G shows promise. And a lot of fixed wireless 5G is showing it can be a alternative to fibre in many areas but again, some cost areas are there. And around spectrum we are seeing interesting moves from regulators to make spectrum available to local solutions for 5G. If we can break out of that national 5G level licensing and in the same way we have with we have eye fie and community network licenses, lock at having 5G licenses that can serve local communities at a very microlevel. Then we can reduce some costs of offering 5G networks to community networks and community usage.

But there's still a density issue. That's real need for 5G masks of the a strong physical density to achieve the highest throughput with the bandwidth. And that means even though there's a lot of open source solutions out there now to manage your own local 5G network the density in terms of the infrastructure is still significant.

So I think they are both very exciting ways for us to break out of what's been the norm in terms of how we bring internet communities. They are both very exciting ways of not only bridging the divided to rule and remote populations but also if we can get the licensing them right, particularly around the spectrum, to make sure the communities with own the spectrum and use the spectrum in a way that makes sense for them there's a sustainability and autonomy that will come from some of these solutions but in the moment we are still in the early stages and the pricing issues and the regulatory issues are still to be solved.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you, Chris. And I love that you touched on some of the lessons I think that you are already learning in implementing this solutions and talking about sustainability and the regulatory frameworks. With ISOC foundation how do you evaluate the talking about sustainability how do you talk about the impact and other specific examples you can give with some lesson that is a you shared that, you know, can show how they can be replicated across the local communities because you specifically mentioned a communities in Africa.

Are there specific examples how you are evaluating and what are the lessons and how can those be replicated?

>> CHRISTOPHER LOCKE: Yeah, the evaluation for us starts before the program begins. So we have a very good community readiness tool account kit that we use when working on a potential project. What we do with that toolkit is not only evaluate the technological solution but as implied in the title. We evaluate the community. We are trying to understand who is going to be leading this for the community. Who is the governance structure and the support structure of within the community for is it a school? Is it a local organization?

Who is going to be owning and maintaining the network? And then how can we provide training to support them? Not only just in the crimping of the wires but also in understanding what is sustainability looks like. On a panel I was on yesterday when we were looking at kind of innovative financing in this space, we were talking about the need when we develop community networks to develop them with business training as well with technology training. What we want to be able to do is provide our grant capital and our capacity building support to get local communities off the ground with their community centred connectivity solutions. The next phase after that shouldn't be another grant

The next phase should be there's real sustainability in the community network because they built a pricing model that allows them to cover the cost of the community. Often with schools that's where schools can sell the network to the local systems by whatever system works and support this out. But what we like to see in your community readiness toolkit is the technology solution is there. It's fit for that particular need. Whatever the geographic need of that community is. And from a business model perspective, that you are building a community network that's sustainable.

It actually meets the needs of the community can be managed by the community and it's economically sustainable as well.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you, Chris. Takeaways from that is to be creative around how we ‑‑ around regulation, around licensing. And focusing also on building capacities of the community networks, ensuring they are ready to manage these networks themselves and keep them sustainable. Thank you very much.

Moving from connective and more to access and meaningful access. I'll come to you, Onica. Drawing from your leadership of the GDIP. What evidence‑based policy and regulatory frameworks can best improve affordability and inclusion and support last mile community initiatives such as the ones that Chris has given us examples of?

>> ONICA MAKWAKWA: Great. Thank you so much for that question. And thanks for, you know, inviting us to this panel. It's always wonderful when we come to IGF and talk about these things. To also have a partner like Internet Society that's actually on the implementation side of making sure that some of these ideas have an opportunity to be tested out in communities.

So in terms of, you know, focusing on this last mile connectivity initiatives that are affordable and accessible to everyone it's really important for us to continue to support policy frameworks that are people centred at first. And that are designed through a lens of equity, human right, and accountability. Because when we look at who is not connected at the moment, those tend to be the populations ‑‑ population that stands to benefit the most out of being connected when we talk about transformative qualities of connectivity.

So the fortuning that I would say is we need to prioritize universal affordable access as a right. We need governments to embed digital access in development policies and frameworks. And in the rights framework as well. Treating connectivity as a public good and not just nice to have a luxury thing. This includes setting very ambitious universal service goals and enshrining them in the rights meaningful connectivity that focuses on the regular access, the reliable access that's high quality as well as affordable internet and devices for people to be able to benefit from a digital technologies.

The other item is we need to reform universal service and access funds. I think we've been talking about this for a really long time. It is quite evidence and we've done quite an audit a few years ago looking at universal access fund how they are deployed. How effective they are. And it's quite clear that regulators should open ‑‑ that countries should continue to utilize access funds, and perhaps be open to some demand side issues of connectivity like digital skills. And affordable devices. So it's not all just about infrastructure but beginning to address the use demand side aspects of that as well.

