Panel 4 – Resilient Subsea Infrastructure for Underserved Regions 

Thank you. May I invite the panelists, please, to the floor before I introduce one after the other, please? So, good afternoon, distinguished colleagues, panelists, and guests.

Submarine cables are critical infrastructure for the global digital economy. Yet. in many underserved regions, the economic viability of submarine cable is as salient as physical risks.

More attention has to be paid to how it can be delivered in a way that is economically viable and resilient over time, and hence attractive to long -term capital. This panel is therefore focused on two closely linked questions. How we make the economic case for submarine cables in these markets, and how we identify the opportunities, resources, and partnerships required to support a resilient economy.

Resilient here is not an abstract technical concept. It affects risk premiums, repair times, insurance costs, service continuity, and ultimately whether projects reach financial close. In underserved regions, resilience is often the difference between a cable being built and not being built.

Our panel brings together development finance institutions, governments, regulators, regional and international bodies that collectively shape that equation. I will guide the discussion from the financing and investment rationale through policy and regulatory enablers, and finally to the partnerships required to deliver resilient connectivity at scale. It is now my honor to introduce our distinguished panelists, starting with the World Bank Group from my right, on my right, or my left rather, Mr.

German Kufre, Global Manager of Digital Access at the World Bank Group, and serves as the alternate co -facilitator for Working Group 3. Round of applause, please. Mr.

Rudra Narayan Palai, Member, Technology, Digital Communications Commission. of the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications, Government of India. Next, Mr.

Rodney Taylor, the Secretary General of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union And serves as the co -facilitator for the Working Group 3 Next, Professor Manuel Cabugueira, a board member of our host Anacom Portugal Then Mr.

Sayed Mohammed Jawaid, a senior ICT specialist at the Islamic Development Bank And finally, Ms. Lauren Bieniek, Program Officer Development Finance at the ITU So, panelists, we have about 75 minutes and three rounds of questions Rounds one and two, give each panelist Five minutes or less for an individual question We’ll have a common question, three minutes each We’ll finish with a ten minute audience Q &A.

I’ll be managing the clock closely and reading your insights just to ensure that we have a full -court discussion and very fast -paced. So I’ll start with the World Bank Group. Mr.

Kufre, the World Bank Group plays an active role in financing sub -monetary systems worldwide, particularly in support of developing countries. How do you work with your member governments and industry partners to promote resilience and security of this infrastructure?

Yes, thank you. Very good to see you after that massive lunch. So thank you for continuing being engaged on this event.

I think to these questions, there are things that the World Bank Group does that are are consistent with industry standards so that we don’t do anything from what’s best practice from a perspective of resilience that includes building from a design stage supported by private sector consultants the diversification of this of these routes so that they are not just single spurs but rather multi -landing point multi -branching ability to to branch things going forward and also establishing cross -island links so there’s nothing that the the bank does that is unique in that regard nor there is nothing that the bank does that is unique in terms of of climate mitigation a hundred percent of our transactions since the paris agreement have to be compliant with climate resilience so we we build projections climate change, for erosion increasing in water levels, seismic activities in markets are more or less prone to that and we embed all of this in our thinking much like every other cable that is being deployed.

What is unique about the World Bank is our approach vis -a -vis the governments and our approach vis -a -vis our partners. For one, every single investment that we do has to have at its core wholesale open access mandate even when we deploy or support consortium -based models there has to be a wholesale open access component so that this submarine cable is not captive to any single operator.

And examples has been even in consortium -based models we have financed the The largest minority shareholder through an SPV that will be a wholesale open access provider like the WIOC vis -a -vis the Easy Cable in East Africa to preserve wholesale open access and the idea of non -discriminatory access to the networks.

The other thing that we do is that we look beyond the submarine connectivity. We have a unique ability because the governments are our shareholders to not only look at the submarine cable but also look at the backhauling data center requirements, rural connectivity gaps and take a view on what type of connectivity that submarine cable can enable.

And the final thing that we do, and I’ll stop here, is that we use these opportunities to engage with governments which are our partners. We use our shareholders to secure against lending programs, different reforms. on the policy side, on the regulatory side, to promote some of these values, host, open access, infrastructure, et cetera.

So many times our loans or on the IFC side, our equity or also loans to the private sector always carry these asks in terms of enhancing host and open access connectivity. And those three things are not unique to the World Bank. I think all the DFIs we partner in this type of engagement, but certainly something that is very dear to our hearts.

Thank you.

You just framed the resilience as something that directly affects risk and cost, really, and not just technical performance. I think as a matter of fact, the outages in West Africa in 2024 shows that a single incident really can really cause huge economic impact. So there is a lot that’s got to be done.

There’s a lot that’s behind that resilience. And I think this brings me to the role of policy, really, in shaping risk mitigation. I would like to now ask Mr.

Pallay from the government of India. In 2023, India launched a consultation process that resulted in recommendations to improve submarine cable resilience and adoption of many ICPC recommendations. Which of these recommendations have already been implemented and which remain under consideration?

Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon and namaskar.

So I’ll just, before touching the questions, I’ll visit the historical perspective between India and Portugal. Five centuries ago, a person named Vasco da Gama started his sea route or voyage and discovered India in 1498. And this year, 2026, India signed the exclusive FTA agreement with European Commission, where Portugal is allowed to have the export of this technical expertise, engineering.

And thanks to the chairwoman Anakam for giving a good hospitality and reminds us about the relations between two countries. Thank you. With this, let me delve into the questions.

So, ICPC, actually, the recommendations are persuasive in nature. And the national governments, they adapt. And as far as India is concerned, we have a regulator, telecommunications regulator of TRAI, Authority of India.

