Beyond universality: the meaningful connectivity imperative | IGF 2023

Martin Shepherd

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Office of the United Nations Secretary General’s Envoy on Technology have collaborated to establish targets for achieving universal and meaningful connectivity. To promote and measure the progress towards this goal, the ITU, along with the European Commission, has launched a project. The project has three key work streams: advocacy, measurement and capacity building, and research. These work streams aim to bring the concept of universal and meaningful connectivity to policymakers, collect and disseminate data, and track progress. This initiative acknowledges the need for everyone to have safe, satisfying, enriching, and productive online experiences at an affordable cost.

Accurate data tracking is regarded as crucial in order to make informed decisions related to universal and meaningful connectivity. The ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau plays a vital role in maintaining an online dashboard to track progress. This data-driven approach helps policymakers and stakeholders understand the areas that require attention and improvement. Furthermore, enhancing the statistical capacity of countries is essential to effectively measure the concept of universal and meaningful connectivity. The ITU, through its Data Analytics Division, is involved in collecting and disseminating data to support this effort.

The ITU indicators play a significant role in this project. These indicators are not limited to technical aspects but also encompass the number of internet users, their online activities, their perceptions of the connections, and their skill sets. This quantitative approach provides comprehensive insights into the supply and demand side indicators of universal and meaningful connectivity. In addition to the ITU’s quantitative indicators, UNESCO takes a qualitative approach, including many qualitative indicators in their data collection. This combination ensures a holistic assessment of universal and meaningful connectivity, enabling individual country assessments.

While the efforts of ITU and UNESCO in data collection are complementary, they are not perfectly coordinated. Nevertheless, both organizations share a common objective and are members of the Partnership on Measuring IST for Development. This cooperative approach facilitates the exchange of information and promotes a collaborative environment for advancing the measurement of universal and meaningful connectivity.

One area that presents a challenge is the lack of good quality data on how communities use the internet. The ITU has yet to collect comprehensive data that accurately reflects the usage patterns and needs of different communities. This knowledge gap hinders the formulation of targeted policies and interventions to ensure equitable access and usage of the internet.

ITU’s focus on connectivity also means acknowledging the need to address safety, affordability, and the quality of internet services. The concept of meaningful connectivity extends beyond mere access; it encompasses the quality of the connection and affordable data plans. However, assessing the value of what people do on the internet remains a complex task, and the ITU intentionally maintains its focus on connectivity rather than evaluating specific services.

The organization led by Martin Shepherd takes a human-centred approach to internet usage. They emphasize the importance of considering the needs and experiences of individuals and communities, rather than solely focusing on businesses. Additionally, they are exploring alternative sources of data to enhance understanding and measurement.

While progress continues to be made, there are areas that require improvement. Martin Shepherd’s organization acknowledges the lack of good indicators for safety and security, as well as speed, and recognizes that the realities of rural regions may not be fully reflected in the data collected. However, the commitment to continuing the ITU project and the belief in its importance remain strong.

In conclusion, the ITU, in collaboration with various stakeholders, is working towards achieving universal and meaningful connectivity. This ambitious goal involves promoting and measuring connectivity, ensuring accurate data tracking, enhancing statistical capacity, and adopting a human-centred approach to internet usage. While challenges and areas for improvement exist, the commitment to this project and belief in its significance remain unwavering. By addressing these issues and leveraging partnerships, the goal of universal and meaningful connectivity can be realized, ensuring that everyone can benefit from safe, satisfying, and enriching online experiences at an affordable cost.

Anir Chowdhury

The analysis examines the state of internet usage and connectivity in Bangladesh, shedding light on both positive advancements and areas that require improvement. One significant point of progress is the increase in internet access and broadband connectivity across the country. It is noted that different cell phone providers have successfully covered 98% of the nation with 4G network, marking a considerable achievement. Moreover, 3,800 rural locations have been connected with fibre through collaboration with the private sector, while a service obligation fund has facilitated the connection of over 700 hard-to-reach locations, such as islands or hilly areas. Additionally, a new project was initiated recently with the aim of connecting around 110,000 institutions with fibre, further enhancing connectivity.

However, concerns are raised regarding the affordability and availability of devices, which still pose barriers to internet access for many individuals. Although the regulator has managed to maintain affordable internet pricing, the penetration rate of smartphones in the country is only 52%. This indicates that a significant portion of the population still lacks access to devices that can utilise internet connectivity. Despite the progress made in extending 4G network coverage, it is highlighted that only approximately half of the available network is being utilised, further underscoring the hindrances posed by device accessibility and affordability.

Another noteworthy point discussed in the analysis pertains to advancements in AI and large language models, which have the potential to redefine digital skills and literacy. Large language models in AI could compel people to adapt and acquire new digital literacy skills, while the inclusion of native languages in these models could simplify digital interaction for individuals with low literacy levels. This demonstrates the transformative role that AI and language models can play in shaping digital skills and accessibility.

Furthermore, there is a recognition of the need to design content and services that cater to specific groups in order to bridge the digital divide and reduce inequalities. The analysis highlights that services have not been tailored for the ultra-poor, persons with disabilities, women, or Cottage Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (CMSMEs). To address this issue, attention and effort must be devoted to designing services in a meaningful manner for these specific groups.

It is worth noting that policies and technologies are being implemented to improve connectivity and digital literacy in Bangladesh. Efforts are being made to address policy matters and deploy skills and technology for development. The importance of universal and meaningful connectivity is emphasised, particularly in relation to skills development and service design. Furthermore, an equality index is being worked on, indicating a focus on promoting gender equality and the inclusion of marginalised groups.

Looking towards the future, strategic insight is highlighted as a crucial aspect. The analysis mentions the prediction of humans, devices, and robots exchanging data, and stresses the importance of adequately preparing for the needs of the next five to ten years. This emphasises the need to future-proof connectivity and explore innovative approaches for data exchange.

In conclusion, the analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the internet usage and connectivity landscape in Bangladesh. It highlights the positive developments in increasing internet access and broadband connectivity, as well as the advancements in AI and large language models. However, concerns remain regarding device affordability and availability, the need for inclusivity in content and services, and the existence of a digital divide. Policy implementations and technological advancements aim to address these issues, with an emphasis on universal and meaningful connectivity. The analysis also acknowledges the importance of gender equality and strategic foresight for future-proofing connectivity. Overall, it appreciates the insightful discussion and the attention given to the various pertinent issues.

Dr Cosmas Zavazava via Video 1

During the analysis, the speakers emphasized the importance of enhancing internet connectivity and accessibility for those who are still offline. They highlighted that approximately 2.6 billion people are currently without internet access worldwide. The aim is to improve the internet experience for those who are already connected and make it accessible to those who are offline.

The speakers argued that this goal can be achieved through partnerships and collaborations. They mentioned a recent partnership between ITU and the European Union, which aims to adopt holistic approaches to enhance the statistical capacity of countries. This collaboration demonstrates the willingness to work together for enhancing internet connectivity.

Moreover, the discussion focused on the importance of universal and sustainable digital transformation. The speakers emphasized the need for initiatives, research, and technical assistance to enable this transformation. By implementing these measures, they believe that the benefits of digital technology can be harnessed in a way that ensures inclusivity and sustainability.

The analysis provided a positive sentiment towards efforts to enhance internet connectivity. The speakers recognized the challenges involved in reaching the vast number of people who currently lack internet access. However, they expressed optimism that through strategic partnerships, collaborations, and focused initiatives, progress can be made in bridging the digital divide.

In conclusion, the analysis underscored the significance of enhancing internet connectivity and accessibility for those who are offline. It emphasized the importance of partnerships and collaborations in achieving this goal, highlighting the recent partnership between ITU and the European Union. Additionally, the analysis highlighted the focus on universal and sustainable digital transformation through the implementation of various initiatives, research, and technical assistance.

Audience

The discussion centered around the concept of meaningful connectivity and highlighted the various aspects that need to be considered to ensure its effectiveness. One key point raised was that internet access is not limited to merely establishing a connection but should also take into account the availability of services and content in local languages. This emphasises the importance of tailoring internet offerings to meet the specific needs and preferences of local communities.

Furthermore, concerns were expressed regarding the adequacy of existing indicators used to measure meaningful connectivity. It was argued that these indicators may not fully capture the complexity and granularity of the issue, and that there is a need for more nuanced data measurements to identify and address disparities within countries. The quality and accuracy of the data used in measuring meaningful connectivity were also called into question, emphasizing the importance of improving the overall quality of the data used in such measurements. There is a need for more granularity in data measurements to fully understand and address the inequalities that exist.

In addition, the discussion highlighted the importance of adopting a human-centered approach in defining meaningful connectivity. This involves considering the needs and perspectives of communities and ensuring that the benefits of connectivity are equitable and accessible to all. Policy-making should be informed by a community-centric viewpoint to better understand what aspects of connectivity are meaningful and desired by different communities.

The session also addressed the issue of limited device availability, particularly in rural areas, which hinders the full utilization of network services. Strategies to address the affordability and accessibility of devices were emphasized to ensure that connectivity reaches its full potential.

In conclusion, the discussion underscored the need to go beyond simplistic measures of connectivity and focus on meaningful and inclusive approaches. It emphasized the importance of considering local languages, addressing disparities, improving data quality, and adopting a human-centered perspective. The session highlighted the importance of ensuring that connectivity is accessible to all, regardless of their geographic location or socioeconomic status. Overall, there is a need for comprehensive strategies to ensure meaningful connectivity for all.