We need transparency in how these funds are managed. We need to also have these funds take leadership in embracing gender responsive strategies for how they are deploying so they put the least connected and the most disadvantaged at the centre of their strategy.

And begin planning directly to impact those populations for the most part. And most importantly, we need public reporting because we can't continue to have gatherings like this where we keep talking about how we don't really know, you know, the impact of universal service and access funds or there are funds that are not utilized. And enabling community networks and innovative models, regulators need to open up spectrum and that's beginning to happen as we see with some of the work that Internet Society organizations have been doing around community networks and funding connectivity, community‑based initiatives.

one thing that's really key that Chris mentioned is training if business and for technical skills. We need to be open to different financial models for connecting everyone. I think that the pure commercial model alone is not going to be a size that fits all communities. So we need to be open to the fact that in a continent like Africa for example where so many people live on less than $2 a day. Even if a country reaches the affordability level remember that's based on averages.

We have to be willing to think about subsidies to certain communities or co‑op model connectivity that allows those who may never be able to afford connectivity to be able to still have access as a public good and as a right for them to be connected.

Mandating inclusive infrastructure sharing and open access is something we talked about. I think literally at every IGF and gathering of this kind. And we need to see more and more efforts to prevent monopolies so that we truly building connectivity strategies that focus on everyone being included. And lastly, integrating digital inclusion in broader economic and social policies. Connectivity policies need to be linked to with the investments in digital lit literacy, local con devices and online safety issues because those issues also drive the experience of people online.

I often say that we want everyone to go online to do what? Read English be on Facebook? I don't think so. If it's more. If we talk about digital transformation we need to invest many in other things and ensure that people are able to fully benefit meaningful from being online, including relevant, local content in local languages that people are able to consume.

Lastly I'll summarize by saying that policy and regulation frameworks need to work for the last mile. And they need to focus on being, you know, inclusive by design. Accountable in delivery. Accountability is one of those things I am pained by. I feel we are not seeing enough of that. And transformative in their impact. We are not just connecting people for access. It has to be beyond access. What is it they are able to do to improve and change their lives by being connected?

So we need to put that at the centre. So that it's all grounded in equity, actively dismantling the structural barriers. And lastly not leaving women behind. We have done a lot of work on connected resilience, which is a study that look at gendered experience of women. I invite you to read that report and just see what the lived experiences of women is through meaningful connectivity and you'll really get a picture of how we basically scraped the surface in terms of being inclusive in our connectivity efforts. Thank you.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you. I had a follow‑up question. I believe you already started to answer. And that was around how we can move frameworks just beyond connectivity to ensure like we said meaningful access through digital lit racy, cultural relevant, developing local content. Maybe touch a bit more on that. And also share what do you think ‑‑ what do you think are the metrics that we should adopt to be able to measure? You have given us some things, inclusive design, accountability and delivery.

Very specific mandates as well. How would we know that we gotten there? What are the metrics? How would we pleasure that?

>> ONICA MAKWAKWA: Great question, actually. It's really important that we measure what we want to see impact in. right?

So we still struggling at just having data that's segregated even by gender believe it or not in 2025. We are not collecting gender disaggregated data and we are not getting data aggregated by income levels and we did this with the affordability index report. A lot of these indices rely on national averages. If you take a country, for example, like South Africa. And you measure it on affordability, based on the one gig on more than 2% household income the country comes out as being affordable. However as you take the population. South Africa is a country where more than 50% of the population lives on half of the average GNI. When you take the population and splice it by income quantiles you realize it's only the top 20% that's actually affording the access but the bottom 60% to 80% is barely affording and the bottom 20% is spending anywhere from 20% to 60% of monthly income for that connectivity. So it's really important that we invest segregated data and truly get to understand what it is that we are measuring.

If you don't measure it, it truly does not exist. And we got this incredible instruments like your national broadband plan that is a could be mute. And if you take a lot of national broadband plans and do one of with women you can find one or two. But no real measurement how we know that we actually succeeded. Is it 10% of the women? 30% of the women? We just have not be clear.

We got an opportunity to make sure that our instrument that is a we measure our connective our connectivity and gaps are clear and articulate on what the target and that goal is. Is it 40% of the connected? What percentage of that is women? And what percentage is rural? And women are also not a monolithic group. So really getting into all of those intersections how we are connecting people is really important. But also moving away from measuring on basic connectivity. I'm a big advocate of us raising the standards.