And in 2023, it has floated a consultation paper, and where we have also adopted the various recommendations or suggestions by the ICPC. And a few of the things I would just like to highlight. One is that adoption of this ICPC made few recommendations.

These are adopted. There are three major recommendations that are made on the consultation paper floated by the TRI. First is the importance of submarine cable in infrastructure and owner and operators’ reliance on the open regulatory regime.

Number two, ICPC suggested that transparent and efficient permitting process, not protectionist. ownership requirement to be ensured. Third, create expedient permitting regime and increase the attractiveness of India RJ cable landing destinations.

These are the cardinal principles on which the TRI has made further recommendations. And the TRI came out with the further recommendations to the government, the policy interactions allowing domestic submarine cable. It was not allowed.

So there is an opportunity for the investment in this. Developing indigenous cable capabilities and that repair and also laying capabilities. Streamlining of permits and…

and rationalization of the ease of doing business and protection of submarine cables. These are the very strong recommendations TRI has proposed and fully it is acknowledged that the submarine cable is a critical infrastructure and this government has also declared this cable landing stations or submarine cable are the critical infrastructures under the law.

And the pre -repair means that pre -repair clearances on request basis, that has to be reduced within seven days and these are the recommendations that made by this TRI which this government is working to allow.

Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Palai, for highlighting the policy choices of India, really, how it shapes the investment environment. Let’s look at the regional perspective when it comes to resilience, and I would like to ask Secretary General Taylor a question.

The CTE comprises 21 member states and associate members, many of whom are small island development states, SIDs. From the Caribbean perspective, what policy, regulatory, and fiscal incentives can be or are being used by Caribbean administrations to attract new submarine cable landings and more geographically diverse routes?

And what role do intergovernmental organizations such as CTE play in scaling good practices?

Thank you very much, Aliyu, for the question. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining this afternoon.

It’s a pleasure to be here to speak in part on behalf of small island developing states. As mentioned, the CTO represents 21 countries in the Caribbean. While we call them island states, it includes countries like Belize and Guyana, and most recently French Guyana on the South American continent.

I wish I could say that there are a ton of policy incentives being offered in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, they’re not. And in fact, the majority of our cable systems in the Caribbean are between 20 and 30 years old, and they’re approaching end of life.

Now, the operators will say that’s not really a problem. It’s end of commercial life. It’s not end of technical life.

I’m sure we can get another 10 or 15 years out of them. And maybe they’re right. But the reality is that it is a concern for us, given the age.

and also the diversity of routes within the region. Yes, most of our cables actually go to North America. The NAPA of the Americas in Florida.

There is some diversity going to South America as well, and very recently with French Guyana, with the Ella Link, coming right here to Portugal, actually. But there’s a need to focus on that. And initiatives such as this, the IAB, facilitated by the ITU and ICPC, go a long way in helping us to focus attention on these critical pieces of infrastructure.

And so our governments are starting to pay more attention ever since this initiative. Even the CTU has been having conversations with the operators, with regulators, and policymakers with a view to incentivizing new investments in this area. Most recently, though, having said that, it’s not all in gloom and doom.

There is very recently a cable commission. CELIA, the Caribbean Elite Alliance. being funded, well it’s connecting a number of countries in the Caribbean Aruba, Martinique, Antigua, Puerto Rico, Curacao and that connects again to Florida.

That’s a 15 million US dollar investment it was actually funded by the Antigua Public Utilities Authority which is a statutory corporation so it is using public funds to incentivize investments in there.

It is funded also in part by the European Union Digital Connectivity Program What we’re trying to do is ensure that there are clear regulatory pathways we’re encouraging governments to see this infrastructure as critical infrastructure and therefore support it.

So us in the Caribbean as you know many of our economies are driven by tourism so governments are very clear on incentivizing investments in tourism, in hotels and so on there are 20 -25 year tax incentives, write -offs for investment in hotels but we’re trying to also help our governments understand that if we want to transition to digital economies that we also need to incentivize investments in the ICT sector.

There are other cable systems in the Caribbean that connect a number of islands. The Southern Caribbean Fiber, most recently rebranded Deep Blue One, connects about 15 countries, and therefore that calls for some regulatory harmonization and collaboration amongst the operators and the regulators.

So we encourage participation in bodies such as this, in forums such as this. The breakfast meeting was very, very useful this morning in connecting us with a number of stakeholders who can help us advance these initiatives. So in essence, we want to drive the harmonization.

That is why we exist, to drive harmonization of policy and regulation, to promote awareness of the critical nature of this infrastructure if governments are building out digital economies. We worked about 10 years ago with a project called CARSIP, the Caribbean Regional Infrastructure Communications Program that was funded by the World Bank as well, and that has helped to drive down the cost of connectivity in the region.

So that is just a snapshot. I know it is a large panel, so I will stop there for now.

Thank you, Secretary -General. What you highlighted describes resilience as regional. not a national challenge.

I’m sure the island nations, you know, this is really an economic lifeline, the resilience as a whole. So I would like to shift our conversation to a bit of technology, and I would like to bring in Professor Cabugueira of ANWACOM. Professor, sensing and monitoring technologies have been promoted by the Portuguese government in the Azores Islands.

How are these technologies expected to enhance the resilience of suburban cable systems in the region?

Thank you. Thank you, and good afternoon to everyone and welcome to my hometown. I’m from Oporto.

It’s great to see so many people here, and let me just say that I hope that you’ll be able to spend a couple of hours going around the most beautiful town in Portugal. I’m actually leaving nowadays on what might be the fifth or the sixth most interesting town in Portugal, which is Lisbon. But please be sure that this is the best place to be when you come to Portugal.

