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2017 saw significant attention to gender and access issues, and APC was poised to inform and convene key discussions in order to advance women’s human rights through ICTs.

The 35th UN Human Rights Council session (HRC35) in June 2017 was one of the spaces in which APC engaged in order to amplify the outreach of access and gender issues. At HRC35 the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a report on “Bridging the Gender Digital Divide from a Human Rights Perspective”. The report reinforced APC’s analysis of gender and access issues, calling for addressing underlying social and cultural barriers to women’s meaningful access and use of the internet and adopting a multifaceted approach towards eliminating online gender-based violence. We co-organised a side event with the OHCHR and the permanent missions of Sweden and the United States on bridging the gender digital divide from a human rights perspective, to give visibility to the gender digital divide as a symptom and cause of violations of women’s human rights, and to mobilise the international community to address it.

APC delivered submissions on access-related policy processes with a focus on gender, including a rights-based access submission to the Gender Working Group of the UN Broadband Commission. APC was also invited to join EQUALS, the global partnership to bridge the gender digital divide, and contributed to its inaugural meetings.

In the global governance arena, APC co-facilitated the IGF Best Practice Forum on Gender and Access, which in 2017 examined the barriers faced by specific communities of women, including women with disabilities, refugee women, young women, elderly women, LGBTIQ women, women in rural areas and indigenous women. The preliminary findings and recommendations of the survey were discussed in a session for further exploration facilitated by APC at the IGF.

APC organised and moderated a pre-event panel and supported the attendance of five women’s rights and sexual rights activists to participate at the Stockholm Internet Forum 2017, which focused on the theme “Framing Access and Power”. APC also participated in the panel “Gender-based violence online: Levelling the discussion.”

GenderIT.org, APC’s gender and ICT policy site, also initiated a periodic column called “Access and beyond”. During 2017, the column explored the motivations of internet use in Africa; zero rating services and their value for ordinary users; the specificities of how access to the internet and the barriers to get it are different for women and men; and how researchers and activists can proactively explore gender dimensions when dealing with access and a progressively increasing gender digital divide.

To watch out for: In 2018, APC will again participate in the IGF Best Practice Forum on access and gender issues. Also look out for more in the GenderIT.org column on community networks and gender, and some action happening during the AfChix TechWomen Summit 2018.

Image: APC Women’s rights policy lead, Jan Moolman, participating in the panel “Gender-based violence online leveling the discussion” at the Internet Stockholm Forum.

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APC participated in numerous global events focused on community networks as a means of promoting access, such as the Community Networks Exchange in Asia-Pacific in September; the Digital Citizen Summit, organised by APC member organisation Digital Empowerment Foundation and ISOC, in September in New Delhi, India; and the Second Summit on Community Networks in Africa in May in Nairobi, Kenya. We organised a workshop on Local Connectivity Solutions for the Unconnected at the WSIS Forum, convened by the ITU in June 2017 in Geneva.

APC delivered a statement at the WSIS Forum High-Level Policy Session, “Inclusiveness – Access to Information and Knowledge for All”, where we emphasised the need to encourage governments to develop policy and regulatory environments that support community-based local access networks as well as other inclusive approaches.

We participated in a Workshop on Policy and Regulatory Advocacy for Community Networks with Civil Society organised in October in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as a pre-event to the ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC) and, in partnership with ISOC and Rhizomatica, worked at the WTDC in November to promote the adoption of a resolution in favour of community networks. At the Stockholm Internet Forum 2017 in May, APC staff members were panelists in the session, “Helping the last four billion get connected: The potential for small-scale community-based networks”.

At the global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2017 in Geneva, APC participated in several workshops on community networks and in particular the Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity (DC3), where APC’s paper on research methodology was presented and published in the DC3 2017 annual report. APC also contributed to the IGF session on Connecting and Enabling the Next Billion.

In addition, APC delivered submissions on access-related policy and regulatory processes nationally and regionally, contributing to an increased understanding of APC’s people-centred perspective on access, innovative regulatory approaches and public policy recommendations. The inputs provided to the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) Multistakeholder Working Group on multilateral development bank support for access, and a submission to ITU’s public consultation on over-the-top services (OTTs), among others, show APC’s deep commitment to this area of work.

