Community networks newsletter: Celebrating milestones for a stronger movement committed to digital inclusion

We want to devote this issue to sharing and celebrating the stories of collective efforts that make digital inclusion possible. One first milestone to celebrate is that South Africa is launching a National Strategy for Community Networks. This is the first time the country has a nationally recognised framework for community-centred connectivity – and also the first time such a strategy has been validated by local community networks together with a diverse group of stakeholders committed to connecting those still unconnected.

Another great reason for celebration took place in the Philippines. The Konektadong Pinoy Bill has just become law, in a passage achieved through the advocacy and vision of organisations to remove long-standing barriers preventing community-centered connectivity initiatives from participating in bridging the country’s digital divide.

And as we celebrate, we reflect. In this edition, you’ll find the final episode of our new podcast season, where we ask: What does this movement need to grow stronger, and to ensure that no one is left behind?

Welcome to the 84th monthly round-up of developments impacting your local access networks and community-based initiatives.

Routing for Communities podcast

The fourth and final episode of season two of our podcast is on the air, bringing a new and powerful question: How can we strengthen the community-centred connectivity movement? What is still missing for this movement to grow stronger and truly connect the unconnected?

This new episode explores the crucial roles of financing, regulation and public policy in supporting community-centred connectivity through the experience of communities and partners who work to support these initiatives. The stories lead to a growing recognition that small and large network operators can coexist and can be complementary. So, what policies and governance structures are needed for community-centred connectivity initiatives to thrive?

Enjoy this opportunity to dive into the reflection led by the voices we heard in our first season. Listen to this great new episode here.

The previous episodes of season two also reflected on important questions. If you haven’t listened to them yet, you can do it here. And remember that all the episodes of the Routing for Communities podcast are available on this page, as well as on Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Spotify. 

Enjoy this opportunity and join us in the journey.

Community networks news and stories

• The Emberá village of Parará Puru in Panama, along the Chagres River, hosts the country’s first community network. Built with support from the Beyond the Net fund of the Internet Society Foundation, it enables communication, trade and cultural sharing, and invites the Emberá people to advocate for expanding connectivity to other Indigenous communities. Read more.
• Nigeria has eight undersea cables bringing strong connectivity to its coast. However, urban peripheries and rural areas remain unserved or underserved. This article explains the gaps involved, while highlighting initiatives to overcome them, like the computer lab in Tungan Ashere, the use of drones in farming and solar-powered community networks. Read more.
• In Kenya and South Africa, from Nairobi’s Mathare Valley to the hills of Mankosi, 13 inspiring initiatives were led by women, youth and grassroots technologists, that are not just wiring villages and settlements, but rewriting what inclusion, innovation and empowerment look like in the digital age. Read more about their stories here and read about the learnings derived from them here.
• Also From South Africa, the iNethi team embarked on a novel journey to develop locally owned cellular infrastructure, integrating existing Wi-Fi hotspots with community-owned cellular. In this way, the initiative empowers a community-based ISP to provide full-coverage broadband for smartphones. Read more.
• The Association for Community Networks in Kenya has a target of gathering together 100 community networks by 2030. With support from the Internet Society, many of these networks are now deploying fibre networks as a means to sustain their growing user base, develop resilience against climate challenges, and attract new supporters. Read more.
• APC members came together in an online event to share insights, outcomes and lessons learned from community-centred connectivity initiatives supported by its advocacy and institutional strengthening grant. The participant organisations were the Myanmar Internet Project (MIP), Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia (ISEA), the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), Fantsuam Foundation, the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN) and AlterMundi. Read more.
• From Indonesia, Common Room and the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia (ISEA) carried out the “Community-Centered Connectivity Initiatives (CCCI) Workshop on Policy, Gender-Based Local Services, and Social Entrepreneurship”. Over three days, representatives from eleven community internet school networks across 10 provinces in Indonesia gathered in Jakarta. Watch this video.