For many reasons. One of them is wine, obviously. And the second, for those of you that will be having dinner tonight, try francesinha, which is our local sandwich, and you should try it.

It’s basic bread with meat and meat and cheese and meat and meat and meat and cheese. With bread, a lot of cheese, and hot sauce. So francesinha, don’t forget this.

Okay. Okay. So having said this, we are talking about sensorization, so the sensing is relevant on this issue.

Let me start by sharing with you more or less the same story as already presented, what is happening now internally in a lot of regards, submarine cables. So Portugal is now starting the challenge of renewing the two national submarine cables, the one that connects Mexico. And the other one is that they’re going to be going to the United States.

And the other one is that they’re going to be going to the United States. And the other one is that they’re going to be going to the United States. And the other one is that they’re going to be going to the United States.

And the other one is that they’re going to be going to the United States. And the other one is that they’re going to be going to the United States. And the other one is that they’re going to be going to the United States.

And the other one is that they’re going to be going to the United States. And the other one is that they’re going to the United States. And the other one is that they’re going to be going to the United States.

The name is CAM, Continent Malaria and the Source. It is now being produced and it will be implemented, I believe, during this year. And probably will start the operation at the end of next year or beginning of 27.

I already have a very interesting information. Is that because that cable will be owned by a public company and it will be managed by a public company. We have been asking over and over again the owner of the current Samarine cable, which is incumbent.

Over and over again what they are going to do with their own cable. And they keep on saying that they are not sure if it will be still able to work. And I just knew that probably during 10 to 20 more years it will still be there.

But anyway, so we have that. That’s the project that is now being implemented. And there will be a second.

Projects, which will be the wings. that will connect the islands from a source that is still on paper. Both cables will be sensorized, so they will both be smart cables.

So they will not only have the internal capacity to produce this data, as we already heard this morning, but they will actually have sensors that will improve the information regarding climate, monitoring of the seawaters, and obviously the possibility of having early warning on situations of tsunamis and earthquakes.

A couple of seconds, or I don’t know, but at least we’ll have some early warning. And one of the main objectives is to produce information for scientific purposes. So it will be a cable that will, improve our knowledge of our own exclusive economic…

which is, I believe, one of the biggest in the world. In itself, the cable, having the sensors, will have the capacity to promote its own resilience. Yes, that is something that has already been said.

But it is also relevant to keep in mind that passing through our EEZ, we have more or less 25 % of the worldwide cables. So all the cables of the world, 25 % of them, will pass through our own zone at some point. Which means that censoring that zone might be relevant for the overall resilience of 25 % of the submarine cables.

That mostly connects Europe to North America. Some of them, obviously, going to Africa. But I believe it will be contributing to the…

resilience of those cables also. Besides that, it is also relevant to talk not only about the resilience of the cables, but the resilience of the economy and society. And as I said, using the cables and the smart capacity of the cables to improve the early warning of natural occurrences will obviously improve our capacity to react to them, which means that we have been discussing yesterday and today about the resilience of the infrastructure, but the resilience of the infrastructure itself will improve our own resilience as a society and the resilience of our economy.

One final comment on this internal strategy, which is our objective of creating in Azores, related to the cable, or supported, also supporting the cable, what we call a free technological zone, which is a sandbox.

So it will be a free technological zone, which is a free technological zone, which is a free technological zone, which is a free technological zone, which is a free technological zone, which is a developed drones in boats, land and air.

So it will be, I believe, one of the biggest zones to develop drones for submarines and for any sea purpose. And everything related to drones will be related at some point with connectivity and the possibility of having

Thank you, Professor. So more than technical upgrades, sensors and monitors are tools… So we The Islamic Development Bank has financed several submarine cable projects in markets that could be described as underserved or more challenging from an economic or risk perspective.

Could you share one or two examples of specific submarine cable projects the bank has supported and explain how it approaches investment decision in this sector? Mr. Javed.

and happy to share even further during the next course. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jawaid. So the examples that you gave showed that beyond the demand, you need a very structured approach, risk, and sharing this across stakeholders.

Still on finance, I would like to move on to Ms. Bienek of the ITU. Building on this morning’s investment breakfast, what were the key takeaways regarding the pipeline of bankable digital infrastructure projects and what critical gaps must be addressed to move from dialogue to tangible financial closure?

Great. Thank you. We had a wonderful investment breakfast session this morning.

Thanks to all of you who were there. It was probably many of you because it was a very packed room. So thanks for bearing with us and participating in the conversation.

One thing that ITU, whose Deputy Secretary General said that I’m going to borrow from is investment is not just about about the funding, but also about the coordination and collaboration. And I think this morning was a strong representation of what we can do together when we collaborate, when we coordinate, when we bring together different regions and different countries to share diverse perspectives and experiences and think about how we can replicate successful models potentially elsewhere.

So I wanted to share four takeaways that I came away with after this morning. The first is perhaps unsurprising. I think it’s the very common takeaway and message we hear from a lot of the work we’re doing on digital infrastructure investments, blended finance, innovative finance, partnerships.

And mixed in with that is a lot of discussion about de -risking, collaborating and blending public and private funding together, ensuring there’s demand and offtake. And that’s not surprising because those, of course, are the innovative models. We need, if we’re going to talk about connecting traditionally underserved markets that potentially are less economically viable.

But I think what was really valuable about this morning was the ability to go beyond those high -level key takeaways of we need more funding and we need to blend it and we need to de -risk it, is, okay, where can we do that?

How can we do that? Let’s have some tangible discussions about where there’s real opportunities and real project pipelines to move forward and having the right stakeholders in the room willing to have those conversations, finance providers, country governments, project sponsors and developers, operators.

