Session
Organizer 1: Nazarius Kirama, Internet Society Tanzania Chapter
Organizer 2: Neema Lugangira, Parliament of Tanzania
Organizer 3: Joseph Alembe, Internet Society
Speaker 1: JUSTINA JUSTINA, Government, African Group
Speaker 2: Nazarius Kirama, Technical Community, African Group
Speaker 3: Ali Haji, Government, African Group
Pamela Chogo, Government, African Group
Nazarius Kirama, Technical Community, African Group
Neema Lugangira, Government, African Group
Round Table - U-shape - 60 Min
1. Infrastructure and Investment: Are UN member states/stakeholders committed to investing in infrastructure in rural areas? Are they committed to rolling out Internet services to areas that are unattractive to investors- the so-called telecom dark areas? What are the is data showing this commitment if any? What are stakeholders doing on the
2. Digital Policy: Do the UN Member States each have a Digital Policy Blueprint? Do these policies address in clear terms the issue of Access and Connectivity as pre-requisite for citizenry equal participation to harness the opportunities that comes with the Global Digital Economy? What are the stakeholders other than government doing on the ground to compliment government effort to ensure access and connectivity to all?
3. Spectrum Allocation/Management: Spectrum is the meat in the bone when it comes to the issue of access and connectivity. But Spectrum cost is a huge roadblock for any community Internet Service provider? What is the Common Practice in Spectrum allocation in many countries? What do policies say? Do these policies allow Community Internet Service providers such as Community Networks to use the spectrum at an affordable price? Is there allocation spectrum for Is there a country with the good Best Practice in terms of policy for spectrum allocation? What is this country?
4. Digital Global Compact: Does this compact make sense to the stakeholders? What concrete actions that are happening on the ground in response to Global Digital Compact?
5. Digital Cooperation Report: Have the UN member states done a bare minimum for the report? For example, have they adopted and institutionalized the hanging fruits of the report? What are their plans for mid and long-range adoption of the recommendations from the report? What are the stakeholders doing on the ground regarding this report?
Connection with previous Messages: Access and Connectivity was in 2021 IGF
1.1
1.4
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
5.b
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Targets: SDGs Targets linked to our Proposal: 1.1,1.4, 4.6, 5.8, 8 9c
1. Connecting the unconnected rural and underserved urban populations is key to fast-track socio-economic development and especially. It shall progressively connect 8 million people over the next 10 years. This will help connect the unconnected and underserved to digital opportunities and contribute to eradicating extreme poverty. This on Goal 1 and Target 1 and 4: By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day; and By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology, and financial services, including microfinance. Also Goal 9c: 9.c Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in the least developed countries by 2020
2. Universal Digital Skills Education for youth and women. This objective aims to provide Digital Skills Education including lifelong learning through E-Adult Education. Digital Education will be both offline and online through www.tadep.tz portal. Targeting youth and women in this objective is in line with Target in Goal 5
3. E-Learning Digital Skills for Primary and Secondary Schools teachers. Over the next 10 years, the program aims to provide E-learning Digital Skills to 100,000 teachers. This is an average of 5 teachers per 24,000 schools throughout the country. This engagement will empower primary and secondary school teachers and make them ready for 22 Century Digital Style Classroom.
4. Creation of Women and Youth Innovation. The objective in this area is to create 500 Innovation Hubs, focusing on “telecom dark” areas. These Hubs will help youth access broadband Internet, work on their various innovative ideas and monetize as a way to reduce family-level poverty. The hub will also provide Digital Entrepreneurship and Digital Marketing Skills. This will enable women MSMEs owners in Tanzania to participate meaningfully in the Global Digital Economy through broadband internet. What this means is that when you women entrepreneurs succeed families succeed and the issue of poverty alleviation/eradication is addressed as intended in Sustainable Development Goal One(1). The Digital Skills Education for Women and STEM Program for Girls aims to close Digital Gender Gap and thus address Sustainable Development Goal Five(5).
Description:
Our Team is submitting the Proposal from a Developing Country( Tanzania). We have also reached out to our fellow Internet Society Ethiopia for the possibility to collaborate with the Internet Society Tanzania Chapter. We would like to know how it feels like to experience having a session in the Global IGF for the first time
The following is the description of our proposal.
