Session
Organizer 1: João Aguiar, Internet Society
Organizer 2: Juan Peirano, Internet Society
Speaker 1: Nathalia Foditsch, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 2: Juan Peirano, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 3: Jane Roberts Coffin , Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
João Aguiar, Technical Community, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Juan Peirano, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Juan Peirano, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Round Table - Circle - 60 Min
How can Universal Service and Access Funds promote inclusion towards universal connectivity?
Connection with previous Messages: Economic and Social Inclusion and human rights - this session puts forward a discussion on how USAFs can play a part in an adequate enabling environment at national levels to foster inclusive, just, safe, resilient and sustainable digital societies and economies. Giving complementary connectivity solutions access to USAFs would provide communities with the opportunity to startup local networks and giving them a strong foundation to build a sustainable way to connect to the Internet.
Universal Access and Meaningful Connectivity - access to USAFs would allow communities to develop connectivity solutions that fulfill their needs and reach areas where traditional operators have failed to connect. This would also help regulators and stakeholders to have a better understanding of their connectivity environment and the community networks ecosystem, which would allow them to better support these solutions. This topic also brings a specific mention on the subject of this session’s discussion.
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Targets: When complementary connectivity solutions such as community networks are able to startup using Universal Service and Access Funds they are expanding the Internet by building local infrastructure in an inclusive and innovative manner. This is also directly related to target 9.c of this SDG: Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries.
Description:
A study developed by the Alliance for Affordable Internet in partnership with the Internet Society shows that billions of dollars in Universal Service and Access Funds (USAF) were not used as intended in several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. There are many ways these funds could support the growth of Internet infrastructure, and one of them is funding complementary connectivity solutions such as community networks. This session will provide an overview of how USAFs have been used as seen in the study, and discuss why it would be beneficial for complementary connectivity solutions to be able to access them.
We expect this event to feed in the discussions national governments and regulators are leading on how to make the best use of Universal Service and Access Funds to help close the digital divide.
Hybrid Format: All participants of the roundtable will attend virtually. The Internet Society will have someone on the ground that will act as a moderator and ensure questions and comments brought up both by the audience attending in-person and virtually are considered and raised to the participants.
Usage of IGF Official Tool.