So that leads me to my second key takeaway is on the projects. I think we did, yes, specifically about the pipeline, have very fruitful discussions around specific projects. As Rodney mentioned, maybe some opportunities in the Caribbean coming out of our small island developing states table.

So great examples from the Pacific, some great leads and opportunities in the Caribbean to follow up on going forward. But other regional opportunities for collaboration within Asia, within Africa, and the idea of having countries together go in on a collaboration or consortium to potentially make a single project more bankable or viable if you have multiple markets going in together.

The third takeaway was on deploying new infrastructure and how we do that, as well as how we think about existing infrastructure. So on new infrastructure, opening up markets, advancing competition, not just with subsea cables but across the digital value chain, so we can think about cross -cutting interventions and investments can really flow because you know the entire market is open, competitive, and we have open markets.

We have open access infrastructure in place as Hermann mentioned. already spoke to and on existing infrastructure rodney again discussed the potential opportunity to explore existing assets and extending the technical life of subsea cables that might be available an open question something that perhaps more feasibility work is needed on but even further on shore as well is trying to tap into currently underutilized cross border links and other terrestrial fiber that that might be used to further expand connectivity into currently underserved areas and finally and not at all surprising given the topic of the summit and the theme around repairs as well and when we think about financing the need to think about repairs and maintenance up front even even when a financial agreement made and no infrastructure has been laid yet already planning ahead for those repairs and some interesting discussion around how development finances can be thinking about that when a financing deal is being made, setting aside funding up front for the maintenance and repairs and even having tenders and other mechanisms in place up front so that maintenance is already planned for in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bieniek. So investment goes beyond funding.

It requires collaboration and coordination. Partnerships with the right stakeholders across different boundaries. You talked about financing repairs by the NBs, which is really critical in our discussion.

So I will return to the World Bank now with the second round of questions. Mr. Kufre, cable projects can be commercially challenging, particularly in smaller or less developed markets.

What instruments and approaches does the World Bank Group utilize to help bridge the viability gap and what other partners and stakeholders might be enlisted to assist with funding and repair projects?

Thank you. So, I mean, there’s a lot to cover on that topic, but I would like you to take three main messages. One is that there is no one -size -fits -all.

There is not a single way to approach this type of investments. It’s really a creative process and a financial engineering one from a financing perspective. So I mentioned for those of you that joined the breakfast this morning, we mentioned an example where we had to finance a branching unit of Equiano into a West African country.

The numbers didn’t add up. There was no economic case. What we ended up doing to make the numbers work was a combination of government contributions.

They ended up being a 30 % owner of the cable and an operator, private sector wholesale open access operator that invests in Equiano. We invested 30 % as well. And IFC also investing through a blended finance instrument, 30%.

So this was, and I made a comment earlier this morning about share pain, share gain type of approach. The second point, but I’ll use the example that I mentioned just now, is that the government also contributed very valuable rights of way, access to certain infrastructure, including the landing station, and also OPGW, so the ability to deploy new fiber over transmission line and existing fiber assets that the government had.

So all of this made the bankability and the break -even point much more achievable, and this is how the investment took place. The other example I mentioned briefly is really when on consortium type engagements where IFC supported the largest wholesale open. Access minority ownership on that cable to allow wholesale open access.

So these are very diverse ways to address the need for additional submarine capacity. and what I encourage, like I did this morning, is really please reach out to the Digital Infrastructure Catalyzer team that has representatives probably from all of these people that you see on stage, and we can help identify what is the right way to fund this infrastructure in your particular case.

The second comment that I would like to make is that the government can play a crucial role in making this happen. This is not just about securing financing. It’s not just about the private sector, but the government has unique tools in terms of, one, making assets available, like I mentioned earlier, two, reducing red tape, streamlining policies, and so on.

All of these make for a faster decision -making and, hence, more efficient deployments and has improved the returns on investment. the final point that I’d like to make is that one of the things that we’re exploring within the World Bank Group is going from one -offs investments like I just mentioned to more programmatic investments and there are two initiatives that we’re in the process of exploring and will be launched this year one is a digital access fund which basically is intended to support different tiers of investors for greenfield equity on borderline bankable projects and the way that it would work is that it would mobilize the World Bank Group and blended finance and donors will mobilize the first loss of those investments and by guaranteeing that at the most you will not lose money and by guaranteeing that at the most we will crowd in private sector So, certain stakeholders will take a disproportionate amount of risk to ensure that the private sector, we can crowd in the private sector to support their mandate, which is to make money, right?

So, this digital access fund is in the works. We think it has potential. The other initiative they’re exploring is a yield co -model, which is once you have established submarine cables, their capacities fully utilized, you can actually sell the submarine cables to investors that have this need for stable cash returns with lower return expectations, like pension funds, right?

So, by being able to sell a submarine cable, ultimately, together with its cash flows, you can have this money being recycled. into new connectivity initiatives. This is a lot used by real estate investment trusts.

We are exploring it for discrete terrestrial fiber. We’re exploring it for data centers, and we think it would make sense for submarine cables as well. So stay tuned.

Thank you, Mr. Cufre. No silver bullet for project finance, as you mentioned.

Developed finance can only go so far on its own. You require government contribution in many areas. I think this brings me to the question of what governments themselves are doing to reduce the risk associated with such kind of matter and then attract long -term capital.

So I would like to now turn my question to the government of India. Mr. Farley, India is experiencing a new wave of data center investments that will require robust submarine cable connectivity.

How is the Indian government ensuring that these investments are supported by resilient and secure submarine cable infrastructure?