Alexandre Barbosa

In Brazil, there is a pressing need to address inequalities in connectivity at various levels. Firstly, there is a need to understand and tackle inequalities in terms of infrastructure, usage, and proficiency. The quality of connectivity in terms of high speed and advanced devices is crucial. However, barriers to digital usage, such as education level, socioeconomic income, age, and gender, have resulted in unequal access and usage. Proficient usage of the internet also leads to tangible outcomes such as content creation and the promotion of well-being.

Low-income households in Brazil still face limited internet access, with only 62% of such households having internet access compared to 98% of high-income households. Moreover, rural areas in Brazil also have a lower proportion of internet access compared to urban areas. This creates a significant digital divide, both geographically and socioeconomically. The South and Southeast regions of Brazil, which are wealthier, have higher proportions of fixed broadband households, while connectivity in the Amazon forest region and Northeast is mostly covered by radio or satellite. These disparities highlight the need to bridge the gap and ensure equal connectivity for all.

Despite these challenges, Brazil has embraced the concept of meaningful and universal connectivity. The country has experienced significant growth in internet usage over recent years, and there has been a rapid expansion of fiber optic connection. Policy makers in Brazil have been proactive in conducting surveys into internet usage since 2004, demonstrating a commitment to understanding and addressing connectivity issues.

In addition to access and infrastructure, digital skills play a pivotal role in promoting meaningful connectivity. Mobile-only users in Brazil display a lesser proportion of digital skills compared to computer and mobile phone users. Without digital skills, the full potential of the internet cannot be harnessed.

Furthermore, Brazil places importance on data protection and privacy. The country has implemented surveys to measure alignment with personal data protection laws, indicating a strong commitment to safeguarding individuals’ information.

To enhance connectivity and address inequalities effectively, it is crucial to have universal and meaningful connectivity indicators in a disaggregated format. National averages without disaggregation may not accurately capture the extent of inequalities within a country. Therefore, a more nuanced approach is needed to accurately assess the state of connectivity and identify areas that require improvement.

However, concerns about the quality and availability of data persist. It is important to ensure the reliability and accessibility of data, as well as to promote the production of high-quality data. This can be achieved through conducting primary data and using internationally recommended methodologies with probability samples that provide disaggregated data.

Despite efforts to bridge the digital divide and promote universal and meaningful connectivity, a human-centered approach is lacking in the design and implementation of connectivity initiatives in Brazil. By prioritising the needs and perspectives of individuals, a more inclusive and equitable approach to connectivity can be achieved.

The concept of Universal Media Connectivity (UMC) is of utmost importance in the current era of disinformation and lack of skills for content creation and critical use of the internet. Digital literacy and content creation skills are vital for individuals to navigate the digital landscape effectively and contribute meaningfully. Brazil, along with other countries, should produce data that can measure progress towards achieving the UMC concept, further emphasising the importance of tracking and monitoring connectivity goals.

In conclusion, Brazil faces significant inequalities in connectivity in terms of infrastructure, usage, and proficiency. While progress has been made, challenges remain, particularly in bridging the digital divide and promoting universal access. By prioritising digital skills, data protection, and a human-centered approach, Brazil can enhance connectivity and ensure that all individuals have equal opportunities to benefit from the digital era.

Peter Mariën

The European Union (EU) strongly supports the concept of universal meaningful connectivity, recognizing its importance in achieving sustainable development goals. The EU is collaborating with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to work on this concept. It believes that robust data collection is crucial for measuring progress and success in achieving objectives. This perspective aligns with the EU’s emphasis on data governance and the value it places on accurate and comprehensive data to drive effective decision-making.

In line with its commitment to promoting digital transformation, the EU advocates for a human-centric approach. It prioritises the individual and aims to bridge the digital divide by ensuring access to an open and free internet. The EU also emphasises the protection of privacy and security in the digital realm.

The EU has taken initiatives to enhance cybersecurity, a vital aspect of safe and secure connectivity. It has established a regional cybersecurity hub in the Dominican Republic and is actively involved in the BELA program, focusing on cybersecurity. The EU mainstreams cybersecurity in its programming, recognising its significance in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

A key argument put forth by the EU is the need to link infrastructure investment with investments in soft elements such as data governance, digital skills, and e-government. The EU’s collaborative efforts with Kenya in the digital package collaboration highlight the importance of this approach. Measures to improve last-mile digital connectivity, enhance vocational education, and implement data protection and procurement legislation have been implemented to ensure a comprehensive and inclusive digital ecosystem.

Data collection is deemed fundamental for effective planning and implementing strategies. However, collecting data at local levels can present challenges. The EU recognises both the importance of having data and the difficulties faced when collecting it in field and partner countries. This understanding underscores the EU’s commitment to leveraging partnerships for data collection and analysis to make informed decisions.

Despite the EU’s efforts, last-mile connectivity remains a challenge. It recognises that achieving universal connectivity necessitates the participation of both private and public operators, who must find it appealing to invest in infrastructure in remote areas.

The EU also acknowledges the need for foresight about future requirements. New technologies, skills, and systems may be necessary to address the evolving demands of the digital era. This highlights the EU’s commitment to staying ahead of the curve and ensuring that its strategies and policies are adaptable to technological advancements.

In conclusion, the EU is strongly committed to various aspects of digital development. It supports the concept of universal meaningful connectivity, promotes a human-centric digital transformation, and takes initiatives to enhance cybersecurity. The EU emphasises the importance of investing in both hard infrastructure and soft elements like data governance and digital skills. It recognises the significance of data collection and the challenges associated with it at the local level. The EU acknowledges the struggle with last-mile connectivity and the need to anticipate and adapt to future requirements. Finally, the EU advocates for taking action and making things better through organisations dedicated to improving health, education, and combating climate change.

Video 2

Universal and meaningful connectivity is crucial for driving digital transformation and working towards the achievement of sustainable development goals. It allows individuals to access a wide range of essential services such as education, healthcare, government services, and job opportunities. Universal connectivity helps bridge the digital divide, ensuring that everyone can participate in the digital age.

To effectively track progress towards universal connectivity, measurement and data are essential. Proper data usage enables better decision-making by providing insights into past, current, and future positions. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology have established aspirational targets to guide efforts in this area. The ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau maintains an online dashboard, which transparently monitors and tracks progress towards universal connectivity.

Promoting universal connectivity requires a combined global effort. Recognizing this, the ITU and the European Commission have launched a global project that facilitates the expansion of connectivity. This project demonstrates the positive stance towards achieving universal connectivity and the commitment of various stakeholders to collaborate and make it a reality.

In conclusion, universal and meaningful connectivity are fundamental for digital transformation and the attainment of sustainable development goals. It provides individuals with access to essential services and promotes inclusivity in the digital era. By utilizing effective measurement techniques and tracking progress through data, we can move closer to achieving universal connectivity. The collaborative efforts of organizations like the ITU and the European Commission highlight the importance of global partnerships in accomplishing this noble goal.

Moderator

The session focused on the importance of universal and meaningful connectivity and the role of policymakers in achieving this goal. Its aim was to discuss the definition, reach, and impact of universal and meaningful connectivity, with the goal of exploring how it can improve the quality of life for all people. The concept of meaningful connectivity was emphasized throughout the session as a way to understand and address digital inequalities. The session also highlighted the need for robust measurement policies to ensure connectivity, with a suggestion to create a Universal and Meaningful Connectivity (UMC) Dashboard. Lithuania was commended for its progress in reaching UMC targets, particularly in ensuring broadband connectivity in rural areas. The importance of developing digital skills and promoting gender diversity in the tech industry was emphasized. Collaboration between governments, the private sector, and civil society was deemed essential for successful implementation of digital strategies. The digital divide in Brazil was discussed, along with issues of data accuracy and granularity in data consumption indicators. The challenges of last mile connectivity and the need for foresight in anticipating future needs were also explored. The session emphasized the significance of universal and meaningful connectivity in promoting sustainable development.

Agne Vaiciukeviciute

Lithuania is making significant efforts to achieve meaningful connectivity and digitization through a range of strategies. These strategies primarily focus on rural broadband connectivity, affordability, and the promotion of digital skills.

To ensure widespread access to the internet, Lithuania has invested in broadband deployment in rural areas through a non-profit organisation under the Ministry. By leaving the last mile of connectivity to the operators, the country has been able to keep costs affordable nationwide. In fact, Lithuania boasts the lowest prices for end users across Europe.

The commitment to digitisation is evident through the state digitalisation development program, which involves every ministry. This approach ensures that each ministry creates its plan to meet specific digital targets. The digitisation strategy is intended to be horizontal, cutting across all sectors, thereby promoting comprehensive digitisation efforts.

Public libraries play a crucial role in imparting digital education and skills, particularly through their network of 1200 public internet access points across urban and rural areas. Additionally, various NGO initiatives, such as Safer Internet Week, All Digital Week, and the Women Go Tech programme, contribute to promoting digital education and skills. These initiatives aim to enhance digital literacy and encourage women to enter the tech and IT world.

To achieve meaningful connectivity and digitisation, collaboration between the government, private sector, and civil society is deemed necessary. This collaborative approach enables the implementation of digital strategies and maximises their reach to different segments of society. It ensures that a wide range of perspectives and expertise is considered in the planning and execution of these strategies.