Gendered experiences

• In the Cauca region and along Colombia’s Pacific coast, Fundación PLAN and the Internet Society in partnership with Colnodo are supporting 25 women-led businesses by providing them with internet literacy and digital marketing skills. The region, mostly inhabited by Afro-descendant women, has long faced systemic barriers to essential services, connectivity and economic opportunities. Watch a video from this experience here and read more.
• The expression “gendering AI” refers to one of the biggest problems facing the digital age. It implies discussing how gender norms, prejudices and power structures that have disadvantaged women for ages are either upheld or challenged by artificial intelligence systems. Today, 22% of AI workers globally are women, and in Africa, over 90% of women live in countries with significant gender gaps. This is a call to action to gender AI to become an instrument of empowerment for women. Read more.

Enabling policy and regulation

• South Africa has recently reached a key milestone on the road toward digital inclusion in the country: a National Strategy for Community Networks is being launched after a carefully nurtured process of collective efforts, involving contributions from a diverse group of stakeholders. The new national strategy also defined a three-year implementation plan. Read more.
• In Philippines, the Konektadong Pinoy Bill has passed into law, a development celebrated by the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia and partners who welcome this new legislation that aims to make connectivity accessible and affordable for Filipinos, supporting community-centred connectivity initiatives by diversifying internet access opportunities, mainly for rural areas. Read more.
• Amplifying the voices of the gathering “Sembrar la palabra, cosechar autonomia”, more than 50 community-based, Indigenous and Afro-Mexican communicators agreed on a position paper in which they call on national authorities to integrate their participation in the development of the country's communications and telecommunications regulatory framework. Read more. [Available in Spanish.]
• The Communications Authority of Kenya has released for the first time a detailed response on the Universal Service Fund (USF), marking a notable step toward transparency. The document outlines the Fund’s statutory basis, governance framework and project selection criteria, and includes financial and geographic data. Read more.

Publications, research and toolkits

• A newly released report produced by APC members Sursiendo and May First Movement Technology offers a collection of “Actions for environmental justice from autonomous and community-based technological infrastructures”. The report was developed through participatory research and grounded in conversations with autonomous and community-based internet providers. Read more.
• Mapeo is a digital tool developed in 2013 by Awana Digital to address the unique needs of Indigenous communities to monitor their lands after threats including oil spills, land invasions and deforestation. After the recent launch of the new app CoMapeo, Awana developed an impact report to closely look at how partners like Alianza Ceibo, Amazon Frontlines, Mulokot Foundation and others use it to protect their livelihoods and the ecosystems in their care. Read more.
• “Sustainable Digital Futures: Bridging the Divide Without Breaking the Planet” is an article co-authored by Talant Sultanov and Jessica Brown that explores the major challenges that digital transformation is bringing, including accessibility, sustainability, and the rising climate cost of growing connectivity. Read more.
• The BSI project was developed by Computer Aid to provide young people with much needed access and usage of digital technologies, specifically laptops, in order to improve their studies, employment prospects or businesses. Seven locations that already have Solar Community Hubs were selected across South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania in order to supply the equipment. Read more.
• The Global Innovation Gathering hosted a community call focused on open-source weather stations and their role in fostering climate resilience. The session featured presentations from Gustav Iskander of Common Room Indonesia and Nils Brock from Rhizomatica, who shared their experiences in developing community-centred technologies. Watch the video of the call and read more.
• “Advancing Community Connectivity: Policy Strategies for Closing the Digital Divide” is a toolkit developed by the Internet Society with resources that help to start considering which policies matter for a country or a community, facilitating a policy environment that sets local internet advocates up for success. The toolkit includes modules on financing, licensing and spectrum allocation. Read more. [Available also Spanish and French].
• Community-centred connectivity initiatives may need privacy-friendly geolocation determination. The NGI0 consortium, of which APC is a member, supports and disseminates free/libre and open source tools designed to address communities' needs, such as a wireless positioning database and a location service for desktop and mobile Linux. Read more about them here and here.