Thank you. It’s a very tricky question because, first of all, we have to see the landscape of data centers, particularly with the invent of that AI -driven data centers. So if you look at the Indian landscape particularly, it’s a peninsula, and we have around 23 submarine cables at 18 landing stations.

Whatever the incidentally or without any regulations probably, these data centers are scattered around the landing stations. It’s predominantly in. Western and eastern side of the south -eastern side of India.

where the connectivity for international gateway is seamless and secure. But if you look at the growth of data center, as you have also mentioned, over the last five years, India has seen the growth in terms of three -fold from last five years. So it is major in terms of this megawatt, because 400 odd megawatts.

Today in 2025, it is 1 .5 gigawatt consumption of data centers. And if this trajectory to be maintained, and with the AI data centers in place, so by 2030, we will be having around 5 gigawatt of data centers total power consumptions. So that makes the nonlinear growth.

And the tremendous impact will be on the submarine cables, because the moment we are talking of a conventional data center to AI data centers, the consumption patterns or the bandwidth requirement has increased from single fold to four fold roughly.

So in that case, the amount of data or the bandwidth required will be four fold in 2030. And if you are considering that, there will be a lot of the domestic consumptions, but significant portion will be the international, so through the submarine couple. So there is a huge demand for the need of the additional submarine cables, all the upgradation of the existing old submarine cables.

And secondly, the resilience, particularly that recently this government has allowed the domestic submarine cables, which was not there. So this will add to the resilience and security or secured communications. So from that perspective, this lot of activities the government is looking at, very progressive.

Pragmatically, the suggestions… by the particularly ICPC, and also the recommendations made in the International Submarine Cable Resolution Summits. So this last, the Abuja Summit and this Portugal Summit will help in a much way in shaping this.

So India is totally open as far as the investment is concerned in the new domains particularly, additional submarine cable requirement and also domestic submarine cable requirements. There are heavy, there is huge opportunities for investment. And government is taking the multilateral collaborations for the particularly investment propositions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Palai. It has shown how India’s experience with data centers really drives demand, anchors demand, changes dynamics of the economics of submarine cable.

I would like to now turn to the CTU, Mr. Rodney Taylor. The submarine cable sector has persistent gaps in technical, regulatory, and emergency response capacity.

What practical steps can the CTU, in collaboration with industry partners and otherwise, take to build a sustained Caribbean talent pipeline for cable planning, permitting, protection, and restoration?

Thank you again. So, small states, their capacity gaps, capacity issues, and very often we rely on external resources in terms of permitting legal frameworks, emergency restoration, and so on. And it is a perennial.

It is a perennial problem. What we have sought to do in the CTU, part of our mandate is capacity building. This is the third year we’ve established the School of Digital Transformation and Innovation in the Caribbean, working along with international partners, so the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, CAF, CETIC -BR, the technical community like ICANN, LACNIC Internet Society, LAC -TLD, Red Clara, and the University of the West Indies to host this School on Digital Transformation.

And one of the key components is a focus on submarine cables and critical infrastructure. So we focus a lot of that as a component of this capacity -building program. And the good thing is that it’s just not a case where you’re taught in the classroom, but we actually go into the field.

It was hosted in Trinidad and Tobago for the last two years, and the participants got to go to a landing station. So when we talk about critical infrastructure, they can see, they can get to understand the business, a lot more and understand. understand what policy, technical challenges that are being faced by the operators of that cable.

We can seek to broaden that working along with other partners. We do a lot of work with the United States Telecom Training Institute. Many of you will be familiar with our organization.

And so we can look at with this greater focus now on this critical infrastructure of submarine cables, looking at broadening, expanding that capacity building program and working with partners. We’ve also, as you know, sought to collaborate. We can call it South -South cooperation.

But I visited you in Nigeria just about a year ago. We talked about how we can harmonize our regulatory frameworks. And I’m pleased to say we actually have advanced the implementation of a regional regulatory body based on the WAPTRA model, but also sharing experiences with each other.

South -South cooperation, as I said, it’s not just a question of learning, but sharing experiences as to what works and what doesn’t. And what is maybe best practice. So we will continue our focus.

on that, maybe look and see how we can broaden and deepen that sharing that knowledge and capacity building so that we come up with good policies and that we’re able to support the operators of those cables.

Also, exposing our young people. We have a Caribbean ICT youth network, and we’re exposing young people not just the policy development, but the technical aspects of the business as well, and that will continue to be a focus so that it’s just not a short -term strategy, but a longer -term engagement where down the road we will have the capacity that we need in the Caribbean.

Thank you.

Thank you, Secretary General. What you outlined is that the capacity gaps are not just skills issues, there are also some risk issues around that. Now, talking about risk, I would like to turn to the regulator to see how they could really, I mean, the shaping incentives to reduce the risk.

I would like to now pose my question to Professor Kabugera. The EU Global Gateway Programme provides financial support for projects connecting EU overseas territories, just like the French Guiana and Aruba. How is the European Union ensuring that these investments are underpinned by resilient and secure submarine cable infrastructure?

Well, the Gateway project that is being developed by Europe is a plan to reinforce geopolitical positioning of Europe, not only by improving its own telecommunications capacity, it’s actually a programme that focuses on all backbone networks, so not only telecommunications but also energy, so the main objective is to reinforce that.

To reinforce Europe, to make Europe more independent in technological terms, and make it more visible throughout the world, and the perspective is to do that. while promoting a better connection with other countries. And yes, it is true that it is supported by a number of financial programs that are being used to promote the connections and implementation of infrastructure that will connect Europe with other countries.