Municipalities and regional levels are recognised as crucial players in the digitisation process. They are the closest organisations to the people and hold the potential to significantly affect the digitisation process within their cities. In Lithuania, the majority of initiatives are taken by the municipalities, which highlights their importance in driving digitisation efforts.

Recognising the importance of rural areas, Lithuania aims to extend digital strategies beyond dense cities. It recognises that there is a need to attract and implement initiatives in these areas as well, to ensure that all citizens can benefit from digitisation.

Lithuania ranks highly in digitalisation for public services, as evidenced by its 8th place worldwide ranking according to the World Bank’s digitalisation for the public service index. The country utilises new technologies to enhance accessibility to services, and the majority of services can now be accessed through digital service approaches. However, initiatives like GovTech are also created to address the gap for services that cannot be reached yet through the internet.

The importance of local content and internet accessibility to digital services is emphasised in Lithuania. The country acknowledges that digital solutions should be customised to fit the local environment, rather than being copied from elsewhere. They actively involve civil society, the public sector, and the private sector in creating digital solutions. The successful GovTech project in 2019 serves as an example of this collaborative effort, which resulted in tailored solutions that fit the Lithuanian context.

Collaboration and coordination within the government and stakeholders are crucial aspects of achieving meaningful connectivity and digitisation. By working together, these entities can align their efforts, share resources, and ensure a cohesive approach towards achieving digital goals.

Furthermore, the importance of data quality is emphasised for insightful decision-making and progress measurement. Accurate and reliable data are essential in shaping effective digital strategies and tracking progress towards digital goals.

Lastly, considering the fast-paced nature of technological advancements, adaptability and flexibility are recognised as key attributes. It is important to be able to adapt and adjust measures and strategies in response to rapid changes in the digital landscape.

In conclusion, Lithuania’s multifaceted approach to achieving meaningful connectivity and digitisation encompasses strategies focused on rural broadband connectivity, affordability, and digital skills. Through collaboration among the government, private sector, and civil society, as well as the involvement of municipalities and regional levels, Lithuania strives to ensure comprehensive digitisation efforts. The emphasis on local content, data quality, and adaptability further enhances the effectiveness of these initiatives.

Moderator :
Thank you very much for your attention. I would like to invite the next speaker to come to the stage. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and good day for those people following online. My name is Deniz Susar. I’m the co-chair of the IGF, and I would like to welcome you to this session. This session is entitled beyond universality, the meaningful connectivity imperative. The objective of this session is to inform the audience how universal and meaningful connectivity is defined, how it can help reaching underserved communities, which are some of the targets and baseline indicators needed to assess where a country stands, and the impact of this policy, and how it can be used to improve the quality of life for all people, including the concept in national policy plans. The session will aim to answer two policy questions. One, how can governments and stakeholders ensure universal and meaningful digital connectivity for all people, particularly those in underserved and marginalized communities, and two, how can policymakers establish robust measurement policies to ensure universal and meaningful digital connectivity for all people? The second question is how can policymakers establish robust measurement policies aimed at achieving universal and meaningful digital connectivity? We have a great panel today that will give us the perspectives from very diverse countries, namely, Lithuania, Brazil, Bangladesh, and we will also hear from the European Commission how they partner with other parts of the world. We will also hear a recorded message from Dr. Cosmas Zavazava, the director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau. After his message, Mr. Martin Shepherd, on my right, Senior ICT Analyst in the ICT Data and Analytics Division, will give a short introduction to the project on Promoting and Measuring Universal and Meaningful Connectivity. Martin, the floor is yours.

Martin Shepherd:
Thank you very much, Deniz. Good morning, everyone. Also, on behalf of the ITU, good morning here in the room, good morning online. As Deniz has mentioned, I would like to start with a small video of our director, Dr. Cosmo Savasava, who would like to say a few words to the audience. Can we have video number one, please?

Dr Cosmas Zavazava via Video 1:
Distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you all at this Internet Governance Forum workshop on Universal and Meaningful Connectivity. I’m not able to join you in person today, but I’m confident that this session will be very productive given the caliber of the speakers before us. We have a common goal here, to enhance the Internet experience for those already connected, to make it accessible to the 2.6 billion people that are still offline. Our goal is to get everyone connected and enjoy the benefits of meaningful connectivity. We are committed to universal and sustainable digital transformation through our initiatives, research, technical assistance, and tools. Undoubtedly, we can do more working together. Our work at ITU is enabled through partnerships and collaboration. One of the key partnerships of interest to you is the one we recently forged with the European Union. Through this partnership, we aim to adopt holistic approaches that help enhance the statistical capacity of countries to measure multiple… aspects of meaningful connectivity. On this note, I call upon all to work with us to make universal and meaningful connectivity a reality. I wish you successful deliberations at this workshop and thank you for participating.

Martin Shepherd:
And now I would like to shortly introduce the product that was mentioned in the video of Dr. Zavazava on promoting and measuring universal and meaningful connectivity. And again, we have a little video, so if we can have video two please to give a general introduction and then I will say a few words about it. Thank you.

Video 2:
Universal and meaningful connectivity is the possibility for everyone to enjoy a safe, satisfying, enriching and productive online experience at an affordable cost. It enables access to educational resources, health care and government services, job opportunities and much more. Universal and meaningful connectivity is the new imperative to enable digital transformation and meet the sustainable development goals. To meet this imperative, we must also address the measurement challenge. Data tells us where we were, where we are and where we ought to be and enables individuals, policy makers and businesses to make better decisions. The International Telecommunication Union and the Office of the United Nations Secretary General’s Envoy on Technology established aspirational targets for universal and meaningful connectivity to help monitor progress and galvanize efforts. In addition, ITU and the European Commission launched a global project to promote and measure universal and meaningful connectivity through advocacy, measurement and research. To support the project’s advocacy and measurement efforts, ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau maintains an online dashboard to track progress towards universal and meaningful connectivity. The dashboard lets countries know where they currently stand, where they ought to be and compare their performance against peers. The dashboard allows us to assess global progress toward each target. Let’s join forces to achieve universal and meaningful connectivity and unlock the transformative power of connectivity for everyone, everywhere.

Martin Shepherd:
If I can have the first presentation, please, then. Thank you. As you can see in the video, two years ago we launched a number of targets on universal and meaningful connectivity, and that’s really the genesis of the project that we’re talking about. So we launched a number of targets as part of the digital cooperation roadmap of the UN Secretary General, but of course, just having targets doesn’t mean anything if there’s no action around it. So we were very pleased that we found a very good partner in the European Union, and we’ve launched a project for three years for three million euros to promote and measure the concept on universal and meaningful connectivity. So basically bringing the targets and the dashboard that you just saw to life. First of all, what we really mean with meaningful is not that we are telling people what they should do once they have an internet connection. It’s the possibility that everyone can go online at any time they want to, in a safe, satisfying, enriching, productive and affordable experience. So the quality of the connection should be good. People should have an affordable data plan with enough data on it. We have a little diagram that shows what is included, what is excluded, what is, in the middle you can see, universal and meaningful. So everyone should have a connection and it should be meaningful for everyone. What we kept out of the project is how to get there and what comes out of it. It’s of course very important, but if we want to go into that aspect, it becomes too complicated. We first want to focus on getting the connection to people and getting a good quality connection to people. going into too much detail of this diagram, but we have some papers that explain it if you’re really interested. What we’re doing in the project is promoting and measuring. So we have three work streams. There’s an advocacy work stream that is bringing the concept to as many policy makers in the world as we can, so that there is an increased awareness of UMC, short for Universal and Meaningful Connectivity. Then we have a work stream on measurement and capacity building, and I’m from the IST Data Analytics Division, and that’s really the bread and butter of what we do on a daily basis, is collecting the data and disseminating the data. But we also have a capacity building aspect in all of this, because countries often need help in understanding which data are important, how to collect those data. So the output of that work stream is an improved data dissemination, but also an enhanced statistical capacity of countries to measure the concept of UMC. And then finally we have a research work stream. Basically we want to do every year a publication, the Global Connectivity Report, that shows us where we are, but also where we should be going, and also how we could be going there, and the expected output is that there would be better policies for achieving UMC. So this is in more detail, these three work streams. The event we are at today is in the advocacy work stream, so that we get the concept out to policy makers. We want to do more events like this. We also want to prepare briefings that policy makers can use, that they can understand what the concept is, how it should work, coupled with websites and social media campaigns. On the measurement and capacity building, we have a large data collection already going on as part of our daily work. We have a UMC dashboard that you saw in the video, and I will show one more slide on that after this one. Then we want to do a number of regional workshops to explain the concept to countries and how to collect the data. We’re going to create an online course for this. We also want to look into new data sources, see if big data can be of help, for example, and how it can be of help. And then finally, in the research, looking for a solution to accelerate progress towards UMC and the Global Connectivity Report. So this is the dashboard. You already saw a bit of it in the video. So we have a number of targets, and every target has an indicator attached to it. So if you’re interested in one specific indicator, you can click on that indicator and you’ll see where all the countries in the world are with respect to that indicator. But if you’re more interested in a particular country, you can just go to that country and then see for all the indicators of that country how they are placed with respect to achieving the targets. They may have met it already, they may be on their way, or they may be far away, or maybe there are no data, which is also an important indication. So that really is, in a nutshell, the aim of the project, and I think it’s now time to listen to the voices from the various countries in how they include UMC in their policies and how they measure it. So thank you, and back to you, Denise.