At the global level the standard of a connected person is someone who uses the internet once every 3 months is so under whelming we need to really I think those of us going WISIS need to talk how that standard will improve. And daily connectivity and access especially in the age of Artificial Intelligence and the things we want to do in term of digitization of public services. Daily access and limited access 4G speed at minimum. If we truly want people to do the kind of things that we are promises them for transformation.

The truth is we need to stop having poor policies for poor people. Poor phones for poor people. Poor people also want the nice phones. So let's work on the real device affordability strategies. Not device financing. There's a big difference between you can afford a phone over 3 months and you can afford a phone now.

So we need to ‑‑ I feel like we really have not started to do the work in terms of driving affordability. In terms of making sure there's rich and relevant content and dominant content in Africa for example is majority in English which is not a majority language for most of our population.

I think looking at all of the instrument that is a we have, including our digital development policies in general. To see how they explicit about the kind of vision that we set for ourselves the goals, the targets. And in reviewing those on an annual basis, every two years. And revising them when we need to. It's okay to say we tried this. It didn't work. And let's try something different

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you so much and for emphasizing we have an opportunity to be clear with the intersecting connectivity goals, achieve regular high quality, and affordable access.

I'll come to you now, Thobekile. You lead pins advocacy and our partnership building efforts. So in what role do public‑private policies ‑‑ excuse me ‑‑ (clearing throat) excuse me. And community driven models play in ensuring access to the internet?

>> THOBEKILE MATIMBE: Thank you so much for talking about public‑private partnerships and access to the internet for communities. I think we have already begun on APAC community centres and initiatives and how they are important. When we lock at it from the perspective of those initiatives it's clear it's a multistakeholder approach. It's all hands on deck in in terms of laying out what is important. What should be there for meaningful connectivity.

I need to highlight the importance of obviously a relevant and appropriate regulatory environment that ensures that connectivity and meaningful connectivity is reached and attained. Especially for excluded communities. This is something that the heart of our work at Paradigm initiative focusing on those underserved in rural communities. And a research from ITU last year presented that at least 83% of the African population is online. The digital divide is not something that has, you know, been eradicated at this point, even as we look at the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals. We have a gap that's there. And now we are moving away from connectivity and saying it should be meaningful connectivity and what that does that mean for collaboration and putting all hand on deck in terms of ensuring this is a reality for our communities.

I think in that vein it's clear that in addressing that gap, there's need for that regulatory firm that ensures that community‑centred connectivity initiatives can thrive. And also that even the private sector is also able to come on board. I think Onica touched on the Universal Research Fund and it's something we look at in the Paradigm initiative. And in the Africa report. And looking at the 2024 report, it show that is a from the 27 reported countries, we have less than 4 country that is a really are transparent about those resources and what they are doing with them and what they are collecting and how they are gathering those resources through the support of the private sector. There's also no transparency about the initiatives being rolled out and there's not enough support even for whatever community centres of connectivity, how they are being run and sustained so they are not just something put up in communities and as hubs but it's something that's sustained and I like the fact as well there's a lot of support from a lot of civil society actors that are running other initiatives as well to support this.

I think Paradigm Initiative has done a lot of work on life legacy ensuring they have literacy and having all hands on deck and engaging the government to say here we are and we can collaborate and expand the reach of digital lit racy in communities that are underserved. And I think one of the key important things as we talk about some of the work we have done under the local networks initiative together with APAC I think it's been key to highlight the importance of social impact when the community‑centered initiatives are being rolled out ensuring the communities are at the table of describing the vision of the initiative so it's tangible, meaningful benefit for the communities as well when we are looking at even inclusion as a whole.

Bringing their voices on board. What are the key things they want to see. How they want to benefit from these initiatives and how they can also be a critical stakeholder in ensures they are sustainable. I think it's something that's important.

I will highlight of course as we are discussing the World Summit on Information Society and looking at how far we have some 20 years later it's really concern where we are right now we are at a place where 20 years later we are still discussing the digital divide. And articulating similar gaps that we articulated as far as 2002 and 2003 we still need to see enabling policies and we need to see cooperation across stakeholder to ensure meaningful connectivity. We see a broad digital divide. And how can we as we engage this these conversations and as we conversation in these conversations be able to speak truth to ourselves and say do we want to see this change? Do we really want to see the needle move? Because where we are we are still away. And we want to ensure we prioritize this, even in national budgeting processes we have governments making sure they prioritize this.