As we already heard today, there are different rules that are now being implemented at the European level to reinforce the resilience and security of submarine cables. So that’s one of the focuses that will be used to evaluate investments. But if you allow me, let me look in more detail to one particular strategy within the European Global Gateway Program.

And we will talk about that in a little bit. Which is the Portuguese positioning on that. In the ANACOM for many, many years, a group we have been discussing internally, a different perspective on this concept, which is to bring up the concept of within the European global gateway, discuss the Atlantic gateway.

And positioning Portugal as the door, the entrance to Europe in that perspective. Former colleagues like Manuel Barros, that is somewhere, José Barros, sorry, that is back there, I believe, and Augusto nowadays, we have been presenting this idea in different forums throughout Europe.

And because we believe that we are in our own geopolitical position, our own, sorry, our own geopolitical position gives us the capacity to act as a hub for submarine cables that come from the… United States, and we now have an example of a cable from an that will connect with Bermuda. We discussed that with the delegates from Bermuda yesterday.

But also, we look forward to the possibility of using the European funds that we heard from today to improve our connection with the South, with African countries, particularly with the Portuguese -speaking African countries, and why not also look at the North and the future capacity to reach the Asian the Asian hemisphere throughout the poles.

But this is to say that the overall infrastructure, being it looked in the perspective of Europe as the global gateway, or in particular our more small objective of creating an Atlantic gateway, I believe that it will improve the overall resilience of the region.

Thank you. cables throughout the world. And as I said previously, again, the position that we have within the Atlantic creates a natural, we are a natural hub for connections.

By the way, a piece of history, Sandra yesterday said that the first cable that was landed in the Azores, it was in the 19th century. I believe it was 1876. One thing that probably you don’t know is that during the first days of the First World War, one of the actions was to cut that cable.

So someone went there to cut it. So this idea of disrupting system -wide cables is not new. People already understood about the importance of doing that a long time ago.

Thank you.

Thanks for highlighting the global gateway approach and how impacts are resilient and the role of technology. Let me now go back to the development finance. Mr.

Said for the Islamic Development Bank. My question to you is, from the perspective of a development financier, what do you see the primary bottlenecks when project owners seek funding for new subordinate cables? Specifically, is resilience viewed by the market as a value proposition that unlocks capital or merely as a cost burden?

digital inclusion strategic partnership where we partner with agencies who have these capacities so that we can educate our member states and then co -design the intervention that anybody could finance.

So we don’t mandate that we’re going to finance and so it’s open for anybody to come in and chip in with their resources. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jawaid. Properly defining resilience is very crucial to unlocking capital.

Otherwise, it’s seen as a cost. Now, still on finance, Ms. Bioniek, I would like to still ask you some questions on the investment breakfast this morning.

This morning’s investment breakfast was hosted as part of the Digital Infrastructure Investment Catalyzer, which the IIT helps to lead. Can you share more about this catalyzer and what it aims to achieve?

Great. Thanks. So let me first take a quick step back that the Catalyzer actually builds on a body of work we call the Digital Infrastructure Investment Initiative, which was an ITU -led initiative in 2024 together with the Multilateral Development Bank ecosystem to really bring a diverse working group of stakeholders together to help identify and define and calculate the total size of the investment gap for digital infrastructure.

So how much financing would be needed to close the digital infrastructure investment gap and bridge the global digital divide by 2030? And we found that it was around $1 .6 trillion. And so that white paper came out, that initiative sort of concluded in early 2025, but we wanted to bring those findings into the multilateral ecosystem.

It’s the Multilateral Development Bank and finance ecosystem and elevates this as a high -priority need. that can address the SDGs, that can accelerate economic growth, one that’s critically important and should be on the international agenda. So we brought that initiative and work into the Financing for Development Conference in Sevilla, Spain, in June, July of 2025.

And we see the Catalyzer as the next phase of this digital infrastructure investment work and a phase that’s very action -oriented to take the findings from that first phase and that North Star, that $1 .6 trillion investment gap, and now say, how are we going to work together?

What are we going to do to unlock this financing that’s needed to close that gap? So the Digital Infrastructure Investment Catalyzer is being led by ITU, with UNCTAD, and with eight multilateral development banks, including the World Bank, Islamic Development Bank, and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is also here today, as well as the African Development Bank.

And the Inter -American Development Bank is also here today. and the two main European, EIB and EBRD. So we see this as a really robust group working hand -in -hand.

We’re in the leadership role as co -leads, helping to organize and help steer the conversation, but it’s a much bigger ecosystem of players, and that working group continues. We had about 40 organizations in the first phase. We now are already at 100 in this next phase, so a lot of interest and excitement.

And the Catalyzer, while announced in Spain and formally endorsed as part of the SEVIA Platform for Action to help implement the outcome document agreed to in SEVIA, it has three main areas of focus that we plan to bring the investment ecosystem, the governments, the private sector together to collaborate on, and that’s around the data, tools, and templates needed to accelerate investments.

The second is around capacity. We’ve been discussing this for a long time. We’ve been discussing this for a long time.

We’ve been discussing this for a long time. We’ve been discussing this for a long time. We’ve been discussing this for a long time.

not just for policymakers, but also for investors themselves to think about what creative structures we might need and how to implement those going forward. And the third, final, and perhaps most important pillar is around partnerships, funding, and investment. So this morning’s investment breakfast is a great example of how we’re trying to bring the stakeholders together to have those conversations, make those connections, to try to identify project pipeline and accelerate the investments that are needed.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bienek, for highlighting this role of the catalyzers in accelerating, closing the infrastructure gap. So, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, we’ll now move on to the last round of questions, which is a common question to all panelists.