This proposal is in line with, the UN Secretary-General’s proposed Global Digital Compact (GDC) and its first principle to “Connect all people to the Internet, including all schools”
GDC recognizes that Internet connectivity and access have become prerequisites for ensuring the livelihoods, safety, and education of people the world over – and that the Internet in schools provides crucial points of access, makes informational resources available to all students and builds digital literacy from the earliest stages of life.
Tanzania has an estimated population of 60.61 million people as of April 2022 according to DataReportal (https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-tanzania). The latest telecoms statistics for Q3 2020 published by the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) show that the estimated internet users reached 29.91 million in March 2022 and the Internet service penetration stood at 50%. This means that around 30 million Tanzanians are not online. These statistics are not far from where the Global Connectivity situation. The ITU’s Global Connectivity Report says 2.9 billion people are still offline.
More than 90% of Tanzanians access the Internet through their mobile phones. Although mobile data prices are reasonably low, they remain unaffordable for segments of the population that mostly reside in rural areas, resulting in a large gap in Internet use between urban and rural areas. British technology research firm Cable estimates the average cost of one mobile gigabyte (1GB) in Tanzania to be USD 0.75, making the country the 32nd cheapest in the world, and the cheapest in East Africa.
The Digital Cooperation report also defines affordable Internet as the pricing of 1GB of mobile broadband data at 2% or less of an average monthly income. The average monthly income in Tanzania is USD 515.02, and although the price of USD 0.87 per 1GB is below what the Digital Cooperation Report recommends, the longevity of the data bundle depletes when a user by the IGB per day depletes so fast as a lightning strike! So despite the low pricing, the users do not appreciate this as affordable Internet. The pricing does not enable the majority of low-income citizens in urban and rural Tanzania to have a Meaningful Participation Online(MPO). Given the robustness of today's online systems, applications, high-powered servers, and background “gorilla” applications and adverts, affordable and meaningful to broadband Internet is the bare minimum that can enable citizens to participate meaningfully in the digital economy now and in the future.
The Digital Cooperation Report, also says that 93% of the world’s population live within physical reach of mobile broadband or Internet services; but only 53.6% only use the Internet. The challenges of Internet connectivity in Tanzania are extremely close to other countries in the developing world. This workshop shall therefore raise key issues related to Internet Connectivity, Affordability, and Meaningful access. It will give a practical example of how the Tanzania Digital Inclusion Program (TADIP) has leveraged these statistics, a cooperative-lead association of community members, and available fiber infrastructure; to work with Kigamboni Blue Community Network(KBCNet) to connect its members, schools, health center, local police station, and other public institutions to broadband Internet.
Through this community arrangement members of the community are now accessing highly affordable and meaningful Broadband Internet(fiber) with an unlimited data bundle per month. For example, KBCNet has 120 members, the cost for each member is USD 0.72 for unlimited data per month at 100Mbs speed! The infrastructure has connected 120 members(the number is growing), 5 schools, 4 smallest units of local government, a health center, and a local police station.
Connecting the communities to broadband Internet is the greatest undertaking in the digital era but having people online without safeguarding their fundamental online rights is work half done! The workshop organizer will thus engage two speakers who are the digital rights champions to expound on digital rights as human rights- that online rights are human rights. They will also talk about affordable and meaningful Broadband Internet as a human right in the view that there should be equality in terms of accessing digital opportunities through the Internet which is global in nature.
This workshop will put forward one of the workable local solutions that have been successfully tried and proven that it can connect community members to digital opportunities through broadband Internet. It makes a good conversation for individuals and organizations present during the IGF 2022 in Ethiopia. They will learn about it, ask questions and follow up questions for the purpose of replicating the solution in the communities they come from. The organizer will be ready to share technical details used to achieve proof of concept for the solution.
Our proposal is simple. We want to demonstrate to the world that with just little capacity, it is possible to connect the local community to broadband Internet both affordably and meaningfully
1. We shall have follow-up events and also publish the event online through local blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. The recording will be published in youtube as well.
Hybrid Format: We shall use the Zoom Meeting Platform. We have agreed to have a dedicated Online Moderator. She will work shoulder-to-shoulder with Onsite Moderator. All participants whether onsite or online will use the zoom link to participate in the session. We shall employ a queuing method for all attendees. This will give everyone an equal opportunity to intervene or ask questions. We shall make sure that all optics are in order at least 30 minutes before the session starts. The session organization shall ensure the zoom links and calendar invite reminders for the session are propagated several times a day to the day of the sessions. Also, reminders for the session are sent every 30 minutes in the 3 hours leading up to the session time.
Usage of IGF Official Tool.