Moderator :
Thank you, Martin. That was a very good introduction, and I used the platform before, and it’s really helpful. This workshop is hybrid, we are online in Zoom. And we have an online moderator, Mr. Thierry Geiger, head of the IST Data Analytics Division. I don’t know what time is it in Geneva, but he’s there monitoring the chat. So we have dedicated people for this project, which is a very good sign. And if you raise your hand in Zoom, he will make sure that relevant questions are being channeled to us. The first panelist is Ms. Agne Vaiciukeviciute Vice Minister of Transport of Communications, Lithuania. Lithuania is a country that, in a relatively short period, reached most of the targets of UMC, Universal and Meaningful Connectivity. So we would like to hear from you, Vice Minister, if and how policy played a pivotal role in getting there, and also how important digital connectivity to policymakers in Lithuania. Can we learn something from you so that we can pass it to other countries? The floor is yours.

Agne Vaiciukeviciute:
First of all, good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. I like how we presented here in Japan. And thank you very much for having me in this panel. I think that IT did a very good work. I was analyzing the dashboard before I came here to this discussion. And I was elaborating a little bit with my colleagues. So are we so good, as it says in these charts? And we were laughing that, obviously, when we speak about Universal Meaningful Connectivity, it’s never enough. It’s never enough. There is always a lot of work that could be done. So in Lithuanian perspective, we look into meaningful connectivity through several aspects. Obviously, it’s through the broadband connectivity. I think we have quite a unique Lithuanian approach and model. Lithuania model has also ensured the affordability of being connected. because in Lithuania we do have a non-profit organization under the Ministry who basically invests… Behind that organization lies the biggest investments to the broadband deployment and only the last mile is left to the operators. So this is the way how we can keep the… And I speak about rural areas, so this is the way we can keep the affordability prices within the whole country. I think it’s a very successful model and I’m proud to say that we have the lowest prices for the end users in all Europe. So that is one way of looking into. We need to be connected in order to create more opportunities for the meaningful connectivity to appear. And then the other part which we’re really focusing on is our state digitalization development program which is created for the whole country but every ministry has to take a part in it and has to create and initiate its own plan how they will reach all the digital targets which were raised for each sector, if I may put it this way. And now I would like to share with you several aspects of the… Also critical part is skills and knowledge which are very much necessary to take advantage of digital technologies. And there’s another key factor such as involvement of other ministries, other institutions, civil society and so on. One type of institutions that is particularly important for the spread of digital skills and literacy are public libraries in Lithuania. These libraries run a network of 1200 public internet access points. in both urban and rural areas and operating in a decentralized manner, so this is a one of good examples how we try to reach those segments of the society that is not reachable so easily. Also we have a lot of NGO initiatives in Lithuania such as Safer Internet Week, All Digital Week, Senior Online Week, so there’s a lot of NGO work and implications towards creating more opportunities and more skills within the different society groups. And I do believe that there’s also important to represent some particular programs to women and we have a very well-known in Lithuania program Women Go Tech, where people who are already in their career path has a possibility to go into the tech world, IT world, and I think it’s very well corresponds with ITU goals, how to involve more different society as part in the tech IT world to get awareness of how it could be helpful for a better future in the countries. And obviously I did not mention here, but a huge part of it belongs to the private sector as well, so the collaboration between governments, private sector, civil society is necessary here. And from the government perspective, just to highlight one more time what is really really important that whatever digital strategies we would create, that it would go horizontally through all sectors, through all ministries, and I think this is quite common in different countries as well, that there is someone who is owning the policy in the area and then the others are just trying to implement it. So what we are trying to do in Lithuania, that everyone would understand the digitalization process and meaningful connectivity as a part of their job, as a part of their targets, and be not only involved, but actually really a part of the process. So thank you very much.

Moderator :
Thank you very much, Ms. Vaiciukeviciute for that presentation. We have some time now to get questions from the people here around us or from online. Please just show yourself to me and I can pass the microphone to you. In the meantime, I have a question for the minister. You mentioned, you highlighted about sectoral importance of digital strategies. What about at the local and regional level or at the municipality level? Do you have any strategies in that regard?

Agne Vaiciukeviciute:
I think municipalities and regional levels are the most important and key level because these municipalities are the closest and organizations to people. I myself belong to the Council of Lithuanian Capital, so I’m well aware of how municipalities can affect digitalization process within their cities. So I think that obviously, this is the layer which should be distinguished and recognized as a crucial part of the digitalization process. And all these initiatives are taking place firstly from maybe more dense cities and our job is to attract it in more into rural areas altogether. So I think that municipalities level here is playing a crucial role as well. And in Lithuanian case, majority of initiatives are taken by the municipalities in this area as well.

Moderator :
Thank you so much. Let me look around if there are any questions. Yes. Can we please pass the mic? Or you can come there. I think people will be able to see you. Yes. The people online. Please introduce yourself and keep the question short.

Audience:
Thank you. I’m Giacomo Mazzone. I’m one of the co-chairs of the Policy Network on Meaningful Access that will gather this afternoon in the main hall at 5.30. I will finish the advertising break. Two questions. One for the statistical research made by the ITU. I see that you do these efforts, but these efforts are limited to the technical part. And I would like to know if there is any coordination between these two efforts. And I would like to know if there is any coordination while UNESCO, for instance, with the Rome indicators, evaluate other qualitative parts of the offer that is available on the Internet that is equally important. Is there any coordination between these two efforts?And also about the Minister of Lithuania. The question is the assess to the internet does not finish at the moment when you get a connection, the problem is how much of the services and contents in the local languages are made available for general people, are you also considering this in your local policies?

Moderator :
Thank you. Thank you, Giacomo, for that question. If you allow me, Martin, let me give… the floor to first Mr. Vaiciukeviciute about the importance of local content.

Agne Vaiciukeviciute:
Thank you very much. The question was absolutely on good spot, because Lithuania takes a lot of attention on the air governance solutions, you know, that the accessibility to different type of services would be very easy. I think we just recently were placed, according to the World Bank, digitalization for the public service index on the 8th place worldwide. So in our case, I think it’s quite helpful that the country is relatively small. The majority of services could be accessible very easily through the digital service approaches. We highly use all the technologies newly adapted within the society, and you basically can do, especially, you know, COVID, all these processes even enhanced everything so much that now I would say that you can basically do everything through the Internet very easily. And obviously there is a gap between aged people, but I think it’s quite common everywhere, so we need to find different ways to reach them. But the majority of the society is very well aware of the digital solutions and can do mostly 90% of the activities, necessary activities, you know, through the Internet. So this is a very good point, and we put a lot of attention out there. We even have, you know, GovTech initiatives to create more like sandbox regimes, to create more digital solutions, you know, to overtake the gaps within these services which cannot be reached yet, you know, through the Internet. So it’s very successful. project as well, award-winning project from 2019. It showed that it’s a very successful way to involve civil society together, you know, with a public sector and private sector to create some good solutions that would fit Lithuanian environment, you know, because you cannot just take it from somewhere. You need to adapt to the circumstances you live in. Thank you.

Moderator :
Thank you very much, Vice Minister. Martin, quantitative versus qualitative.

Martin Shepherd:
Yes, that’s the short summary of it indeed. Yes, the ITU indicators, I mean it’s not just technical, it’s quantitative, because it’s not only about the pipes, the internet, the subscriptions, but it’s also about the use of it. So we have two types of indicators, the supply side indicators and the demand side indicators, and in the demand side we have how many people use the internet, what they do when they use the internet, how they feel or how the connection is, the activities, the skills, etc. The UNESCO indicators, they use also our indicators, there’s a part that is really in common, and there’s a collaboration in the sense that they use our indicators, and at the beginning of the project we also have been talking together about this. But they go much further, they have many more indicators, and a lot of them qualitative, which doesn’t really fit very well in the type of work that we are doing. We like to collect quantitative indicators. So UNESCO goes further, and what they do is also more for an individual country assessment, where you really need to go to the country and do the assessment, whereas we just use the indicators that we collect for all the countries and put them there. there together. So I think the efforts are complementary. We are coordinated, but maybe not perfectly. But I know now there’s a project going on in the Pacific where ITU is directly involved with UNESCO. And again, our data are free to use for everyone, and UNESCO uses them, and we certainly work together in that direction. There’s the Partnership on Measuring IST for Development, which is an international collaboration between international and regional organizations, and both ITU and UNESCO are both members of that partnership. So in that framework, we’re also coordinated. Thank you.

Moderator :
Yes, thank you, Martin. Not only UNESCO, but UNDES also uses your indicators in our e-government survey. We’ve been using it since 2003, so that’s very helpful. We may get one last question to the minister, if there is.

Audience:
Please go ahead. Hello. My name is Nils Brock from RISE America and DW Academy. And I have a question about the methodology. So with the local network initiatives working a lot about the needs of communities, and I saw this as a category in the methodology, which is really great, I was wondering when it comes to services, so services that give meaning to specific connectivity and how far this is measured in your categories or in how far, and that would be the second question, if it’s not foreseen as such, it is possible to enhance the statistical capacity on this side because this was mentioned, and also the identification of new data sets. So maybe also a question how far this methodology is open also to add, or if it’s now also for the timeframe closed in terms of the categories that are established. So, I think, from a community perspective, broadband access is maybe not an option for many rural communities in the next year, so the services that are meaningful can depend and can be quite different, because big platforms or data-hungry applications may be just not giving meaning because they’re not accessible, so what from their view gives meaning to connectivity, so turning around the question a bit, yeah, thank you.