It will be like a takeaway for this session. After that, we’ll now move on to the audience for a few questions to the panelists. So, for the common questions, our last question is, to start with Ms.

Bienek. By 2026, what do you consider to be the major challenge in promoting global submarine cable resilience in underserved regions?

I think by 2026, we need to continue this momentum that’s been started here today, and I think a major challenge will be if we don’t take forward some of the initial partnership opportunities and projects identified into their next stage.

So a huge need by 2026 is going to be to identify the actual hard funding that we need to put behind some of these projects. For example, this morning some were identified, but they require feasibility funding to move forward. So I think we need to continue this momentum.

We need to move forward where we see opportunity and bring those funders in to really put the money on the line to advance these projects. Thank you.

In terms of things ahead in 2026, Mr. Jawaid, the same question to you. By 2026, what do you consider to be the major challenge in promoting global submarine cable resilience in underserved regions from your perspective?

Thank you very much. I think what we understood is probably the submarine cable community is probably not aware that MDBs are actually looking to finance their projects. So the idea would be how to make those interventions bankable, and we’re here to help in terms of our financing, technical assistance, capacity building.

We have specially allocated nearly $250 million just for the sake of digital infrastructure investments in our member states for 2026 and 2027. So we look forward to assisting in how we can. We can provide our assistance in developing those programs.

that ultimately the bank can finance. And, you know, we’ll be happy to accommodate any requests that would come, and you can be part of our webinars. The first webinar will be on 9th of March next month, where we will be showcasing our example in Saudi Arabia, what Saudi Arabia is doing in terms of their sovereign AI and digital infrastructure.

So we are welcome to provide any assistance in that regard as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jawaid. Professor, over to you.

By 2026, what do you consider to be the major challenge in promoting global submarine cable resilience in underserved regions?

Let me answer that with my takeaway from these two days of learning. And what I learned in the last two days is that, yes, the resilience of the cable itself is relevant, but maybe we should also look at it in a broader perspective. And I remember, as you all know, as you probably already heard somewhere, in Europe we like to regulate a little bit.

We produce a little bit of regulation in Brussels. But sometimes, actually, new regulation that comes up from Brussels is really interesting. And one thing that happened in 2024 was the publication of the directive for critical entities.

And what I like about that is the fact that we are no longer calling it critical infrastructure. We are calling it critical entities in the sense that we understand that the critical aspect is not only the infrastructure. It’s the infrastructure and the people, the organizations, the institutions.

And what I’ve learned during the last two days, and I believe it will be a good challenge to look during the next years, is that the resilience of the submarine carriers, it’s something that we have to look at having a holistic view of the complete infrastructure.

But at the same time, we have to look at the institutions that are implementing and promoting resilience. We have to look at the opportunities. We have to look at the opportunities.

the firms that are actually building and implementing and landing the cables, and even the people that fish around the cables, so that somehow use the same space as the cables. So having this broader perspective of the resilience of complete entities that are around the submarine cables is something that I learned during the last two days.

Thank you, Professor. What’s your second, General?

Sure. And thanks again for this opportunity. One of the challenges for us, we talk about the Caribbean, but the reality is that there’s still some divisions within there.

So the Eastern Caribbean states, there’s the Caribbean community. I mentioned that our member states go as far as Central America, South America. And for us, if you look at the population, It can go all the way up to about 45 million people, a market of 45 million.

That becomes more attractive as we work together in terms of investment. While we talk about building universal and meaningful connectivity, at the end of the day, these are businesses we’re talking about, and you have to consider return on investment. And therefore, our challenge would be to work more cohesively together.

It isn’t a single market. It isn’t the United States or the Caribbean. But if we are able to promote harmonization, we’re able to go to the table collectively, make it easier to invest, understand that we’re building resilient networks, that we should be able to communicate with each other.

If there’s a disruption at the transit point in Miami, it should not shut our digital services down, but we should be able to build more resilient networks by taking a more strategic approach, working together, and ensuring that these cables are deployed in a much more resilient manner.

So our challenge will be to… move beyond the talk of collaboration to actually work together to sit at the table together and offer a much more attractive investment environment for investors who build these cables. Thank you.

Thank you, Secretary General. I now turn to the government in India. Mr.

Palai, can you give your response to this question?

Well, I say to surprise the particular world, the challenges for this 2020 season and beyond. The problem statement itself is very challenging to answer also. On one side, when we are talking about the growth trajectory and demand for the new submarine cables, the submarine cables will ultimately land at the points where the submarine cable landing stations are there.

And paradoxically, in Indian Peninsula, that’s similar. The same sort they are going to be landing where the shipping and anchoring activities are predominant. And there are also that marshy lands, means particularly this low height or low depth seas available.

So these are creating a major challenge as far as the redundancy is concerned and the resilience because the probability of getting the submarine cable fault is quite high. Secondly, we are just talking about some of the few that pain points, some of the cables taken to Red Sea areas where the international bandwidth from India passes. So it took nearly six months actually, I think people may share with this, till that cable.

So given this context, we have to create a redundancy framework. Not the resilience, not the redundancy framework to pass through the alternate bandwidth to the different cables. Third, this submarine cable repair ecosystem is not readily available.

And particularly in Indian context, this repair mechanism or the repair resources are not available. This is posing one of the critical points where we have to think that whether the country will have to sponsor for the development of these capabilities or it’s a market -driven mechanism. So when the market -driven mechanism doesn’t work, obviously that country will have to pitch in for its sovereign rights to have that capability.

It will restore it because geopolitically it’s also quite sensitive, Indian. The ASEAN region is also geop critically sensitive. So these are the challenges what I find.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you. And finally, to Mr. Cufre of World Bank, what’s your take on by 2026?

