On Monday, 18 August 2025, Internet Society President & CEO Sally Wentworth spoke in the opening plenary of the Inter‑American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL) meeting in Santiago, Chile. The remarks below are as prepared.
Thank you for the invitation to speak today, and thank you to the government of Chile for hosting us in your beautiful country. The Internet Society values our collaboration with CITEL over the past 15 years and so I am delighted to be at this gathering of leaders from across Latin America. I am Sally Wentworth, the President and CEO of the Internet Society and the Internet Society Foundation.
I want to begin with a story. Back in 2019, members of the Internet Society Haiti Chapter attended the Haiti Internet Governance Forum where the focus was on connectivity. They were intrigued about the idea that community networks could help them close the digital divide in their country. They investigated more and even traveled as far as India to meet the organizations that were deploying community networks across rural India. They came home and launched a national survey to identify the gaps in connectivity across the country. They worked with the local regulator to ensure there were no legal issues and to create a licensing model that would work for these small networks. They launched a large training initiative for young professionals from the private sector, civil society and the national regulator in order to build multistakeholder support for this initiative.
In the years since, with funding from the Internet Society Foundation and others, they have deployed community networks or points-of-service across Haiti, trained over 200 people in how to install networks, and are now providing Internet access to over 9,000 people across their country. Today schools in Haiti are able to offer stronger programs. Fisherman can connect with customers. New businesses are being formed, and people are able to connect with family and friends living abroad. And in an area prone to hurricanes and currently struggling with violence, they are building these community-centered networks in a way to ensure resilience. And for all of this, the ITU just awarded the Internet Society Haiti Chapter a “WSIS Champion” prize last month in Geneva.
This is the power of the community-centered connectivity model many in the CITEL community are already aware of. And these are the kinds of results that can come from multistakeholder events like national Internet Governance Forums.
Our New Commitment
And this is why I am pleased to be here to announce our updated commitment to the Alliance 2030 program. When we started our collaboration with CITEL on this program in 2018, we made an ambitious commitment at the time to deploy 12 community networks and train 150 people across the region by 2020.
I’m happy to report that we have achieved that goal and supported 22 community networks in 12 countries and trained well more than 150 people. Our experience in both Latin America and across the globe tells us that this model of community centered connectivity works. If we involve local communities from the outset, provide the necessary training and support, we can develop sustainable connectivity in some of the hardest to reach areas in our countries.
Based on this experience, today I am here to state our new commitment to support at least 100 community networks and train more than 1,000 people in this region by 2030.
We are already actively engaged with this work. Last year our chapters in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Guatemala implemented community networks and capacity-building activities that are part of this Alliance 2030 program.
We have also provided the Building Wireless Community Networks program to CITEL members since 2020. And in 2024, we added the Community Networks Readiness Assessment and have already trained many CITEL participants.
And through our connection with CITEL, we’ve developed deeper collaboration with regulators in countries such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, and Panama – all working on enabling policies to help connect the unconnected.
These commitments to Alliance 2030 and strong collaboration with CITEL are a part of our global work focused on two strategic goals defined in the Internet Society’s own Strategy 2030:
- That people everywhere have access to affordable, reliable, and resilient Internet.
- And that people everywhere have an Internet experience that is safe, secure, and protects them online.
Today we all know how vital the Internet is for our daily lives, and in this time digital technologies are shaping every aspect of our lives, it is simply inexcusable that one third of the world’s population remains unconnected. And even for those who may have connectivity available, it is often not affordable, reliable or resilient.
This is the challenge before us. And we are committed to doing our part as part of the Alliance 2030 program.
Earlier this year, we announced our Connectivity Co-Funding Initiative where we are committing $30 million US dollars over the next five years to:
- Support locally-owned, scalable, and sustainable networks; Scale training programs to build technical capacity, and develop the next generation of Internet leaders.
- Expand local infrastructure to be more affordable and reliable through the use of Internet exchange points.