Moderator :
Thank you, thank you so much, I think this is a question for ITU.

Martin Shepherd:
Yes, thank you for the question, it’s a type of question that we had before, but we’re actually staying away from this a little bit. I mean, to start with, when you saw communities in the framework, but communities from the point of view of universality, that means we want all communities to be connected to the internet and using the internet. The problem is that we don’t have any good indicators there, because there’s no good quality data on what a community is, how communities are using the internet and how to survey that, that is very difficult, so we have to do with proxies there. As to the services run, done on the internet, what people do on the internet, we actually quite specifically on purpose left it out. We had a very long discussion about that in the beginning, and everyone was saying it’s very important, local content is important, and I fully agree, local content is extremely important, but once you start there, then you have to take choices that we don’t want to take. E-agriculture is very useful for farming, e-learning is very good for people to get skills, absolutely true, but does that mean that we don’t like people to watch a video on YouTube while they’re waiting for the public transport to come? So to really put a… a value on what people do on the internet that is too hard for us and also to draw the barriers. So we decided to focus on people should be using the internet or if people want to use the internet they should be capable of using the internet with good quality infrastructure, in an affordable way and in a safe way. And then what they do on the internet and what the impact of that is, those are extremely interesting and important questions but we kept them out of our focus because otherwise our focus would be too wide and we wouldn’t be able to do anything meaningful, if I may use that word.

Moderator :
Okay, thank you Martin. So I would like to now move to the next speaker and I think for the second question I also encourage we can discuss after the session in more detail with the person who asked the question. But let’s now go to Brazil, Mr. Alexandre Barbosa, Head, Centre of Studies for Information and Communication Technologies, CETIC.br. How can solid data inform policy makers on where the country stands with respect to the use of the internet and where are the digital divides in a country and with the vulnerable groups? So, Alexandre, you have seven, eight minutes.

Alexandre Barbosa:
Thank you very much, Denis, and thank you the previous speakers for giving and setting the stage for what I’m going to speak about the Brazilian case. May I ask our colleagues from the technical support to, yeah, thank you very much. Well, good morning everyone. The intention here today is to share a little bit how Brazil is adopting this concept of meaningful and universal connectivity and put this concept into practice and how we are measuring this concept. c So, I think it’s important to mention that in Brazil, there’s a lot of policymakers and regulators, and we need to understand how we are putting that into practice and how we are measuring this concept. It is important to mention that in case of Brazil, policymakers and the regulator, policymakers from the minister of communication and the regulator in the country they have embraced this concept of meaningful and universal connectivity. And from our side, ITU statistical data provides a measurement to policymakers. Let me start by saying that for us to understand how we can move from the previous concept that we have in terms of digital divide, because we are not more interested in having or not having connectivity. We are more interested in providing a meaningful use of internet and enhance the internet experience for the users. So, this concept of meaningful connectivity and universal connectivity is a critical concept to understand how we can achieve broader objectives in the digital age so that we can understand not if we are connected or not connected, but what are the digital inequalities, and how we can bridge the existing gaps especially in terms of device and skills, safety, etc. So, this concept allows us to understand how we can reduce inequalities, not only in the access, but also in the use of the internet and digital skills as well. So, it is a critical concept.This concept also helps to policy makers the needs and existing gaps for more sustainable development so that we can assure that no one is left behind in the digital era, and through this critical concept, we also can highlight the need to address these issues within a more comprehensive global digital cooperation framework. So, having said that, it is important that we understand inequalities in three different levels. So, the first one is the quality of connectivity, and the quality of connectivity is very important. So, if you have access, not only at the household level, but also individual levels, and the quality of this connectivity is really connectivity that provides high speed, that there is no data gaps. So, this is very important. And also, what type of device are you using? So, the second level, we are talking about the quality of access, and the quality of broadband, most low-income households, they only access the internet through mobile devices, which is really limited. So, in this first level, we are talking about infrastructure, connectivity, and quality of access. In the second level, we are talking about the quality of access, and the quality of access, and the quality of access. So, what are the barriers? What are the barriers or motivations? And, at the third level, which is more, I would say, proficiency, proficient usage of internet, we are talking about really tangible outcomes, like content creation, and promoting well-being through the use of internet. So, what are the barriers? So, the third level, which is more, I would say, proficiency, proficiency in internet, and promoting well-being through the use of internet. So, what are the barriers? So, the third level, which is more, I would say, proficiency in internet, and And then mobility, we are talking about how a user income, we are talking about the robots modulating the mobile RROTM uh behaviour, understanding educational levels, understanding socio- economic income, age, gender, and many others socio-economic variables. And the maximal level we are talking about offline networks, the communities, and the neighbourhood effects. And then we are talking about the social impact of the mobile RROTM, the social impact of the mobile RROTM, the social impact that will affect these users. And at the macro level, we have other components which is very important, mainly related toSo, having said that, it is important that we understand inequalities in three different levels. At the level of infrastructure, I mean connectivity. So if you have coverage, access not only at the household level, but also individual levels, and the quality of this connectivity is really connectivity that provides high speed, that there is no data gaps. So, this is very important. And also, what type of device are you using? I come from Brazil and although we have a high penetration of broadband most low-income households, they only access the Internet through mobile devices which is really limited. So, in this first level, we are talking about infrastructure, connectivity, and quality of access. In the second level, we are talking about the usage, what are the digital skills, what are the barriers or motivations? And, at the third level, which is more, I would say, proficiency, proficient usage of internet, we are talking about really tangible outcomes, like content creation, and promoting well-being through the use of the internet. And the level of analysis that we can provide through the adoption of this concept of meaningful and universal connectivity we can analyse on the micro level. Including individual demographics, understanding educational levels, understanding socio-economic income, age, gender, and many other socio-economic variables. At the mezzo level we are talking about the off line network, the communities, and the neighbourhood effects. If you are user in a poor community, or in a remote community, what are the neighbourhood effects that will affect these users? And at the macro level, we have other components which is very important, mainly related to regulation, competition, coverage, and affordability. Those are variables or dimensions that will affect this concept of meaningful and universal connectivity. I tihink Martin gave already a good overview of the concept and I’m not going to discuss this again, but what I’m going to do here from this slide onwards is to understand what are the universality metrics that we are using to describe how people are using, how households are connected, community, and business, and in terms of connectivity enablers, I will share with you indicators that we are using to discuss infrastructure, affordability, device, skills, security, and safety. So I will start now showing some indicators that will cover those universal and meaningful dimensions of this concept. Here, you have the universality metric related to people. So, as you can see, we have a very long track history in terms of data series in Brazil with the launch of the partnership on measuring ICT for development, which was in 2004. But since then, Brazil has every single year several surveys, not only household, but also others. But I’m just showing in the last eight years what happened in terms of Internet users in Brazil. You can see that we had a very significant growth, but we still have some challenges in bridging some gaps, like, for instance, the urban-rural gaps. Rural areas is 10 percentage points below the total access. If you move only for urban areas, the proportion is still higher. And we can see that in terms of households, this universality metric is now – I moved from individual to the household level – we have 80% of the Brazilian households covered by broadband connectivity. And also, this slide is very interesting to see when you have disaggregated data, what type of analysis that you can provide to policy makers to design effective policies to address specific issues, like socioeconomic gap. The low-income households in Brazil, which represents the majority of the population, we have only 6% of households with Internet access, whereas in the high-income households, you have it already universal, 98%. In terms of infrastructure, now I call your attention for the infrastructure as a connectivity enabler for meaningful and universal connectivity. Here we have unequal penetration of fixed broadband households in Brazil. If you go to the south and southeast regions of the country, which are the richest part of the country, we will have most of the households having broadband connectivity, but if you go to the Amazon forest region, we have a higher proportion of connectivity covered by radio or satellite. In the same in the northeast of the country.

Moderator :
Alexandre, you have around two minutes. I know the indicator will go very fast.

Alexandre Barbosa:
Yes. Okay. So, in terms of… So, this again shows the equal penetration of fixed broadband in Brazil in terms of urban and rural areas by different types of connectivity, like fiber, radio, satellite, etc. Someone has mentioned about connectivity networks. We have conducted a study specific on community networks in Brazil that also provides policymakers with important insights to design policies in terms of meaningful and universal connectivity. In terms of, again, connectivity, fiber optic in Brazil has really grown very fast in the last years. In terms of affordability, I just would like to highlight that high-income households spend over 30 times more on ICT services when compared to low-income households. In terms of major use in mobile, you can see again that low-income households use a very large proportion exclusively on mobile phones. This is almost the same, but with another segregation. Here it’s important to mention about skills. This concept is skills plays a very important role. connectivity. So, in this case, you can see that the internet is not used in meaningful connectivity. If you don’t have digital skills, you are not going to use the internet in a meaningful way. And here again, you can see a comparison. What happens when you go to activities performed online? So, in this case, you can see that the connectivity is very, in lower proportion. Here, again, related to the use of access by mobile and by computers or by both. And what the message this data shows is that when you are internet users and you are mobile users, you have lower proportion of digital skills. And here is a very important mention reinforce what I have said, mobile users, they develop less sophisticated activities when compared to computers and mobile phone users. I’m going to reach the end of my presentation just to show that Brazil has a very strong commitment to privacy and data protection. And I would like to highlight the fact that we have a private and personal data protection survey to measure how individuals and organizations are aligned with the Brazilian law on personal data protection, and here, I would like to highlight the fact that stakeholder engagement and cooperation is really very important in this process. in terms of defining and implementing these measurements. And my last message is that indicators for measuring universal and meaningful connectivities, they are critical and we need to have them in a desegregated format. We may have different level of desegregation based on different variables. And the target for meaningfulness use of Internet may change over time. What is good today may not be enough tomorrow. So, again, national average without desegregation may not be able to capture inequalities in the country. And I think that my last message is that ITU plays a very important role in fostering the increase of data production among member states. We do have a lot of data on infrastructure, but low data availability in skills and other key dimensions such as security, safe to use as the concept impose those dimensions. Thank you very much, Denis, and sorry for taking longer time. Thank you.

