Support for Harmonization of ICT Policies in Sub-Sahara Africa

Transcription

1 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 1 / 26 ITU-EC Project - Harmonized ICT Policies in ACP countries Support for Harmonization of ICT Policies in Sub-Sahara Africa Implementation strategy Sandro Bazzanella ITU-EC Project Manager sandro.bazzanella@itu.int Office: Fax: ITU Headquarter Place des Nations CH-1211 Geneva 20 Switzerland Jean-François Le Bihan HIPSSA Senior Project Coordinator jean-francois.lebihan@itu.int Office: Mobile: Fax: ITU Regional Office for Africa P.O. Box Addis Ababa Ethiopia

2 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 2 / 26 Index Introduction 3 Methodology 3 Lessons learned from the project for ICT Market Harmonization in ECOWAS/UEMOA 4 Harmonized regional ICT policy, legislation and regulatory guidelines 4 National transposition of regional frameworks 5 Monitoring and evaluation of national implementations and regulatory benchmarking 5 Institutional and human capacity building 6 HIPSSA supports the REC to achieve their specific goals within the AU reference framework 6 Sub-regional regulatory harmonization initiatives are at different stages 6 A customized work plan for each sub-region 7 Towards a global effort of harmonization at continental level 7 Synergies between the HIPSSA project, stakeholders and ITU expertise and resources 8 Cost models 8 Cyber security 9 Cross-border frequency coordination 9 Analogue-to-Digital Broadcasting Migration 10 Detailed work plan for each sub-region 10 ECOWAS / UEMOA 11 Completion of national transpositions 11 Monitoring and evaluation of national transpositions and regulatory implementation 12 Cyber security 13 Finalizing ECOWAS system for tracking ICT indicators (SIGTEL) 13 Review of ECOWAS/UEMOA regional harmonized regulatory framework 13 CEMAC 14 National transposition synchronized with ECCAS national implementation 14 ECCAS 15 «Assises nationales» 15 Regional ICT Observatory 16 IGAD 16 National policy guidelines, strategies and regulatory framework 17 Establishment of national databases on ICT 18 IGAD requested support from HISSPA for regional and national levels 18 EAC 18 Adoption and Implementation of a Harmonized Policy Framework for Cybersecurity in EAC 19 Extension of ICT harmonization activities to Burundi and Rwanda 20 Monitoring and Evaluation mechanisms in the implementation of ICT Regulation 20 Support of harmonized strategies for Analog-to-Digital Broadcast Migration 20 IOC 20 COMESA 20 Major achievements with the support of the European Commission (RICTSP Project) 21 Ongoing activities and upcoming milestones 22 Fields of interest for a potential collaboration with the HIPSSA project 22 SADC 23 Assisting on enhancement of the Telecommunications and ICT Policies and Regulatory Climate in SADC Region 24 Development of a SADC ICT Security Framework 24 Development of database to ensure harmonized delivery of relevant ICT statistics 25 Review of regulation towards introducing more liberalisation and enforcing competition 25 SADC Home and Away: measures to promote regional roaming 25 Develop Regional Policy and Guidelines on Digital Broadcasting Migration 26 Enhance the Capacity and Performance of regulatory Authorities in the SADC Region 26 Conclusion 26

