Pará & Maranhão More Connected

The Amazon region of Brazil, particularly the States of Pará and Maranhão, remains one of the least connected areas in Latin America. The territory combines immense geographic distances, dense forest coverage, and very high costs of infrastructure deployment, resulting in low broadband penetration, limited mobile coverage, and high retail prices for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services. This situation especially affects indigenous communities, who are excluded from digital public services and economic opportunities.

This project addresses these structural challenges by establishing resilient and inclusive digital backbone built on submarine and terrestrial fibre-optic infrastructure. The European Union contribution focuses on the programme's environmental, digital governance, digital economy and digital inclusion objectives. The action is directly aligned with the EU Global Gateway strategy and the EU-LAC Digital Alliance and complements other flagship programmes such as BELLA II (academic connectivity between Europe and Latin America), EllaLink (the Europe-Brazil submarine cable), and Amazonia+ (green and digital inclusion in the Amazon).

The European Union contribution foresees:

• the reimbursable advance for a key submarine branching unit enabling the connection of the future Pará cable;
• the integration of SMART Node technology for underwater environmental and seismic data collection in the State of Pará;
• and a technical assistance package reinforcing institutional capacities, a data economy ecosystem contributing to regional development, cybersecurity and climate data governance in both states.