Moderator :
No, no, no problem. You took time from your Q&A section. But thank you. This was a very comprehensive presentation and you mentioned many things. I will again invite people in the room to ask you one question. And if you have a question, please, you can walk up to the mics behind me and you can ask your question. Yeah. While waiting for questions from the room. Let me just thank our online moderator, there is Catherine Townsend from Measurement Lab. You can also, Catherine, if you would like to ask a question, you can ask after the question in the room. And also I would like to read very quickly, these are not taken from Alexander’s Q&A time, we received a feedback from Bangkok ITU working on the Smart Island initiative in Asia Pacific, that one of the things they are establishing is universal service obligation policy, if people are interested in to learn more. But yeah, let’s take the question now. Hello, good morning, thank you very much for the

Audience:
presentation. Carlo Rey Moreno from the Association for Progressive Communications. A really interesting effort, I mean, moving from universal access to meaningful access and all the indicators and the work that has been done there, coinciding very much with Alexandre and the presentation on the need of accuracy, not accuracy but maybe granularity, because if we have advance from 75 to 95 percent and a target being met from 95 to 100 percent, you are leaving a lot of people behind on that granularity. There is indicators such as affordability that is looking at a very low amount of data. There are many studies that say that the trend of consumption of data is going higher and higher, and those indicators are remaining a bit low if we are considering how much data people are going to be using in 2030, and the affordability for that and the granularity when there are huge inequalities inside countries. That would be one thing. The other thing, whether there is an opportunity to reconsider those indicators. The other one would be about the accuracy of the data. There are exercises by civil society and universities, at least in Malaysia and Nigeria, that I know that that are creating tools to challenge the data, in particular around coverage and around the quality of the coverage in rural and remote areas, because it’s way less than the one that is being reported. So what is the quality of the data that you are using? What is the source? And how could we work together into improving the quality of the data that is being used to actually measure against the indicators that you are using? Thank you very much.

Moderator :
Thank you very much for that question. I see we may have one more question. Let’s also take that one, and then Alessandra answers two of them at the same time. Great, thank you.

Audience:
Hi, everyone, my name is Farzana Badi. I’m doing some research for USAID, and they are working on human-centered approaches to digital transformation. So I was wondering if in your definition of meaningful connectivity, you also consider this kind of human-centered approach, and if there are ways to discuss with the different communities that you work with and build the network, what their needs are, and just looking for best practices and best approaches about that. Sorry if it’s not relevant, but I thought I’d raise it.

Moderator :
No, thank you, it’s very relevant. Yeah, Alessandra, first you, but if the other panelists would like to respond to second question, they can.

Alexandre Barbosa:
Yes, well, thank you for both questions. The first one related to data quality. This is an issue we have been discussing, discussing this issue of data availability and quality in the international forums, such as the ITU Forum, which holds two expert groups on ICT statistics. In case of Brazil, CETIC conducts, so those are primary data. We follow strictly the international methodological recommendation with a probability sample. representative sample in Brazil, and the sample is designed so that we can provide disaggregated data in the variables that was foreseen in the design of the sample. So those data are high quality data and the months, most of them, the monthside data, but every member state also provide supply data, statistical data, on the offer and coverage of infrastructure, and those data are particularly provided by regulators. So regulators compile the data from the operators and submit it to ITU, and the data that ITU, maybe Martin can speak with more more legitimacy on that, but member states provide consolidated and aggregated data, but every member state should be able to disaggregate that data so that we can understand inequalities at the different levels, education, age, gender, regional, urban versus rural, so the quality is a very important issue. The second question related to human-centered approach. This is a very relevant question, but it is not considered in this design of this, or implementation of this concept. I don’t know if Martin

Moderator :
wanna, considering the time, Martin you can respond briefly. Yeah, thank you for reminding. So can we go to Catherine online? So Catherine Townsend, if you are still online, please take the floor, and I don’t know if the online moderator can help us. to give, to make Catherine and also Anir Chowdhury a presenter. Hi, Thierry here. Catherine cannot unmute herself, so I can now. Okay. Oh, there you go.

Audience:
Great. Thank you all so much. So yeah, Catherine Thompson. Thank you for this session today. And I run a nonprofit called measurement lab, which provides the largest open data set about the speed and performance of the internet and interconnection points around the world. And, you know, primarily the way that people experience how well their services is by running a speed test and speed is not well defined and it’s sort of an imperfect proxy of what a user’s experiences. And there’s a lot of investment right now in broadband infrastructure, and even broadband is not sort of a universally recognized goal of what connectivity should be. So, all this background to say that we’re trying to improve our own metrics for what means meaningful connectivity or since you all have to find this that we have this internet quality barometer. And so I wanted to ask you all, when you think of additional information that you would have liked to have in developing the meaningful connectivity metrics, particularly those, the technical community could add to and support. You know, what are the gaps and what are the sort of specific measurements that you would hope to say. Thank you.

Moderator :
Thank you, Catherine. I think all the panelists can think about that question. What component of meaningful connectivity do we think we can get more help from the technical community. So, respecting time, I will go to the next panelist now, European Commission, Mr. Peter Marion, Director General. He will be talking about Global Gateway, which is a program through which the EU is strengthening connections between Europe and the world. So let’s hear from that, but please keep in mind Catherine’s question, all panelists, and we will go back to Martin as well.