I've been in one engagement in one government on the Africa continent where we discuss digital inclusion for underserved communities and. One feedback from a member of parliament was look do you really think my grandmother needs a smart known? And it's like okay in this day and age we are still debating the importance of access to our communities. So how far can we move? So I think we need to be at in place where we speak truth to ourselves and say look, we cannot leave anyone behind. And this is not an educated elitist conversation but it's a conversation that ensures that our communities also have access to human rights. Connectivity, digital inclusion is a human right. I would phrase it that way.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you, thank you, I like how you ended digital inclusion is a human right and emphasizing how important it is to prioritize digital inclusion for unserved and underserved communities and also the need for more transparency, even echoing what Onica said of the implementing of the initiative, especially the Universal Services Fund and community initiatives because I believe also that transparency is trust. It makes building of this public‑private partnerships even stronger. So thank you.

I'll come to you now, Cristian. Thank you for being here today and looking ahead to 2030 and we see set goals and what do we want to see and what do we want to achieve?

And having advise governments on ALT Advisory rights what is innovation, whether technical or policy‑based has the potential to make today's digital divide obsolete? And how can we prepare for that future now?

>> CRISTIAN LEON: All right. Thank you and good morning to all the wonderful panelists and the friends participating online and onsite. I want to talk more about the complexities of these debate right now. Not perhaps in a positive way because we are seeing a lot of complexities in the world. You know 2030 looks so in the future right now that let's reach 2026 first. What I have been hearing these days at the IGF there are I think four challenge that is a we have to address. Let's don't expect these things actually make things more complex to, you know, close the digital divide.

The first one I want to talk, and I think Christopher also mention it is the emerging of new technologies such as a low orbit satellites which solve connectivity problems, especially in the most remote areas. With countries with very big digital divides and low resources such as my country, Bolivia, this kind of connections seem actually an interesting solution.

So we should take them into account. But at the same time, also these technologies are generating new problems. Problems that perhaps we at no time have before. Related to digital sovereignty, respect of location, national security, manage others.

The second thing, the second challenge is a regulatory power imbalances that are now growing between states and big tech companies. Countries of the global majority have today a minimum capacity to the demand fulfillment of guarantees and rights of these companies. This is something that we all know. But going back to the first complexity that I mentioned, for example, Starlink is operating in my country without permission. How this happened because my government asked Starlink to have a complaints office in order to operate in Bolivia.

But since Starlink is so powerful and such a big company they said I don't need that, I don't need a put a office in your country. I can operate and provide my services even that you don't ‑‑ even if I don't fulfill all their requirements. So that is happening. And how we can do a accountability to these companies if they don't even want to invest in one office in one country like Bolivia?

The third complexity is about the disappearance of governance model based on cooperation. In a international crisis it's becoming increasingly difficult to think of models of governance because there are other needs that are more important to the most vulnerable populations and that's something we always have the address.

In spaces like the IGF are so important because they allow us to speak about this kind of issues. Fourth, the increasingly complex technology that is a today require an infrastructure and competent capacity that our countries don't have.

Now the digital divide is not only about having or not meaningful connectivity it's also about having enough capacity to run AIs, quantum computation, block chains and cryptos. And all those technologies. So there is another connectivity divide. There is another digital divide that's happening right now.

And we also have to address that digital divide for these countries because we are lagging behind. And we will not ‑‑ we will have access to these technologies because we don't have this capacity to run them. Right?

So we don't even have the energy infrastructure to power it. That is why our countries are in in a double digital divide. These are really big complexities that I think we also have to address. Of course I'm being really negative in relation to what can happen in the future. But I think after hearing all these things in the IGF, I think we also have to speak about them.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you, thank you Cristian, thank you for highlighting the increasing complexity in how the digital divide is growing as well. And maybe just to bring some balance because you are right. Looking at those complexities and challenges it looks bleak. Because we are trying to solve one. And then we have these increasingly ‑‑ these complexities and challenges being thrown at us.

What would you or what would you prefer as a balance, how would you balance this ‑‑ I like the example you gave about Starlink and Bolivia and also about how it's ‑‑ new problems are coming up in terms of national security, data sovereignty and other digital rights issues. How can we balance infrastructure and ensuring we have connectivity with the necessary investments in rights protection mechanisms for communities and for countries as well?

>> CRISTIAN LEON: Okay, I agree with everything that Onica said. I think that's the way. I also think the answer depends on the context and the needs of the specific countries or regions. In the case of Bolivia, I think, for example, the last mile problem is purely a market issue. Why? Because the invisible hunt of market here failed to solve the connectivity, neither by remote areas and populations. Either because these are various small communities and nobody wants to invest in these communities or because the state is receiving lobby of these very big companies, ICPs and they don't allow these communities, for example, to have the regulation they need for a community network.