Events

• A new Tech Together webinar from the series on “Bridging the Gap from Vision to Fibre Deployment: Community-Centric Approaches in Africa” will take place on 18 September. The topic will be “Lightning Talk: From Capacity to Deployment”. Read more.
• A T20 dialogue on “Breaking barriers: Innovative financing for community-centred digital inclusion” will be take place in the framework of the G20 South Africa presidency. Convened by the Association for Progressive Communications and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office with the T20 Task Force on Digital Transformation, the event will be held on 1 October in Cape Town, South Africa. Read more.
• The Global Gathering, organised by Team CommUNITY, will be held from 8 to 10 September in Estoril, Portugal with participants from over 144 countries, organisations and networks. Read more.
• “Accessible Americas: ICTs for ALL” will take place in ​​​Guatemala City, from 28 to 30 October 2025. This event is organised by the Telecommunication Development Bureau of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in partnership with the Guatemalan Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones. Read more.
• The Mozilla Festival 2025 will be held from 7 to 11 November in Poble Espanyol, near Barcelona, Spain. Read more.
• The COP 30 is going to take place from 10 to 21 November in Belem, Brasil. Find more information here.
• The Workshop para América Latina y el Caribe (WALC) will be holding its 28th edition from 10 to 14 November 2025. It includes a module on community networks. Read more.
• The 9th Community Network Exchange Asia Pacific 2025 will be held on 14 and 15 November in T-Hub, Hyderabad, India. Convened by Digital Empowerment Foundation, this year's theme is “Meaningful Access, Data & Hyper Local Communities”. The call for sessions is open with a deadline coming very soon. Read more.
• RightsCon 2026 will be held in Lusaka, Zambia and online on May 5-8, 2026. The call for proposals is now open. The deadline for submissions is 12 September 2025. Read more.

Funding opportunities

• The 2026 OHCHR Indigenous Fellowship Programme is meant to empower Indigenous peoples to defend human rights and uplift their communities, gaining deeper understanding of the UN system and Indigenous rights while learning alongside fellow changemakers from around the world. A call is open for applications for a four-week training in Geneva in June and July 2026, offered in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. Apply before 15 September 2025. Read more.
• The APNIC Foundation announced a research fellowship programme that will support five researchers to carry out a four-month remote project between September and December 2025. The fellowship is designed to generate applied, policy-relevant insights on the future of the internet in the Asia-Pacific region. The application deadline is just days away: 30 August 2025. Read more.
• The Connecting the Unconnected Funding Program supports communities and local organisations working to build and expand internet infrastructure to connect people living in rural, remote and low-income areas. Nine projects have been awarded funding to build and expand internet infrastructure in underserved and unconnected areas in seven countries. Read more.
• The NGI Zero Commons Fund aims to help deliver, mature and scale new internet commons across the whole technology spectrum, from libre silicon to middleware, from P2P infrastructure to convenient end user applications, in a holistic, full-stack approach. Its ninth call is open, with a deadline of 1 October, 12 CEST (noon). Read more.
• The Audacious Project collaborative funding initiative is still open for catalysing social impact. Housed at TED and with support from the Bridgespan Group, the funding looks for ideas that cover a wide range of issues, from global health and climate change, to social justice and education. Idea submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Read more.

Community networks learning repository

This repository is a collective online space to store and exchange resources that can be useful in training processes, focused on materials made for and by community networks.

This month we invite you to check out “Technological autonomy as a constellation of experiences”, a guide that offers practical recommendations for the implementation of contextualised training programmes for the consolidation of community communication and telecommunications projects, especially for community networks. The guide is available in English, Spanish and French.

And please remember our usual invitation. If you or your organisations are developing resources devoted to the capacity building of communities for their digital inclusion, please share them in our repository. We welcome contributions in all languages. 

Find out more!

This newsletter is part of the Local Networks initiative (LocNet), a collective effort led by APC and Rhizomatica in partnership with grassroots communities and support organisations in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. It aims to directly support meaningful community-centred connectivity initiatives, while contributing to an enabling ecosystem for their emergence and growth. 

Previous editions of this newsletter are available here.

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