IGF 2022 WS #510 Financing mechanisms for locally-owned Internet networks

Time
Friday, 2nd December, 2022 (06:30 UTC) - Friday, 2nd December, 2022 (08:00 UTC)
Room
CR4

Organizer 1: Jane Roberts Coffin , Connect Humanity
Organizer 2: Anoop Nagendra, Connectivity Capital

Speaker 1: Jane Roberts Coffin , Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 2: Juan Peirano, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 3: Carlos Rey-Moreno, Civil Society, African Group

Additional Speakers

Adriana Labardini, Association for Progressive Communications

Risper Akinyi, TundapandaNET Community Network

Ben Matranga, Connectivity Capital

Moderator

Jane Roberts Coffin , Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

Online Moderator

Carlos Rey-Moreno, Civil Society, African Group

Rapporteur

Carlos Rey-Moreno, Civil Society, African Group

Format

Birds of a Feather - Auditorium - 90 Min

Policy Question(s)

1. What financial mechanisms can complement public efforts for universal meaningful connectivity and how can they be enabled? 2. How we can encourage private investment stakeholders to collaborate with civil society organizations providing universal meaningful connectivity? 3. What elements need to be considered for the long-term financial sustainability of these efforts?

Connection with previous Messages: This session amplifies IGF 2021 messages on Universal access and meaningful connectivity We build on the emerging regulation: market structure, content, data and consumer rights and protection We build on Inclusive Internet governance ecosystems and digital cooperation

SDGs

17.10

Targets: The Ctrl key multiselect was not working: We help implement or link to the following SDGs: 5 - Gender equality - core to community networks is that the community works together and we find that women in many countries drive community nets 8 - Decent work and Economic Growth - CNs help keep local people employed and active and lead to enhanced socio-economic development due to their nature 9. Industry Innovation and Infrastructure: Networks are built and innovation is used to develop and deploy these networks as well as to fund the. 11. Sustainable cities and Communities: locally-owned networks help create a foundation in communities that leads to sustainability through local network governance and local ownership, leading to greater socio-economic opportunities 17. Partnership for the Goals - partnerships are key to building community networks as a wide-range of actors must work together. Without partnerships you have network failures

Description:

Connecting the next 2.9 billion requires changing old network deployment models, and policy/regulatory and financing frameworks. How will we help your community create change and digital equity? We'll bring you a panel of community network experts and experienced impact investors who are working on a new study that aims to catalyze communities to change local circumstances and increase digital equity and inclusion through adaptable and sustainable community network deployment and creative financing models. See this link for a preview: We'll include data from existing community networks deployments, data on creative ways to finance these non-traditional networks, and hands-on financial modeling to help you and your communities through a financial modeling workshop focused on non-traditional ownership- operator models, highlighting opportunities and risks for those interested in investing at the community level. This new study deliberately brings in community network data at the micro and macro levels, and examines innovations in financing community-owned network infrastructure, including identification of financing and sustainability strategies from other sectors for cross-sectoral and holistic community infrastructure development. We will aim to maximize participant interaction through Q&A during the panel, paired with the hands-on financial modeling workshop.

Expected Outcomes

• We expect that the session will increase awareness of innovative financing models for last-mile community-owned networks. • We expect that this session will galvanize communities to self-determine how to connect themselves for greater community-based governance. • We expect that this session will encourage international financial institutions and private investment stakeholders to work with communities to help finance community-based networks. • We expect to obtain excellent feed-back from colleagues to improve our recently released report – Financing mechanisms for locally-owned Internet infrastructure • We hope to spread the awareness of the need for policy-regulatory change, the need for more innovative financing-mechanisms to connect the unconnected. • We expect that delegates to the IGF will be able to build more sustainable self-governed local community based networks

Hybrid Format: Online rapid surveys to encourage remote participation Survey about our report prior to the IGF -Our participants have been working in a hybrid manner for the last 2 years. In addition, our organizations have been organization and participating in similar hybrid events in the same period. Hence, we are cognizant of the special care we required for the effective participation of both people in the room and online. We know the importance of making sure everyone knows the ground-rules (run-of-show) to ensure respectful participation. From ensuring that participants know that raising their hands is a protocol they must observe to respect participation, to making sure we have chat moderation. We will do the following to ensure effective hybrid participation: -We will ensure that at least one of our team participates remotely and at least one in person. Ensuring equal participation for both modalities. This will contribute to be more mindful of the two modalities of audiences and ensure their effective participation -We will have someone monitoring the chat to ensure that remote participants are on an equal-footing with participants at the meeting in person. This person will be in constant coordination with the moderator via a dedicated back channel. -We will encourage audience participation by allowing adequate time for participants to ask questions in online Chat and in the physical meeting room -We will release our report in June and hold a webinar before the IGF to ensure that potential IGF participants are informed about our report -We will make sure that some of our online participants are leading the discussion so that participants in the physical meeting room must interact with them - As included above, the report will be in the description of the session increasing the opportunities for the audience, both remote and onsite to engage in the topic of the discussion. - We will hold preparatory sessions with the speakers ahead of the session to ensure their contributions build on each other, address the policy questions outlined above and meet the outcomes expected for this session. This preparatory sessions will also be used to make sure speakers participation is kept within a given time, to make sure sufficient time is left for the audience to engage. In case the audience does not have not questions to the speakers, the moderator will have questions ready to be asked to meet the goals of the session. - To further keep speakers within their timeframes, timers will be used.

Report and Launch Session from 22 September are here:  https://connecthumanity.fund/report-launch-webinar-financing-mechanisms…

Report in Google Docs-ppt formate:  https://connecthumanity.fund/report-launch-webinar-financing-mechanisms…

.pdf version of report is here:  https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/doc/2022/financing-mechanisms…

 

 

 

Online Participation

 

Usage of IGF Official Tool.