Digital Development Partnership event Stockholm2016

Meeting in Stockholm to get feedback on the Digital Development Partnership (DDP) from the World Bank. Addressed amongst others:

GSMA (Nick, Belinda)
 * 6 pilot sites in Tanzania on infrastructure economics,
 * and upcoming sites in Indonesia
 * 4 working areas: coverage/infrastructure economics, affordability (taxation), digital skills ("Internet trainer" in India) and locally relevant content
 * GSMA has published http://MobileConnectivityIndex.com

Ericsson (Kenneth)
 * managed rural access "less sites than we have thought", require power hungry infrastructures
 * mapping population to grid extension, see Ericsson prediction numbers and "ICT & SDGs report". see: https://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2016/ict-sdg.pdf
 * "technology is not expensive", e.g. power more costly than ICT capex

Telenor (Christian)
 * operating since 1996 in Bangladesh, biggest company
 * "in 15 months in Myanmar we got 15 Mio subscribers", out of them 55% use the Internet on a regular basis
 * required worldwide investment of 1.4 Trillion US$ by 2020 for Mobile infrastructures
 * costs of usage of a Smartphone: 30% relates to tax

Norad (Liv Marte)
 * stimulating the demand
 * testing new business models

Nokia (Julia)
 * CEO joined Broadband Commission, and drives advocacy
 * 6 pilot villages in India, collaborating with the Indian Institute for Technology in Madras, a.o. on last mile connectivity

World Bank (Julia, Doyle)
 * Presentation of Digital Development Partnership (DDP) including Internet access for all
 * World development report (WDR) was great success
 * launch event of DDP in Tanzania

Some points of the discussions
 * Energy ladder: light is first, all other services come after (Anna)
 * need that ladder for Internet access access
 * "what creates attention" - awareness of Internet more required than affordability (Christian)



Related activities/organisations
 * Alliance for affordable Internet
 * International Finance Corporation (IFC)
 * Digital Impact Alliance