ROAM principles and indicators presented at the IAMCR conference 2021

David Souter and Simon Ellis highlighted that the framework's high relevance in fostering sustainability and contributing to identifying digital gaps and inequalities to empower vulnerable groups online and offline, with a great potential to help implement and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals(link is external), which stands at the core of the United Nation's mandate.

Representing CETIC.br, Alexandre Barbosa further stressed that the ROAM framework and principles are a solid ground for policymakers to create effective policies to bridge existing connectivity gaps and digital skills gaps, and a practical tool to enable countries to assess the Internet development in a very comprehensive way.

Dr Matthias C. Kettemann from Leibniz Institute for Media Research, Fabio Senne from CETIC.br, Alain Kiyindou from Université Bordeaux Montaigne and Grace Githaiga from Kenya ICT Action Network - all stressed the importance of the data collection process and identified it as one of the major challenges in conducting the national assessment of ROAM-X indicators. As the framework relies on a diverse set of data sources, having a transparent methodological approach and using the best available data sources are critical for comprehensive implementation of the project.