There are so many cases in Latin America and in my country of community networks that are actually functioning and resolving some of the connectivity problems. But as Christopher mentioned there is a difficulty here to sustain this community networks. And the government is not helping at all. Because the government are creating legislations and regulatory frameworks only from the perspective of these big companies. What these big companies need in order to operate. But they are not facilitating things for as small companies that also have these ‑‑ have these issues and they are doing what they can in order to resolve their own connectivity problems.

I have a lot of cases in which communities they said I want to invest in my own infrastructure. But the government don't allow me to invest because the government says only the government or a big company can invest in this community. And it's why? This is something really ‑‑ I don't know how to explain it because it's hard to understand. So what should be done in my opinion? And in my context we need to stop seeing connectivity as something only to be solved only by the market or only by big companies and more of a basic need that should be solved through public investments and public‑privet alliances. With a greater participation of the communities that are affected of course.

I think the work that's being done by Internet Society, by global partnership and civil society in general is really important. And we have to strengthen that work. Also of course in the with the inclusion of the local communities.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you, thank you, Christian. My take away from your preferred solutions is they should be context informed and people for cost. I lost connectivity online to Zoom. But just to say to the audience online, and onsite, I hope you are getting your questions ready. And I hope this has been an engaging conversation for you. With some key take aways and focus areas.

So before we go to Q&A, I think I have one last question. And this is for all my panelists. What practical steps can civil society, ISPs, mobile (?) and all the stakeholders and we talk about businesses and start ups, what can they do together to derisk investments in last mile infrastructure and promote inclusive access based on everything that you have spoken about today. And I think I'll start with Chris and go to Cristian.

>> CHRISTOPHER LOCKE: I'll repeat something that was said earlier on. We need to understand there are many business models to providing connectivity. We need to understand that the dominant model of profits entrant to help a satellite provider et cetera, while fundamentally important in providing the possibility of access, for last mile access for communities it isn't necessarily the sustainable way. Mimicking a small version of being a teleco isn't a way to build a sustainable network. There's community models and other models that let us develop that.

I think being innovative and creative in thinking of the way that sustainable business models look like. And getting businesses to support that. And making spectrum licensing available for usage and available and affordable to those networks. And in a way that just doesn't look at spectrum licensing if as nice income stream for the government. Understanding the GDP impact of giving people the connect. The astonishing changes to their life for connectivity, massively outweigh the small amount of money you can earn from selling community speck spectrum licenses to networks.

we really do need as said earlier to drive governments to support very different types of connectivity solutions and business models. And put the regulation in place to support those.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you, Chris. Thobekile.

>> THOBEKILE MATIMBE: Thank you. I’ll echo the importance of enabling regulatory framework. And the importance of inclusion. As a matter importance and in line with human rights. Not as a privilege but something that is really critical and necessary as well as also highlighting the importance of multistakeholder approaches not just between the government and the private sector but also civil society because some of steps that are taken to bridge the connectivity gap.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you.

>> ONICA MAKWAKWA: Great so I would say for me it's advocating for policy incentives together. And it's really great that we are all here as government actor, private sector actors and civil society. We need to focus this advocacy strongly on access to universal service fund for multistakeholder projects. Tech waivers or input to reductions on equipment for last mile connectivity.

And license fee exemptions or spectrum access for small scale operations, community network o other rural development initiatives. And on the data, we need to collaborate to guide investment and share and combine aggregated data on coverage gaps and affordability and digital used to better identify and understand what's viable for last mile investment areas. And civil society can help gather the realtime community feedback while operators and ISPs can share infrastructure maps your usage data with appropriate safeguards.

I know there's a lot of protectionism that happens around this particular issue. And lastly we need to develop and support local digital ecosystems. By collaborating to incubate local start ups and encourage local device repair and distribution networks. It really baffles me that we are also talking about climate issues. And e‑waste and sustainability of the planet. But we still have so many country where is the right to repair is not practical and a reality for these devices. And that's one thing that can help drive the affordability of devices down, especially for me in a continent like Africa that's a res you kit. It baffles me we have not look at the issues of the right to repair as one of the solutions towards beginning to lower the cost of devices.

Thank you.