So I think we have very difficult years ahead. On the one hand, we all make a case for blended finance, and blended finance funding is drying up, right, in the sense that that money is money at risk that some countries are willing to contribute towards the greater good, and those, unfortunately, we’re all becoming a little bit more selfish, even the geopolitics of the world and so on, so looking after our own interests rather than looking for us as a planet as a whole.

So blended finance is drying up. AI, just data requirements and AI are putting enormous pressure on submarine connectivity, on data centers and so on, and so they have a combination of exponential demand and drying up funds, and this creates a particularly difficult situation for the poorest markets, which is…

where the World Bank operates and wants to support. The geopolitics are not helping, and I don’t see any things improving in the short term. So it’s a macro.

My concern is more on the macro side than on the dynamics of the sector itself. I mean, the good news, just to end up this panel on a positive note, another bummer that I just shared, is that the World Bank thrives on this type of situation. We were created on the back of the Second World War, the Marshall Plan and the reconstruction of Europe.

So we see ourselves as playing a counter -cyclical role in terms of supporting and making our funding available in these difficult times. And we’re open for business. So thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you, panelists. I will now move to the audience. For a few questions.

Okay. I think we have a microphone.

Thank you very much. My name is Nomsa. I’d like to thank the panelists.

It’s been an eye -opening session. I think in a lot of these conversations, knowing fully that we have a very high barrier to entry for the development of such critical infrastructure, we don’t normally have these kinds of conversations with the people that we’re seeing up front.

With that said, I’m happy to hear about the nontraditional funding models, so you spoke of Finance Plus, so DeFi is going beyond the norm. is great and interesting, and I think it’s very beneficial. I think that’s sharing risk, which is going beyond just saying to yourselves, we’ll look at the EBITDA, the rate of return, and we’ll meet you at the return dates for funding to return back.

My question is on underserved markets and regions. And this sometimes even includes developed nations that have underserved pockets within their nations. Underserved markets are plagued with a lot of infrastructure deficits.

And when that happens, we are happy to talk about developing subsea cables and focusing on that. I’m just wondering, so my question is actually to World Bank and to Yasser Mohamed. Are DFIs looking at models in which you look at multifaceted project funding?

What I mean by this is in the SPV that you spoke of, would it be something you would consider throwing in electricity infrastructure providers in there? For example, where you say in building the backhoe for your subsea cable, then an infrastructure provider that works on electricity comes into the SPV. And what then happens is you could build an aerial cable with poles that are able to sustain high voltage electricity.

In so doing… We are unlocking an ecosystem. At the end of the day, we’re looking at the eyeball network.

We’re looking at issues such as affordability, availability, relevance, accessibility, and the eyeball network is the one that actually in the back end funds the return for that investment. So just a question, have you been looking into something like that? Are you currently open to adding that piece into your models?

Thank you.

Thank you. Question to the NDBs. Would you want to?

Google first?

Okay. I’m happy to go first. So for many years, every single investment that the IFC does on any network -type asset needs to have embedded fiber.

So if you think of roads, if you think of gas, pipelines, if you think of high -power transmission lines, any investment that the IFC does needs to have fiber deployed alongside it, precisely for the reason that you mentioned.

Now, what you’re suggesting is not thinking only about the asset, but thinking about a solution, right? And when you think about rural connectivity in Africa, let’s say, it’s not just about getting fiber or a tower there. It’s about getting the energy and making devices affordable so that people can access it and making data affordable and having people trained and skilled on how to use these devices.

And I manage access and affordability. So to give you an example. To give you a sense of how we’re shifting towards solutions types rather than just network investments.

So, indeed, it is at the very core of what we’re doing. And I’ll just kind of a bit of advertising. We launched two years ago, President Banga, the M300 initiative, which aims to connect 300 million Africans by 2030.

And it does so based on this type of engagements, which have to do with combining digital bottlenecks, addressing digital bottlenecks with energy bottlenecks at the same time. So I think for us, for at ISDB, when we are talking about digital, by default there is hidden energy behind it because there’s no power, there’s no digital for us. I’ll give you a quick two examples.

We are now partnering with ITU for a smart village program in Pakistan. What we’re doing there, so we are providing Wi -Fi devices in rural villages, which is basically providing internet. And then it’s powered by solar.

And what we’re doing is we’re not only… providing internet connectivity, but we are providing meaningful connectivity with connecting local public schools for girls to provide e -education and also provide e -health services through doctors sitting in the city to provide medical consultations for a trained nurse in a rural village.

Another example is that what we are doing in partnership with UNDP in Indonesia is we are embedding in Indonesia there is a consultation process for village planning, so what we are calling is we are using AI for inclusive village development.

So what we are doing is we are providing solar powered digital connectivity within villages where they would collect data and they would collect the requirements for infrastructure planning like road, healthcare, education, and that would be included and AI would do a prediction in terms of based on the actual citizenship data, citizens data for a five year planning.

So this is what we are doing in Indonesia where we are doing it. And in selected villages the idea is to scale it in the future. So these are certain examples that we embed energy with ICT in terms of wherever we are going for scalable solutions, especially in the underserved areas that we do.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Cufre. I’m sorry, we’re going to have just one question.

I’m told we have run out of time. So I would like to thank the distinguished panelists, the World Bank Group, Government India, CTU, Anacom, Islamic Bank, and the ITU for this robust discussion. We’ve had insights into the India’s policy reforms, Caribbean’s regional coordination, the innovative financing models of the MDBs, and, of course, insights from ITU.

So thank you, everyone. Thank you, audience, for this engagement. Have a very good evening.

Thank you.