CEABAD was inaugurated on June 9, 2014 in Managua, Nicaragua. The main goal of CEABAD is to increase the capacity of government officials in Central American countries (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama), the Dominican Republic and Mexico to identify solutions to address regulatory and competition problems in the broadband arena. This goal can be achieved by developing the adequate content and operations to train government officials about specific issues that make up the digital agenda and foster investment in infrastructure. Thus, the CEABAD is a platform for regional dialogue on topics related to broadband and ICT where specific worldwide experiences and lessons learned are presented and discussed. Over the last four years of operations, the Center has impacted all beneficiary institutions by training government officials from various fields regarding broadband and ICT. Currently, more than 3,500 government officials from countries of Central America, the Dominican Republic and Mexico have been trained by the programs of CEABAD.

http://ceabad.com/

• Latin America and the Caribbean

CEABAD has a sustainability model that was considered at the beginning. Thus, we are focused on two binomials; Income – Costs, Quality – Prestige
The Center has increased income by monetizing our services. We have implemented our events, like regional forums based on sponsorship from private companies in Nicaragua. The Center also has generated income by selling online courses. Moreover, we reduced the overall cost by developing alliances with various partners like GSMA to provide experts to local workshops without hiring any others.

While many officials in government agencies focused on telecommunications in the Latin-American and the Caribbean Region (LAC) region are aware of the significance of broadband for the development of countries, their capability to diagnose problems and to provide appropriate solutions related to various obstacles (e.g. lack of investment, poor coverage, low competition, and reduced demand for broadband services) in the field is quite insufficient. This is more apparent in the countries of Central America considering their current broadband developments status. Thus, there is a need to make capacity building for government officials in the region is a priority. This focus corresponds to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Action Line #4 regarding the training of ICT professionals.