>> CRISTIAN LEON: For me, can be repetitive because it was already mentioned. Meaningful connectivity should be a right. Should be embedded in all the international policy framework. Not only the one related to digital policy. Because this is something really transversal to almost anything right now. As I mentioned the connectivity should not be left only for the market or the companies to solve. This is something there's really a ‑‑ all the stakeholders need to be involved in this. Civil society. Companies. Government. And of course the local communities. Because connectivity is not a privilege. It's a necessity.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you. Thank you to all the panelists. I already see a question coming up online. So I will take that as a cue to open the floor for questions. Um, first question, talking of sustainability as a private sector look at deploying community networks what's renewal incentives available from Internet Society Foundation and how many does the grandparent cover? I believe this is for you, Chris?

>> CHRISTOPHER LOCKE: Absolutely, so we provided a range of different support for community networks. We provide grants by connecting the unconnected program. Usually those are done on annual basis. We have annual granting windows. So there's the opportunity to continue granting going guard. As I said what we like to do is if we get into a relationship with community network is build them to the point where they are sustainable without the need for grants.

What that sometimes means is someone can come in initially for the grant to support if initiation of a community network. And then at a late I state they are looking to spread it to a larger area and the grant allows them to increase their coverage.

Later on maybe it's something else we are seeing power supply or something that people want support with. We don't like to just continually fund something to stay as it is. Or to kind of get to a situation where it's not possible to sustain without grant support. But what we do want to do is see if there's growth how can we help the community networks overcome the next phase of their growth and how to get them on a path to sustainability and how to meet the needs of the community with the kind of support we are offering.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you, Chris. I hope that answered the question. We have one in the room.

>> Thank you very much. My name is Barak [sounds like] I hope I can be heard. I chair the association of community networks in Kenya, here with my colleague Jim in the back. And thank you Chris and the rest of the panelists for the very interesting interventions which are very relevant. And actually I consider this a pertinent and relevant topic. I wanted to just share some thoughts to the form of comments be with the panelists.

First, Kenya has now about 20 community networks. We have a target by the communications authority of Kenya to build 100 community networks. It is best based on the realization on the fact after 20 years of investment in GSM, we only have 30% of the country having meaningful connectivity. And therefore there's a need to accelerate connection of the 70% that are remaining and the community networks have been found to be a viable alternatives. Thanks to the Internet Society, we have received seed funding that is actually established 90% of the community networks that I have mentioned.

We do have support from APC that also contributed. Which we really appreciate. But we have a letter of commitment or we have commitment from the Internet Society to work with us in achieving our target of 100 community networks.

Of course I cannot forget to thank the communications authority of Kenya, which has worked with the community to ensure that we have a community network service provider license. We also have further systemic enhancements to create a TF4 license that will allow community operators to access licensing frameworks. And we also have a sandbox that's allows us to try out Television White Space technology to also look at alternative ways of making use of community spectrum. I think these are models that I believe can be documented as said earlier and shared across board.

Lastly, our focus now is on sustainability. We have demonstrated that community networks are actually a viable alternative. But the challenge now is to actually prove that there are sustainable means of providing or affordable connectivity to the community. And maybe that's a challenge that will throw back to the panel. To help us now figure out how the sustainability component. Thank you very much.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you, Barak. Any reflections to Barak?

>> CHRISTOPHER LOCKE: I would like to give the respect back and respect what Barak and the organization does. It's very nice of him to mention ourselves and APC as supporters. But the work they do in Kenya is astonishing. And I think most importantly can be a case study for what country level coordination of community networks and training and development can do to achieve really immense results.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you, thank you, Chris.

>> Can you hear me?

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Yes, we can.

>> Okay, my name is Leo from united republic of Tanzania. And we know that access is a issue especially for the Global South and with mobile coverage. We understand 8% plus of coverage is achievable against the accessibility of 80% of Africa and shows the pricing and affordability is a big problem.

Apart from the solution you mentioned, the experience you have to solve the issue of the accessibility, especially with the device affordability, thank you.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Do you want to take this?

>> ONICA MAKWAKWA: Okay, that's a bit of a tough one. Device affordability one of the research that we have done with specifically looking Africa, we actually lend that device affordability is still a very huge challenge in addition to, you know, the affordability of the internet itself. And that when you look at how much people are actually spending on access to ‑‑ accessing these devices, we are able to find that some communities ‑‑ some countries you find that people are spending anywhere from 20% to 60% of average household income on one device. There's a lot of work happening around device affordability, including a lot of resistance against subsidies of devices. And we'll park that a little bit for now.

Looking at affordability specifically. One of the things that we have done successful in a couple of countries is looking at taxation of devices. And we found that there's anywhere from 20% to 40% of taxation that is on devices. Whether it's a import duty tax. A sales tax of what have you. But there's anywhere from 20% to 40%. And we've been able to demonstrate if governments could roll back some of those taxes, it actually increases uptake of digital technologies within the country. And I'll give you a quick example between Nigeria and Ghana where we found that people in Ghana would actually buy their devices in Nigeria and activate them in Ghana, including those that live on the board we are the TSV subscription they live in one country and do a subscription in another country. The taxes are so high they make a difference in affordability.

