The Connected Community Initiative (CCI) supports the achievements of the Europe 2020 Agenda and the Gigabit Society targets. The initiative was established in 2015 by the European Commission, Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content and Technologies (DG CONNECT) as a single donor trust fund implemented by the World Bank.
... See More + The initiative focuses on facilitating the flow of private and public investments to broadband connectivity projects and assist them in bringing their projects to a level of maturity that would enable funding from various public and private sources. The program was successful in channeling private and public funds into important broadband network deployment projects. With an overhead of only Euro 1 million, CCI was able to unlock approximately Euro 134 million. 10 projects were able to secure, or are in the process of securing, funding to construct their fiber-based broadband networks. These projects are the Rural Network (RUNE) projects in Croatia and Slovenia; ToPix project in Italy’s Piedmont region; and DSTelecom in Algarve, Alentejo, Lower Minho, and Norte regions in Portugal, Drenthe in the Netherlands, and Gran Canaria in Spain. Funding varied between public, private, private equity, and the Connecting Europe Broadband Facility (CEBF), or a mix of them. Thus, CCI will help connect approximately 687,000 homes in remote and underserved areas of the portfolio countries. CCI experience has shown that the challenges and opportunities in promoting broadband and ultrafast broadband deployment in rural and gray areas are considerable. However, project promoters can improve the chances of getting funding if they take into consideration specific measures to address the following: demand management, cost management, risk and infrastructure sharing, financial modelling, time-to-market and building a successful investment pitch. This report lays out the main findings of the CCI experience and elaborates on the factors that facilitated or inhibited the success of broadband financing and deployment projects. These factors depend on the countries, topographies, market conditions, national framework, etc. However, many are also in common, given that the regulatory framework is similar, most gray and rural areas are in challenging topographies and financing is scarce. These challenges and opportunities constitute the basis of the recommendations to be considered by the EC, national and regional governments, and regulatory bodies. In summary, support to project promoters shows that there are still major financial and commercial risks in investment in infrastructure in rural and in grey areas. State aid rules are not clear or cumbersome to abide by for incentivizing investment in gray areas and in networks of 100Mbps capacity and above. When state aid is not applicable, there is a need to provide other types of incentives to the private sector to encourage investment in these areas. Attention should be given to the rules and practices that are crowding out private investment such as the requirements for the declaration of commercial interest in gray zones, the clawback mechanism for companies benefiting from state aid, and the mapping of grey and white zones. The technical assistance conducted by the World Bank showed that there are measures that policy makers can put take to facilitate bridging the financing gap in lagging zones. Looking forward, project promoters and financiers can replicate the lessons learned from the CCI in their future projects and investments. But beyond replicability at the same community levels, the CCI can be scaled up and made replicable in more regions and countries in the EU, and in neighboring and EU-acceding countries.
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Report 135244 MAR 12, 2019
Haddad,Marolla; Stoykov,Petar Georgiev; Abdul Khalek,Joulan; Bezzina,JeromeDisclosed
The Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) region situated on the Northeastern seashore of Italy is home to 1.2 million people. Less than one quarter of that population have access to a broadband connection faster than 30 Mbps.
... See More + Like other regions in Europe, the most competitive broadband services are offered in densely populated urban areas. In FVG, this includes Udine, Trieste, Pasian di Prato and Pordenone where it is commercially feasible for internet service providers to offer fast and affordable access solutions to their customers. It is worth noting that these four municipalities (communes) in FVG are home to only one third of the overall population of the region. The remaining 212 municipalities are split between two areas in terms of broadband coverage.
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This policy note was prepared in parallel to the report Pakistan at hundred - shaping the future. The report Pakistan at hundred discusses options to accelerate and sustain growth in Pakistan so that the country becomes an upper middle-income country when it turns hundred years old in 2047.
... See More + This policy note discusses the need for strong governance to accelerate and sustain Pakistan’s growth. Strong governance will require improved transparency and accountability, so policies are designed and implemented to benefit Pakistan’s population.
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Guinea is at moderate risk of external debt distress with some space to absorb shocks. All external debt burden indicators under the baseline scenario lie below their policy-dependent thresholds and debt dynamics have improved compared to the June 2018 Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) update, owing to higher-than anticipated growth in 2017.
... See More + Stress tests suggest that debt vulnerabilities will increase if adverse shocks materialize. Under the most extreme stress tests, all solvency and liquidity indicators breach their thresholds for prolonged periods. The overall risk of public debt distress is also assessed to be moderate, with the application of judgement regarding a brief and marginal breach for the present value (PV) of overall debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio, importantly reflecting the one-off impact of the recapitalization of the central bank. A prudent external borrowing strategy aimed at maximizing the concessionality of new debt and limiting non-concessional loans to programmed amounts and strengthening debt management will be key to preserving medium-term debt sustainability.
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