Digital RMI — National Connectivity, Digital Government and Skills Programme

The Marshall Islands is a remote Pacific atoll nation of about 40,000 residents spread across 24 low-lying, climate-vulnerable atolls, historically served by costly and unreliable satellite links; a further roughly 30,000 Marshallese live abroad and depend on connectivity to stay in touch with home.

Expand climate-resilient digital infrastructure, modernise the national telecoms operator through a public-private partnership, build digital-government platforms with cybersecurity and data-protection frameworks, and deliver digital-skills, e-health and e-education programmes explicitly designed to close the gender gap in digital access.

In September 2021 the World Bank's International Development Association approved a US$30 million grant for the Digital RMI project, mobilising a further US$7.5 million in private capital for a total of US$37.5 million, over a planned seven-year implementation (2021-2028). The programme funds energy-efficient digital infrastructure; a public-private partnership requiring the selected telecoms operator to hold at least US$20 million in equity or equivalent credit; digital-government, cybersecurity and data-protection systems; and gender-informed digital-skills, e-health and e-education programmes. Priority infrastructure under the PPP procurement targets Majuro and Ebeye for fibre-to-premise upgrades, with satellite and mobile solutions planned for outer islands.

Because the initiative depends on a competitive PPP operator selection and on donor/diaspora coordination, benefits for the most remote outer atolls will likely lag behind those for Majuro and Ebeye; no quantified adoption or skills-training outcomes have yet been published, and the project remains under multi-year implementation, so no completed outcome evaluation is available.