But I think what's been an area I will criticize of our multistakeholder community is that our focus when it comes to device affordability has predominantly been on affording the devices over time. Instead of really tackling the issue of how do we lower that initial cost of devices to a point where more people can afford to be able to get them. The repair issue is one of them. And no one wants to talk about local assembly. I'm not sure why. Because local assembly can also enable give an opportunity to enable and retool the workforce in that country. Especially in a continent like Africa where a majority of our population is young people.

We need to retooling and rescaling. So bringing some of these devices to be partially or fully assembled within the continent would make a huge difference. Including the content that's uploaded. Why must this device arrive in my country with everything including the plastic that gets peeled off and all the software installed? Couldn't some of those happen locally?

We have seen this model with the motorbikes imported into the country for food. And they come in parts and are taxed differently compared to if they arrived at as a fully assembled motorbike to service the community. The mobile operates have predominantly working on the device affordability around financing schemes and different models for that. And that's really great and wonderful. But I would really love to see a commitment from civil society, from government, especially, and some private sector around developing this phone that will promise, I don't know how many years ago the $10 phone is not here yet but maybe it won't be $10. But I would not give us a good grade on device affordability.

We haven't done a good job. We have the regulate for both the market and for consumer protection. And pricing is a consumer protection issue.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you, and I believe you wanted to chime in?

>> THOBEKILE MATIMBE: Thank you, I just wanted to chime in in response to great comment from the second speaker. Just to highlight I think the importance of what actions are taken in other space. I know in Tanzania there's been great work by community networks and annually they priority the school of community networks and we've been part of that process as well to be able to convene the school of community networks where I think we are unpack how to improve skills and designing administration and management of the community‑based telecommunications networks as well as developing skills to create a sustainable business model for those community networks. I think that would be very key in terms of the sustainability of the ongoing community networks.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you.

>> LEE MCKNIGHT: Thank you. I’m Lee McKnight, Syracuse University professor in the United States. First I wanted to share some possible good news or challenge of perspective that block chain and other technologies are not reachable or accessible in the Global South. We are working with Brazilian and Peruvian professor that is a we are bringing to cocreate with Indigenous communities in the Brazil and Amazon late this year.

And secondly on AI, not AI if you believe Google and it takes a giant trillion dollar data centre, it doesn't. There's smaller and range of options. Also at the edge that can be reached and be accessible elsewhere. That's the first comment.

Second, I wanted to note, I have something on my back, which is with I'm making an announcement. Annika knows what it is. On behalf of the Africa and the global community network program as in SIP meaning a sip of internet and not first class internet but internet accessible every where and thanks to the Internet Society support a couple years ago in Costa Rica, we are now launching the program in cooperation with the government of Ghana and with the African parliamentary network for real to bring these what is in here is also a Starlink mini is also with batteries and also with solar panel. You can set up and create a community network everywhere but the north and South Pole, starting now and we'll bring this forward in cooperation with Internet Society chapters in in countries and in parliament and Central Africa and elsewhere

This is not a magic solution there are limitations but there's no reason with support of the parliament and not just the branch. This is the comment for all of you. Think of the parliamentarians they can't access the internet either when they go out there. They are your natural allies to reform the legislation to bring community networks everywhere because we tapped out under WSIS. 2.6 billion in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, it's still 2.6 billion on connected it's not working.

This is the only approach that will work is community networks and I thank you for everyone's attention.

>> Thank you.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you for that.

(applause)

Congratulations.

>> Thank you.

>> I'm Lisa from the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia. And I wanted to ask the panel in in terms of the perspectives on integrating the initiatives with social entrepreneurship and social enterprise development and social and solidarity economy in the Asia‑Pacific region the in the Philippines where I come from that's a factor and sustainability and connectivity impact and social network initiatives. Thank you.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you. Start with Chris.

>> CHRISTOPHER LOCKE: It's late on Friday I'm running very low on brain and energy at the moment. We discussed an the panel yesterday and the excellent work in measuring the social impact of community networks that was presented, that being able and again goes back to the business model question, being able to understand what the impact of a community network is, not just in profit and sustainability. Not just in a very simple calculation of contribution to the economy but to a very broad social impact network of what the implications on health and education and on a broad range of factors that was presented at our session we were both on yesterday.

