Towards universal and meaningful connectivity in Latin America
The Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in collaboration with the European Union and hosted by the Dominican Institute of Telecommunications (INDOTEL) and the National Statistics Office (ONE) of the Dominican Republic, organized a subregional Workshop on Promoting and Measuring Universal and Meaningful Connectivity (UMC) for Latin America, held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in April 2025.
The event brought together participants from 19 countries in Latin America to discuss the integration of universal and meaningful connectivity into national digital policies.
It also focused on strengthening statistical capacity in the region to enhance the production, dissemination, and use of data for policymaking.
Government authorities, regulators, national statistical offices, telecommunications operators, and representatives from specialized institutions participated in the three-day workshop.
Through roundtable discussions and group exercises, participants exchanged ideas and strategies to use data more effectively in shaping inclusive digital policies.
“Achieving universal and meaningful connectivity has become a central policy goal around the world, including in the Americas,” said Dr Cosmas Luckyson Zavazava, Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau at ITU. “Workshops like this one in Santo Domingo are key to enhancing collaboration between policymakers and statisticians and promoting data-driven decision-making. Through this effort, Latin America is taking an important step toward universal and meaningful connectivity, strengthening its commitment to closing the digital divide and ensuring that the Internet becomes a tool for development for all people.”
Guido Gómez Mazara, President of the Board of Directors of INDOTEL, noted that “these types of meetings are essential for developing the tools needed to measure the level of access to meaningful connectivity, and should be encouraged so that, through the design of strong public policies, we can achieve much more efficient public governance.”
“From both an academic perspective and in terms of managing universal and meaningful connectivity, this workshop is more than enough proof that in societies like ours, social exclusion continues to widen the gap between the few who have access to technological tools and the rest of the population; it forces us to rethink our approach, and events like this are fundamental to developing the tools needed to measure progress in this direction,” he added.
As a follow-up to the workshop, the Conference of Statisticians of the Americas, a specialized body of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, has requested more advanced training on methods for compiling ICT statistics.
The workshop in Santo Domingo follows similar events organized by BDT in the Arab States, the Caribbean, the CIS region, and Asia. Subregional workshops are planned throughout 2025 for Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, the Pacific, and Portuguese-speaking Africa, all aimed at promoting and measuring universal and meaningful connectivity through data-driven policymaking.
This is an ITU Development #DigitalImpactUnlocked story
About the project
To accelerate progress toward universal and meaningful connectivity (UMC), the ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau and the European Commission partnered under the project Promoting and Measuring Universal and Meaningful Digital Connectivity, funded by the European Union. The project aims to promote UMC as a policy objective, improve the quality and availability of UMC statistics, and identify effective policies. Regional workshops for policymakers and statisticians are being organized to support UMC integration into digital policies, strengthen national capacity to produce and disseminate UMC data, and share good practices.
Learn more about the project here.
