How is connectivity related to sovereignty? What are the logics and dynamics that should be highlighted when addressing connectivity development in a region, in a country, in a very local territory? This was the focus of a dialogue held at the Global Gateway Forum in Brussels on 9 and 10 October. Conceived as a space for strategic conversations between Europe and its partners on how to allocate investments in infrastructure projects worldwide – from the digital, energy and transportation sectors – this second edition of the Forum placed connectivity at the heart of debates around inclusion, sovereignty and global cooperation.
The Forum brought together governments, financial institutions, the private sector and civil society to discuss digital inclusion in a changing geopolitical landscape. Aligned with the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement, the Global Gateway seeks to balance Europe's interests with solidarity-driven partnership, as stated in its background paper, Partnerships in a Geopolitical Era: Time for a New Strategic Conversation, developed by the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics, Clingendael Institute and Egmont Institute.
Participating in the Forum offered the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) an opportunity to call on the Global Gateway to involve more local, national and regional participation and perspectives to avoid the risks of sidelining real needs and priorities of local communities and grassroots organisations in defining development outcomes.
Chat Garcia Ramilo, executive director of APC, brought the perspective of civil society and community-centred connectivity to the table in her participation on the panel “The Geopolitics of Digital Connectivity”, reframing the conversation around meaningful connectivity, which is not just about access. "If the Global Gateway aims to achieve inclusive digital transformation and sovereignty, then closing the digital divide must be at the very centre of its strategy,” she emphasised.
Inclusion, diversity and meaningful connectivity
According to the International Telecommunication Union, 2.6 billion people have used the internet only once in the past three months, and 5 billion remain excluded from genuinely meaningful digital participation. “In today’s digital economy, the internet is a gateway to education, communication, jobs and public services,” Garcia Ramilo noted. “The gap between those who benefit from connectivity and those who do not is widening, deepening social and economic inequality.”
Drawing on APC’s work across more than 20 countries, Garcia Ramilo highlighted the success of community-centred connectivity initiatives: locally owned, participatory and sustainable models that can deliver real impact in remote and marginalised areas. “These networks are often led by cooperatives, social enterprises and local governments. They stimulate local economies, empower women, and strengthen community resilience, including for climate action,” she explained.
In countries where enabling policies exist, such as in Colombia and Nigeria, community networks are expanding. However, in most countries, these frameworks are still missing. “We see hundreds of them – each different, but all proving that connectivity can be meaningful and inclusive. What we need now is the right kind of capital,” she stressed.
Garcia Ramilo called on the Global Gateway to diversify its investment ecosystem, designing financing instruments that support smaller, community-driven projects. “Capital must be relevant to the needs of these networks,” she said.
A local story for a global lesson
To illustrate “meaningful connectivity” in practice, Garcia Ramilo shared the story of a small island community in the Philippines that built its own network to access connectivity. They developed a local system for retailing connectivity called “one peso for Wi-Fi”. “You cannot be more local than this, where you see local networks, embedded in the community, finding their own solutions. Because this is exactly where the solutions lie. The solutions have to be diversified.”
Her call to the Global Gateway was clear: investing in community-centred connectivity to bridge the digital divide and broadening partnership in projects to include local and community-focused organisations. “The Global Gateway has the potential to become a powerful vehicle for inclusion. But only if it listens and invests in the people and communities building connectivity from the ground up. We are ready to work with partners to design financing that truly serves them,” Garcia Ramilo stressed.
As an example, she cited the Global Gateway-supported project in Colombia, implemented by APC member Colnodo, the Colombian Ministry of ICT and the European Union – a model she hopes “will be the first of many.” The concrete examples of community-centred connectivity initiatives and their potential to bridge the digital gap reframe the conversation. The duality between dependence and sovereignty was overcome by a new term: agency. She concluded: “Grounded in local capacity and cooperation, in any project related to technology, financing or partnerships, agency matters. Local, national and community agencies must be at the heart of how we move forward.”
Sovereignty and financing for inclusion and autonomy
The panel on “The Geopolitics of Digital Connectivity”, moderated by Justin Vaïsse, director of the Paris Peace Forum, gathered multistakeholder representatives from Africa, Asia and Latin America to discuss connectivity and digital inclusion in the current context. “From the 264 Global Gateway flagships announced so far, only 34 focus on digital connectivity. That is only 13% of this fund. We need to scale investment in digital infrastructure and innovations, especially where the development impact is the highest,” stated Vaïsse.
The Global Gateway is an investment strategy of the European Union that bundles together funds for sustainable development, member state contributions and private sector finance. Flagship projects are chosen on a yearly basis and the selection is carried out in line with the Global Gateway governance, taking into account the input of state members, financial institutions and non-governmental partners.
For some, the participation of the latter is not clear, there have been warnings related to “how the strategy is governed and financed, and how civil society can engage,” as was recently highlighted by the European Confederation of NGOs. “As large-scale projects roll out, often involving private finance and cross-border infrastructure, there is a risk for the voices of local communities and grassroots organisations being sidelined over genuine development outcomes,” they underlined. Other group of organisations also devoted to the analysis of the Global Gateway strategy warned about the “risk that the Global Gateway prioritises the promotion of opportunities for European businesses in the Global South over development objectives such as poverty reduction.”
These evaluations resonated with numerous panel members, sharing local and grounded needs, priorities and proposals. Nigerian Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy Bosun Tijani reframed digital sovereignty as a practice rather than a slogan. “Sovereignty is something that you do,” he said. “The narratives have been shaped by commercial interests. As leaders we must focus on sovereignty, but at the same time this shouldn't distract us from building the absorptive capacity that we need for this technology to work.”
From Latin America, Carina Murcia, Colombia’s newly appointed Minister of Information and Communication Technologies, highlighted the country’s approach to digital transformation as a process of cultural and social change, involving social organisations in last-mile connectivity projects. “For us, the internet is a right,” she said, underscoring the importance of protecting digital rights and ensuring that connectivity serves communities affected by decades of violence and inequality.
Lacina Koné, director-general of Smart Africa, underlined: “The Global Gateway could play a key role in the actual conditions, if it strikes a balance between principles and pragmatism. That is where we will be moving from geopolitics to geoeconomics.” She further stressed, “We need banking services without banks, and health services without hospitals. That is the only way we can absorb the one billion people we gained in the last 45 years. That is why meaningful connectivity is so important.”
Representing the financial sector, Scott Morris, president of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), warned that the digital agenda cannot be detached from energy and infrastructure realities. He emphasised the importance of public private coordination, ensuring that digital investments serve public interest goals. Morris also addressed the role of philanthropy as a resource that helps local actors and smaller initiatives develop the capacity to access larger funds. “Philanthropic actors often bring flexibility and risk tolerance that governments or commercial lenders lack, while multilateral banks can provide the institutional access and trust needed to scale their impact,” he said.
“Civil society movements rely on philanthropic sponsors in many ways,” said Garcia Ramilo, emphasising that for community-centred connectivity initiatives, it is not easy to participate in financing mechanisms beyond grants. She pointed to the need for new spaces within frameworks like the Global Gateway to meaningfully include philanthropic organisations alongside governments and financial institutions. “If we have philanthropic organisations in the Global Gateway, that needs to be addressed.”
The recording of this Global Gateway Forum session is available here.