I think gives us a better sense of assessing the success of the community network. And being able to point to what is possible by investments in community networks and these are not ‑‑ can't say this enough. These are not mini telecos they are a community organization providing a vital service to a community in a way that makes sense to a community. And I think the way we can have the granularity from the impact work you showed yesterday give us the opportunity to not only measure ourselves the impact bet and are to measure the impacts of the community network is something we do a lot, even with within the granting program at ISOC. It's something I want to see if it's something we could adopt presented in the other sessions that we can do.

And more importantly going back to previous question from previous speaker. The way we speak to the parliament speakers and why this is important. And talk about the success in a broad economic indicators can make a strong case for the investment in community networks the right policies for the community networks and the support of the organizations that Barak and many people in the room are running

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you, Chris, and thank you.

Anyone else wanted to speak to the question on the social ‑‑ yes.

>> ONICA MAKWAKWA: It's really important for us as we, you know, I always feel uncomfortable sort of seeing myself as this uber advocate for connectivity and the question is always so what? You want people to connect to do what exactly? Social enterprises is a great opportunity for us to support the use case of this connectivity and why we want people to be connected. And I think the best example that I have so far, and this is going to just truly be applied. So we did this study that was fund by the Internet Society on connected resilience, looking how women are staying connected through meaningful connection specifically. And one thing we discovered in this process and continued to support and work with is an organization called women in digital based in Bangladesh.

And Anila basically started this organization with the excitement and aim of teaching women how to code. Now we all know about all these programs about teaching women how to code and there's all kind of goals and we will get 1 million girls coding and all that. The question is after this, then what? What the girls doing with this coding? It's really important I think what they've been ‑‑ women in digital have been able to do is create an ecosystem for them to after they are trained to be able to begin to change the content ecosystem within Bangladesh. So one of the thing that is a they are doing that I actually got mine this week is creating smart cards for people.

I'm coming all the way from South Africa. I ordered my digital smart card from Bangladesh because I want to support this project that's led by women where they are creating the smart cards and, you know, just really incredible. And as someone kind from Bangladesh has been able to bring it to me to this session. It's not for me I think it's really important it's not good enough for us to like get people devices get people digital skills.

How are they utilizing them and how with are we creating content that's relevant and usable for them and also how do we give them the opportunity to truly transform their lives and utilize these resources? How is government supporting social enterprises and creating and enabling environment for them to be successful?

And to ease registration. Right now most countries registration is for profit or nonprofit. And social entrepreneur ship has a huge opportunity especially in digital space but it's not recognized as formal business in a quite of lot of communities so far

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you. We are about time. So maybe I'll give a minute for final remarks before we close.

>> Thanks so much, Nnenna. And thanks for everyone in the room. And I think all the amazing contributions. I think what is key here from today today's conversation is importance of ensuring those in underserved communities are not left behind and ensure meaningful connectivity and how we can do that through effective regulatory frameworks and relevant support as well. Not just for establishing community networks but also for the sustainability. And that's very critical and very important.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you.

>> CRISTIAN LEON: I would like to highlight and congratulate the initiative they are doing with local population in Brazil. I think that is really important. And I think one ‑‑ that is one of the cases we should replicate. I believe that open source is really a technology that is a game changer and it has the capacity to empower local communities and reduce the dependence that countries like the one that I represent, we have with this very big tech companies. Including local communities is not only something about inclusive it's also about diversity. And we want to create that internet for the future it has the diversity, that has a Indigenous languages. That has a the perspective of these communities in how we are constructing building technology.

>> NNENNA PAUL-UGOCHUKWU: Thank you, thank you, Cristian. I want to thank my panel today my esteemed panelists thank you for sharing your experiences and thank you for the fantastic insights and interventions. We gotten some great examples today from the panel and from the audience on what we can replicate in our communities going forward.

Key takeaways, I think connectivity as a right because connectivity is foundational. And also seeing that the digital divide is increasingly becoming more complex with new challenges as you mentioned data sovereignty and national security. But we also have the opportunity with some of the recommendations that have been emphasized to date, inclusivity and design, and accountability and delivery being creative with business models. And enabling regulatory frameworks that are rooted and baited in human rights, people centred, policies that are context informed.

Affordable licensing and putting the communities at the centre and also one that was really happy about to hear more about is the opportunity that we have to be clear with the intersecting goals of connectivity. Because we all come from different contexts that will enable us to provide not just connectivity but relevant regular high quality affordable and meaningful access.

So thank you all today for your time. For making time to be here. And thank you for your attention. And is thank you for your contributions. And for the interventions. And I hope you have a great rest of the conference and enjoy the closing ceremony. Thank you.

(applause).