- Expand the measurement of Internet infrastructure so that we all can be making data-driven decisions.
I’d like to focus a bit on this last item – the importance of solid measurement data that we can all use to make informed policy and investment decisions. Data also helps us know if our efforts are working.
At the Internet Society, we’ve developed a measurement platform called Pulse to help us understand the availability, evolution, and resilience of the Internet in a particular country or region.
On our Pulse measurement site, we have a section showing the Internet Resilience Index for countries and regions. This index looks at factors such as the infrastructure, market readiness, performance, and security. For example, of a possible score of 100, South America has an average Internet resilience score of 48, the Caribbean 43, and Central America 42. If you drill down to the country level, you’ll find more granular information about the health and resilience of the Internet in a particular country.
Interestingly the Internet resilience score for Chile is 57. This is primarily due to the large deployment of fiber in cities, which is also why Chile ranks first in South America in terms of Internet performance. And yes, you can visit pulse.internetsociety.org to see how your country scores.
The Pulse site also has individual country reports which many of you may find very useful to understand the status of the Internet in your country and where you might put particular attention to address gaps in connectivity, resilience or security.
The point of having this kind of data, is that we can use this information to drive our decision making. It suggests where we are doing well – and where we need to invest more time and resources.
All of these initiatives are how we work together to bring about a world in which people everywhere have affordable, reliable, and resilient Internet connectivity.
The Importance of WSIS+20
I want to go back to my story at the beginning. I mentioned that the Haiti Chapter members learned about community-centered connectivity at the Haiti Internet Governance Forum in 2019. This national IGF is one of the over 180 national and regional IGFs that now form a year-round dialogue on Internet governance issues, with 18 of those happening in the LAC region.
This year is the 20th anniversary of the World Summit on the Information Society which is the UN agreement that created the IGF back in 2005. During WSIS, governments agreed to a review every 10 years in which they would evaluate the progress made on the WSIS goals and to determine whether the Internet Governance Forum should continue. This review is happening now in New York.
We need your help here. As the governments of the world go through this review process in New York, we need to ensure that the WSIS+20 review supports the Internet that we want.
The WSIS+20 review should renew the mandate of the Internet Governance Forum and continue to support the “multistakeholder way” in which we have been working over the last 20 years, where all stakeholders have a voice in shaping the Internet’s future.
In reviewing the contributions to the review from many countries across the region (Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala), it is heartening to see the strong regional support for the multistakeholder model and the continued focus on the importance of connectivity and leaving no one behind.
Indeed CITEL, and the meeting this week, is an excellent example of the kind of inclusivity that makes the Internet powerful. If we want to see meaningful progress on issues like bridging the digital divide or cybersecurity or AI, it’s absolutely essential that we all roll up our sleeves, leverage our respective expertise, work together and bring about the results we know are possible. So, when we speak about the multistakeholder model, this is the kind of collaboration we are aiming for. This is the kind of collaboration that made the Internet possible, that drives its growth and helps us overcome challenges.
If we are to achieve these connectivity commitments we made to Alliance 2030, and if we are to achieve the broader Sustainable Development Goals set by the UN, we need an international policy environment that supports efforts from all stakeholders to bring the Internet to everyone, and to help them have a safe and secure experience online.
If your government is not yet involved, there is still time, as the critical meetings happen over the next three months in New York. We are glad to help. Please reach out to the Internet Society team or our colleagues in LACNIC or ICANN and we’re glad to provide materials and information to help you gain an understanding of this critical moment in Internet governance. We think it’s essential that the voices from this region are well represented in the debates over the future of the global Information Society.
Thank you again for the opportunity to speak today. Thank you to CITEL and to all the CITEL members for including the Internet Society in your initiatives. We are excited by the Alliance 2030 and for the progress we can all make together.
I look forward to working with all of you as we continue to bring about a world where the Internet is for everyone.