WSIS Forum 2026: High-Level Dialogue for LLDCs

Connectivity as Catalyst: Delivering the Awaza Programme through Digital Transformation

Background

The 32 Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs), home to over 620 million people, face persistent structural constraints that impede sustainable development. Half of them is also Least Developed Countries (LDCs), compounding vulnerabilities related to limited productive capacity, elevated trade costs, and heightened exposure to external shocks. The absence of direct maritime access, combined with inefficient transit systems, inadequate infrastructure, and fragmented regulatory frameworks, continues to undermine competitiveness and integration into regional and global value chains.

Addressing these structural barriers requires a dual transformation encompassing both physical connectivity and digital integration. The Awaza Programme of Action for LLDCs for the Decade 2024–2034 identifies digitalization, innovation, and resilient infrastructure as critical enablers for overcoming geographic disadvantages. A central deliverable of the Awaza Programme is the proposed establishment of a dedicated Infrastructure Investment Financing Facility for LLDCs (IIFF), intended to mobilize the scale of financing required to close persistent infrastructure gaps across transport, energy, and ICT sectors. By building on and coordinating existing financing mechanisms, the IIFF aims to connect investors with a pipeline of bankable projects, strengthen project preparation capacities, and facilitate partnerships capable of translating commitments into implementable infrastructure on the ground.

Digital connectivity offers LLDCs a transformative pathway to mitigate geographic constraints by enabling digital trade, expanding services, and strengthening data-driven governance. It can reduce transaction costs, enhance supply chain efficiency, and improve market access. However, these gains depend on affordable, reliable connectivity and its integration with complementary physical infrastructure. While internet penetration in LLDCs has increased from 18.8% in 2015 to 37.6% in 2025, progress remains insufficient and unequally distributed to achieve universal and meaningful connectivity. Significant gaps persist in broadband infrastructure, cross-border data flows, digital skills, and enabling policy and regulatory frameworks.

Closing this connectivity gap requires a step-change in backbone infrastructure and investment readiness. In Africa, for example, the development of a regional fibre backbone network is critical to addressing geographic constraints, reducing transit costs, and decreasing reliance on neighbouring coastal states. Such infrastructure would lower bandwidth costs, improve network resilience, and facilitate regional integration, cross-border data flows, and access to global digital markets. At the same time, the IIFF can play a catalytic role in strengthening the pipeline of bankable digital infrastructure projects, through improved project preparation, regulatory harmonization, and risk mitigation, thereby crowding in private investment, and helping deliver the scale and speed of investment required under the Awaza Programme.