Image: Screenshot of the video from the Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity (DC3) session at the 2017 IGF.

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Under the Local Access Networks: Can the unconnected connect themselves? project implemented by APC in partnership with ISOC and Rhizomatica, APC published the first edition of a community networks and local access monthly newsletter in December 2017. This newsletter contributes to shaping a better-informed community of practitioners with greater resources for implementation and operation of more resilient, locally-owned telecommunications infrastructure.

Every newsletter edition contains opportunities for involvement, calls for grants, information on upcoming events related to community networks and local access, academic publications, news and blogs on the topic, regulatory updates and more, all in a multilingual format. You can subscribe to receive the newsletter here.

To watch out for: Prepare for many more newsletter editions in 2018! Also, the 2018 edition of the annual Global Information Society Watch report will focus on community networks and include over 40 country reports and eight thematic chapters.

Image: Rhizomatica.

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As part of this initiative, APC provided technical, policy/regulatory, economic and social assistance, with an emphasis on community networks and gender, to at least 11 community networks and local access initiatives that identified progress in and barriers to their deployment, development and sustainability in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe.

In order to better understand the business, technology and institutional models that have been adopted in a range of community-based and local access networks, APC and our partners carried out in-depth case studies and analysis to identify and understand the gender dimensions of local access networks, the roles women play in them, the barriers to women’s participation and mechanisms to increase their participation and contribute to transforming gender roles.

APC also built regional and global alliances of community networks, and strengthened the capacities of local access practitioners and advocates through the networking and collaboration opportunities provided through the Local Access Networks project and our partnerships.

To watch out for: In 2018, APC will significantly focus on creating an enabling environment for communities and local entrepreneurs to solve their own connectivity challenges, and APC member organisations devoted to promoting community-owned infrastructures will play a major role in these efforts.

Image: Coolab, Brazil.

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“We are like a tree, with our members and network being branches that give off this fruit which seeds and grows new trees in the community.” (Mentioned during group work)

Getting all of APC’s members together is an opportunity to celebrate the work that has been done and strategise around the work still ahead. After APC’s last member meeting in Barcelona, Spain, in 2014, the APC network met again from 18 to 21 August in Ithala, South Africa, gathering 34 of APC’s 55 member organisations, as well as one individual member.

On 18 August, the first day of the member meeting, the participants joined together to discuss APC’s direction as a community, framed within APC’s strategic plan for 2016-2019, and our identity. The highlight of the second day of the meeting was when APC members and APC staff shared information about their projects and activities in what was called the “Museum of Moments”, while the third day featured sessions on networking and capacity building. The fourth and last day was the APC Council business day, when the APC Board of Directors and Executive Director Chat Garcia Ramilo reported back on different issues, including an overview of the implementation of the strategic plan to date, a discussion of APC policies, an overview of APC finances for the period 2014-2016, and reports on membership, grants and participation and collaboration.

During this four-day gathering, a total of 70 APC members and staff reviewed, discussed and renewed their commitment to APC’s theory of change and strategic priorities that guide our work through 2019.

Before and after this global member meeting, 11 smaller member meetings were organised alongside events attended by APC members, among them the Internet Freedom Festival in Valencia, RightsCon in Brussels, the Summit on Community Networks in Nairobi, the WSIS Forum in Geneva, the Stockholm Internet Forum in Stockholm, the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa in Johannesburg, the COCONET Southeast Asia Digital Rights Camp in Yogjakarta, the Asia-Pacific Regional IGF in Bangkok, the Latin American and Caribbean IGF in Panama City, and the Nonprofit Software Development Summit in San Francisco. A brief meeting was also organised during the global IGF in Geneva. In addition, a meeting of five European members was held in January 2017 through support from APC’s Member Exchange and Travel Fund, alongside the eSociety.mk conference in Macedonia. This represents a significantly higher number of member gatherings than in previous years.

To watch out for: APC will host regional member meetings in 2018 that will strengthen and bring together our members around the crucial priorities in every region. Stay tuned as well for a new strategy and membership criteria to be completed in 2018.

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