Peter Mariën:
Thank you, thank you very much, and maybe we can come back to the questions a bit later. So my name is Peter Marion, I work in the European Commission, Director General International Partnerships, and I am Head of Sector for Digital Governance. So first of all, I’d like to underline the EU’s support to this development and further development of this work on universal meaningful connectivity. We started thinking about such needs a few years ago, and we were also inspired by the EU’s approach, which is, amongst others, the Digital Economy and Society Index. It’s not the same thing, but having robust data, we do consider that as an essential condition to be able to measure what we and our partners are doing, whether we are achieving objectives and, of course, to set policy to achieve those objectives. And as I could see from previous speakers and the questions in the room, this need for data is essential, and we are very happy to work with ITU on this. So I’ve been asked to elaborate on the EU’s experience with global partnerships and also with the global gateway. So I will go through a few slides in that context. So the Global Gateway is an opportunity for partnerships between the European Union and partners around the world. The European Commission has foreseen investments of around 300 billion euro in the next couple of years. These investments will come from European Union grants, but of course, as was also mentioned by other speakers here, of course we do this also together with the private sector. And that also includes banks and the financial leverage of various banks and financial intermediaries. The Global Gateway intends to be a principle-based cooperation mechanism which focuses on a few sectors and one important sector is digital. So when we look at digital, our policy will cover elements such as focusing on government side, business side, infrastructures and skills. Let’s say that’s the large compass that you can see on the slide. But then when we go a little bit deeper, how does the Global Gateway differentiate how is this an alternative offer of what is available to our partners? I’d like to point out the following elements and this also resonates with what was said by previous speakers and people in the room. So EU promotes a human-centric digital transformation. We put the person at the center, not the companies, not the states, and this then reflects itself in the policies. We want a trusted Internet, an open and free Internet where people can feel safe and secure, where their privacy is respected and which then leaves nobody behind. to bridge the digital divide. I will go a bit fast because I know we’re short in time. We want to increase resilience. Security is important. You can also see this in the universal meaningful connectivity indicators, the aspect of security and safety. Boosting digital sovereignty is essential. It’s, of course, a very delicate topic, but we also think that this is something where the EU can, where we hope to be an equal partner and a trusted partner with our partners, where we think of the interest of all the parties involved. And this is important when it goes, when we talk about, for example, data governance amongst so many things, privacy. I mentioned the open internet. And then, of course, promoting the twin transition. For us, this means to focus on environmental sustainability. So, the global gateway is about investments, but these investments are in hard infrastructure and in soft elements. And they are supposed, they’re meant to be sustainable. And sustainable means transparent, transparent funding, but also sustainable funding and environmentally sustainable amongst others. So, now I’ll just jump into some examples. In March of this year, in Colombia, the EU launched the EU LAC Digital Alliance with a whole range of Latin American and Caribbean countries. This alliance has different elements. On the one hand, there’s a policy aspect to it. And on the other hand, you know, with regular policy dialogue on a range of topics, but also with concrete action. And so, this action is already ongoing. So, I’ll run through a few examples. As a first element, we will work on policy and regulatory frameworks together. that includes policy on connectivity, on e-governance, on data governance, on cybersecurity and probably soon we will, I mean we are already discussing to have regulatory framework discussions on the topic of artificial intelligence. Of course this all links again to this universal meaningful connectivity indicators because it’s not just about investing in hardware. Another example of this is the expansion of the BELA program. The BELA program is a fiber optic cable between Europe and Latin America. This fiber optic cable, I’ll come back to that later in one of the next slides. Third points, the private sector was mentioned today, so digital transformation without a private sector is a no-no, I mean that will not work. So in the EU Digital Alliance there is also the setup of what we call the digital accelerator, where basically we intend to set up about 100 new joint ventures and about 50 startups. And then as a fourth point, I’ll just mention something about Copernicus, which is Earth Observation System, so satellite data. So the BELA link on the left image, you see the current in blue, the current cable as it runs, and on the right-hand side you see the proposed extensions of this cable as we are speaking. Now this seems like we’re talking about hardware, but, and it is, but this program also connects more than 1,200 academic institutions, and in that sense again it relates to this universal meaningful connectivity indicators. Of course it also relates to affordability and so on and so on, but at the moment there’s a big focus on the academic link. Okay, I mentioned Earth Observation. Just to say that one of the questions is, okay, but what do you do with connectivity? Well, the European Union Copernicus system is a set of satellites providing earth observation data. It’s, I’ve been informed, it’s at the moment the most advanced system that there is. Well, this system gives open and free data to any individual who wishes to access this data around the globe. And so this can be used for a whole range of policies. We are working to set up a local data hub in Panama, and also one in Chile. But I won’t go into more detail right now. And that, of course, can, you know, lead to policies and all kinds of other economic and social impacts. The universal meaningful connectivity indicators also look at safety and security. So also in the EU context, Latin American, Caribbean, we are working on cybersecurity. There’s a whole range of actions that we are doing on cybersecurity, policy regulation, critical infrastructure protection, capacity building, but also the mainstreaming of cyber in our programming. So, you know, the whole topic of secure and trusted connectivity has been high on the agenda since some time. And so we take this into account with all our programs. And then as a concrete example, in the Dominican Republic, we have set up a regional cybersecurity hub for the whole region, together with our partners, of course. So there I gave previously an example of a regional alliance, because let’s talk about partnerships, EU luck. But we also work, of course, at bilateral level and at other levels. At bilateral level, I just want to point out the concept of digital economy packages, where, as you can see on the slide, we want to link our partnerships and investments in infrastructure with investment. and partnerships on the soft elements, and the soft elements, for example, on data governance, on digital skills, e-government, amongst others. And so concretely speaking, this slide gives an example of our cooperation with Kenya. So in Kenya, you can see below on the slide a whole range of European Union countries that are coming together in a Team Europe spirit, together with the European Union institutions, and we provide a package of digital action with Kenya. And so in total, for the next couple of years, we’re looking at 430 million euro. And I won’t go into too much detail here, because of the time, but you can see that we’re looking at reducing the gap, leapfrogging, but also assuring an open and exclusive governance. And with the arrows, I wanted just to highlight some elements related, again, to universal meaningful connectivity. So on the left you see last mile digital connectivity. This was also mentioned today. What about this rural? What about, you know, the most vulnerable communities? It says they’re, you know, expanding the network and the fiber. So this is also about submarine cables, but also terrestrial and last mile. Looking at TVET, so that’s vocational education. We are working with hundreds of TVET institutions in Kenya on the scaling. And on the right hand, for example, you see data protection and procurement legislation and cyber security. So this is again about policy and other elements which can impact affordability and safety and security. The digital package, as we call it with Kenya, was announced last week in Kenya by our Commissioner. This is the tweet she put, and as you can see in the tweet she mentions remote places and unprivileged areas and leaving nobody behind. And I would like to finish with with that, thank you very much. Thank you.

Moderator :
Thank you very much, Director General. That was a very rich presentation, and again, I think all the presentations will be online who would like to access later. I think we have time now for one question for the Director General. If you have a question, please stand up and ask your question.

Peter Mariën:
If you’d like to add. Thank you very much, I just want to specify I’m the Head of Sector, not the Director General, but thanks for the promotion.

Moderator :
Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Martin, you did not answer to a previous question.

Martin Shepherd:
Yes, thank you, Denise, there’s still a few questions from the previous sessions where I own answer. So human-centered approach, that actually, I’m sure it’s not really the answer that you want to hear, but we also have a human-centered approach. So we look at, we want people to be using the internet. We also have, we’re not focusing on business, but on people and everything around people and communities. There were a few questions on the quality of the indicators on the targets themselves, if they can be changed, that the targets are moving. Yes, we have an initial set of targets, but the idea is that to keep on monitoring this and also to annually look at the targets as part of the project and see where they need changing if we need to have different targets, if you have to move the targets or if you have to include other indicators, maybe. There’s a few areas where we’re not so strong. Safety and security, we don’t have any good indicators at the moment. The question from Catherine online is also one that’s very important and very good. We do have a target on speed. But we don’t have good indicators yet, so we are very happy to talk to you and see how we can maybe include your work in ours, or how we can move together. We’re also looking at alternative sources of data. We have a number of big data products going on in our division, and that can help in getting better regional data in countries, for example, which was also one of the comments. The comment was that in rural areas, the reality on the ground is maybe not the reality that you see in the data, and the data that we get. And we get the data from the regulator. We do process the data, but it is possible, of course, that the reality on the ground is not exactly the way it’s perceived in the data that we get online. So for that, the big data project, the measurement lab data can all help in moving forward there.

Moderator :
Okay. Thank you, Martin. Is there any question for Peter online? If not, let me move to the next panelist, Mr. Anir Chowdhury, Policy Advisor, A2I Programme Bangladesh. He is online. I believe he is in North America right now. So we are now moving from a large country in Asia. It’s still a considerable journey to go towards UMC, but where connectivity is considered very important. So we pose the same questions to Mr. Chowdhury. Anir, if you are online, the floor is yours. And I think we may… may need to upgrade Anir’s level in Zoom so he can speak. Yes, so Anir can still, cannot unmute himself if the IS moderator can give him the right to unmute. And yeah, thank you. Okay, good.

Anir Chowdhury:
I think I’m on right now. Dennis, can you hear me?

Moderator :
Yes, Anir, the floor is yours.

Anir Chowdhury:
Wonderful, thank you so much. I’ve been listening with a lot of interest what other speakers have been saying. And thank you for giving me the floor. In Bangladesh, we’re actually seeing a surge in terms of internet usage, but still not at a point where we’d like it to be. To increase internet penetration, what we have done in addition to the cell phone providers, the MNOs, which have covered 98% of the country with 4G, the availability is there, but in terms of access, it’s still lacking. So I’ll come to that point. But in terms of fixed broadband, what we have done is we have worked with the private sector, three national transmission providers to connect about 3,800 rural locations. So these are the lowest tier of local government institutions in the country. So about 3,800 rural locations who have connected with fiber in the last few years. And another 700 plus locations, which are hard to reach, the island areas, the hilly areas. So we have used the service obligation fund, which is a percentage of the profit that the MNOs deposit with our regulators. So we’ve used that fund to. connect another 700 plus locations with fiber or radio connectivity. We have a new project that started just last year, where we are going to connect about 110,000 institutions with fiber. These will cover all the government offices at the lowest tier. Almost all the schools, primary and secondary schools, you’ll see the data shows that the school connectivity is quite low. This will remedy that situation. We’ll also connect the courts, about 2,000 courts across the country, the 14,000 plus health facilities in the rural areas. A lot of the post office, about 8,000 plus post office will be connected. About 110,000 institutions across the entire country will be covered. We’re expecting that to be done. The coverage will be done in the next few months. These are the 110,000 institutions, but that still won’t have fiber coverage to the homes. That’s where we are expecting the ISPs. In the country, we have close to 2,000 ISPs, about 1,000 of them actually work in the rural areas. They’ll be extending connectivity to the rural locations. Now, that brings me to the question of cost. Our regulator actually has capped the cost to an affordable level. It’s just been, the fiber has not been extended to the rural areas. The cost of 4G is at an affordable level for the most part. We have many different packages, packages that run for three hours, packages that run for three days, seven days. So there are many different types of packages that the telcos have provided that have quite an affordable cost. The cost has been brought down many, many times in the last few years to a point that it’s affordable. But what is one of the biggest bottlenecks right now is the… availability of smartphones. The smartphone penetration is only about 52 percent in the country. Even though broadband is available, I won’t say it’s at a point where meaningful connectivity is there because the devices are not available. Devices are still expensive compared to the per capita income in the country. Add to that the issue of digital skills. Just today, I just finished a conference at MIT Innovation Lab just a couple of hours ago, and we were discussing what does digital connectivity and what does digital skills mean in the near future. The issue of connectivity will actually become more and more important. As we know, in Bangladesh, the official figures that I see at the dashboard here is quite low. Within the country, we have a higher figure when we add the mobile connectivity. It’s about 70 percent Internet connectivity that we talk about today, and this one actually is talking about less than 40 percent, this official figure. But because of low smartphone penetration, we actually don’t see meaningful usage of that broadband. From a skill standpoint, what we discussed today at MIT is that, what will the skills requirement be in future? Today, we talk about the ability to use a keyboard. It could be a small keyboard on a smartphone, or a large keyboard on a laptop or a computer or a desktop that people must use for us to say that that person is digitally literate. But in future, and that future is not too far, we’re actually seeing the emergence of large language models in AI and ability of current digitally illiterate users to use computation just using native languages. We actually are deploying just in the next week, we’re deploying a a large language model in the native language Bangla to augment our national call center. So a lot of the questions that our national call center operators have been answering for the last three years will now actually be answered by voice bots and that technology will mature over time. So what will happen in the next two to three years is actually we’ll see a lot of native languages around the world start to use large language models and the digital literacy concept will be totally redefined. So that’s a very important aspect for us to think about which I don’t know if you’re thinking in the policy debate right now. We just completed just a couple of months ago completed a research called equality research, E-quality research. And that looks at the issues of digital divide. Obviously connectivity or meaningful connectivity is one of the primary areas of digital divide. Two thirds of the population are connected globally. One third is actually not even 2.6 billion people are not on the internet. In Bangladesh, very similar numbers. One third is not on the internet. The second issue is the digital literacy that I talked about which will be completely redefined because of AI and large language models. And the third issue which came up in our research and we don’t talk too much about is the issue of content and service design. The way we have designed it for the ultra poor, the way we have designed it for the persons with disabilities the way we have designed it for the women, the way we have designed it for the CMSMEs, the cottage micro, small and medium enterprises. So when I said the way we have designed it we actually have not designed it for these clientele. We have not designed them for the hardcore poor, not designed them for the persons with disabilities, not designed them for the women, not designed them. for the CMSMEs and that’s where a lot of our attention needs to happen. So even if we achieve full coverage in terms of internet connectivity, affordable internet connectivity, the digital skills will be solved with AI to a large extent. If we don’t design the services in a meaningful way, then we will not actually get to the point of meaningful connectivity because people will not be able to use the content and services meaningfully to the best of the advantage. We’ll still actually widen the digital divide. So that’s something I think we need to bring in our discourse that the research report that we published for Bangladesh just two weeks ago at the UN General Assembly, the equality report only looks at the Bangladesh perspective, but that is similar to many perspectives of the LDCs and the countries in the global south. We hope to extend that research to the equality center that we also launched two weeks ago. We hope to extend that research to other LDCs in the next few years with the support of organizations at the UN, World Bank, World Economic Forum, Commonwealth Secretariat, and many other partner organizations that we are working with. Thank you very much, Dennis.

Moderator :
Thank you, Anir. This was really valuable input to this discussion and I know that it was not the ideal scenario for you to connect remotely, but we very much appreciate it. Let me first turn to the room and also the online participants if there are any questions for Anir. Questions? Yes, please.

Audience:
Hello. Thank you for the presentation. My question is, if we take the concept of meaningful connectivity also sometimes touches on the idea of having connectivity everywhere, not just limited to some places or some countries. So, I’m just wondering if you have any some places or when it’s connected in work, in schools. So how do you, in Bangladesh, deal with these two options of the policies? So enforcing, enhancing connectivity in institutions. So the idea is to foster connectivity in institutions, of both in households and institutions, or how to connect both places, and how do you deal with this in your policymaking in the field? Thank you so much.

Moderator :
Anir, would you like to briefly respond?

Anir Chowdhury:
Sure. In my deliberation, I talked about those two issues. So one is the institutional connectivity. We have extended fiber connectivity to the rural areas, but not to the institutional level. So these are 4,500 plus rural locations that we have connected as hubs of connectivity that will be branched out to the institutions. And as I mentioned, about 110,000 institutions will be connected in the next few months. That includes offices, schools, health facilities, courts, and so on and so forth. So that’s one fiber connectivity. That’s a public-private partnership with the three national transmission providers and over 1,000 ISPs. So that’s what will happen. And we’ll actually get fiber to households also through affordable price. And we’ll set the price to a regulator. But there is also the wireless connectivity that is going through our telcos, 4G connectivity. But as I mentioned, even though about 98% of the country has 4G network, only about half of it is actually being used because of lack of devices. So affordable devices and the right design of the services and content. So when we are able to address the device costs, affordable to the right persons and households, and we’ll be able to design the services and content. a way that makes sense to the currently marginalized population, that’s when actually these issues will be resolved. There are policy matters that we’re actually addressing, technology that we are deploying, skills development that we’re also going through. But again, as I mentioned with AI, the skills development will be a thing of the past in the next few years. Does that answer your question, sir?

Audience:
Thank you, Anir. Yes.

Moderator :
Are there any questions in the room? No. We are coming to the end of our session now. Before we close, I would like to give one last opportunity to all speakers. If there is anything that you couldn’t pass it out, maybe Alessandro, we can start with you, but please keep it one or two minutes so that people watching us online, they can make reference to the final point.

Alexandre Barbosa:
Thank you very much, Denis. Well, I think that this concept of UMC is really important at this moment that we’re living in where this information and the lack of skills to content creation, critical use of Internet is of utmost importance. What my message is to countries to really produce data that can be used to measure the progress towards achieving this concept. So Brazil is maybe among the countries that produce many statistics in this area, and I think that what we would like to see is other member states also producing data that will allow track the progress.

Moderator :
Thank you. Agne, would you like to add something?

Agne Vaiciukeviciute:
Thank you very much for such insightful discussions and messages so far. I will just add up several aspects from our side. I think what is really important as in all discussions was highlighted collaboration and coordination within the government, within the other stakeholders as well. This is a huge part of making it happen. And of course, I want to reflect on one of the questions from the audience. I think what is really important is not only the quality of data, but that all these measures would be checked once in a while if the measures are good enough at that time. It means that everything is changing so fast and we need to be adaptable, we need to be flexible in the way we approach the measures. And of course, the backbone of everything is data quality. And I bring this message back to myself as a government official every day, how to make sure that we would gather more quality data to make more insightful decisions and then to measure the progress. Thank you.

Moderator :
Thank you. Thank you so much. Peter, please.

Peter Mariën:
Thank you very much. After these excellent comments, it’s hard to add many more, but just a few. I think for me, this kind of discussion confirms also our need and our commitment to this kind of work. Because, you know, I think a lot of the community in organizations like mine, we are very much focused on making things better. things happen in the field but we do need to do the basic homework to know what it is we need to do and in that context I think you know again having the data and everything that was said about this remains so important and of course we know also how difficult that is within the countries in the field you know in our countries in our partners countries so it should be done at global level but of course it needs to be done in the end at the local level maybe just to add also yes but what I took away is that the challenge of the last mile connectivity or whatever you want to call it and we are actually also struggling with that quite a bit how to make that interesting for the private operators or for the public operator then but you know under which philosophy do you spend taxpayers money on that if you would and then what I also like very much is are these questions about foresight what will we need in five years or in ten years or in or beyond that whether it’s with new technologies coming up and the skills that that you will need or the systems that might be completely different or who knows indeed other indicators and measurements that we will need to look at thank you.

Moderator :
thank you Peter and Anir let’s go back to you for one or two final messages that you would like to pass thank you

Anir Chowdhury:
Dennis again I’ll go back to the equality report that we published for Bangladesh I think that that report has given us a deeper insight to the issue of universal and meaningful connectivity and connected to that skills development and service design are two issues that have come up so connectivity is important but to make sure that connectivity is meaningful we have to make sure there are other issues in terms of skills and service design. So those have come up, and we’re now working on the issue of an equality index. It’s a tough issue right now because there are seven different areas that we are actually exploring in terms of how the meaningful connectivity serves us in education, in health care, in employment, in CMSM issues, the cottage micro-enterprise issues, and the issues of public service delivery. So those are about seven areas that we’re looking at. And we hope that this equality index will give us a much deeper understanding, both with data, quantitative and qualitative data, to give us a deeper understanding of the UMC issues and also take us forward. And I really like the issue of the strategic insight, looking at strategic insight, what will be needed in the next five years or even ten years when we’ll have not just humans exchanging data amongst each other through systems and social media, but we’ll have a lot of devices and perhaps even robots working in different fields, in farms, in factories, perhaps even offices, also sharing data as well. So that’s the future that we will be looking at maybe ten years down the road, maybe even five years down the road. So looking at that future, painting the pictures of alternative futures with strategic insight, I think could be really valuable as well. So I really appreciate that issue being brought up in today’s discussion. It’s a very rich discussion to all participants. Thank you. My gratitude. And Dennis, thank you for the moderation. Really useful. Thank you.

Moderator :
Thank you, Anir. I’ll turn to ITU now.

Martin Shepherd:
I hope ITU also thinks the same way. Yes, we’re out of time, so I only want to say that the final remarks and the whole thing. I hope you have enjoyed the discussion and here’s a special parting by Martin , and he’s unstoppable when we are having one final session. I can only an echo them and that’s what we’re doing with a project promoting measuring universal and meaningful connectivity is spot-on and important and timely so we will work very hard and continue the product, thank you.

Moderator :
Thank you very much, Mr. Martin, and thank you to all the people who have joined us in this and there’s so much insight. I think the discussion will and has to continue. With this, we came to the end of our session. I hope it was useful for all and I hope it will be watched online with others in the future. And thank you to everyone. Thank you very much, and now I’m going to say goodbye. And thank you to the ICT and the AI team for organizing this event . Thank you very much. Bye-bye.