3 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 3 / 26 Introduction In response to both challenges and promises of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) contribution to political, social, economic and environmental development, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the European Commission (EC) joined their efforts on a global project to be executed in Sub Sahara Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific Islands (ACP). This project urges for a demand-driven bottom-up approach. The overall objective of this project is to provide support towards creating harmonized policies for ICTs and an efficient regulatory environment, conducive to massive investments required by the ICT infrastructures and applications in the ACP countries. The Sub Sahara portion of the project, called HIPSSA for Support to Harmonization of ICT Policies in the Sub-Sahara Africa, is a scale up of the pilot project funded by EC and ITU that was successfully implemented in West Africa with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine (UEMOA). It aims at developing and promoting harmonized policies and guidelines for the ICT market as well as building human and institutional capacity in the field of ICT through a range of targeted training, education and knowledge sharing measures. The launching meeting took place at the United Nations (UN) Conference Center in Addis Ababa on 11 and 12 December The participants included mostly regional representatives of all stakeholders: regional economic communities (RECs), regional associations of regulators and operators. The objective of this first meeting was (i) to review the proposed areas to be covered in the region, (ii) agree on a methodology and (iii) the related human capacity building (HCB) needs. The main outcomes of this meeting are: bringing ICT policy experts from a majority of RECs covering all the Sub Sahara Africa to meet and share their experiences, agreeing to work on a sub-regional basis in order to take into account the different starting point of each regions regarding the harmonization process and their specific priorities in the way forward while working within the pan-african reference framework recently adopted by the AU. The next milestone of the project is the first meeting of the HIPSSA Steering Committee composed by representatives of regional economic communities, the African Union (AU), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), African Telecommunication Union (ATU), ITU and some observers. During this meeting planned to be held on Thursday 12 March 2009, This document presenting the detailed work plan of the HIPSSA project will be the base for discussion and amendments and finally for an agreement on the way forward. The document is divided in two sections one covering several methodological issues and another one to present sub-region after sub-region the customized work plan that is about to be adopted. Methodology In this first section, after presenting the different steps of the harmonization process from policy formulation to regulatory implementation, the related legislative and soft law instruments are reviewed before proposing some monitoring and evaluation tools. Capacity building will be a pervasive activity all along the project implementation. Based on the lessons learned from the previous ITU-EC project, the general methodology will be adapted to the specific needs of the different sub-regions depending on the current stage they are at within the harmonization process

4 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 4 / 26 they initiated. An emerging continental regulatory framework will be fostered by getting the different regional ones to converge. In order to achieve these ambitious goals, all stakeholders have to mobilize resources around the project and ITU is ready to respond that call with all its expertise. Lessons learned from the project for ICT Market Harmonization in ECOWAS/UEMOA The methodology of the HIPSSA project is based on the experience drawn from the ITU-EC pilot project successfully implemented between 2004 and This project contributed to the adoption by ECOWAS and UEMOA of their current common harmonized regulatory framework for the ICT sector. Harmonized regional ICT policy, legislation and regulatory guidelines The different steps of a successful implementation of a harmonized regulatory framework are the following: Development and adoption of harmonized regional ICT policy, Development and adoption of harmonized regional ICT legislation and Development and adoption of harmonized regional regulatory guidelines.. In West Africa, the harmonized policy, legislation and regulatory guidelines covered the following major areas: Model ICT Policy and Legislation Licensing Interconnection Number Management Spectrum Management and Universal access/service Legal regime policy and regulator These activities were followed by human capacity initiatives on these selected subjects The HIPSSA project is looking at similar areas but with a broader outlook: ICT competition policy, legal and regulatory frameworks; Licensing; Scarce resources management (numbering and frequencies); Universal access and universal service; Interconnection. The HIPSSA project is supplementing them with more operational topics: Cross-border roaming, Technical and financial auditing, Pricing and costing models, Dispute settlement, Cyber-security, Market data collection and information sharing.

5 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 5 / 26 National transposition of regional frameworks Depending on the type of regional legal acts the REC is equipped with, and on the type of governance which it has developed, the Regional integration organizations (RIO) may want to follow different paths. Two main options are opened to them: REC may choose to adopted binding directives, which its member states will have to transpose into their national legal framework. They may also choose to adopt a model ICT bill, which its member states may use as a basis for updating their legal framework and non binding guidelines that can be adopted and implemented by national administrations. The path, the REC will choose, may in some cases condition the type of deliverables that can be expected from the harmonization process. As a matter of fact, the harmonized regional regulatory framework may have different forms. The regional policy can be settled in a communication issued by the REC or a recommendation to its member states. It can also be communicated as explanatory notes to regional legal acts. In both cases, the first phase of regional harmonization is followed by a second phase of national implementation. This second phase was not supported by the previous ITU-EC project leaving it to the member countries. Some of them had difficulties to comply with the transposition calendar agreed at the same time the regional regulatory framework s was adopted. The HIPSSA project is covering both phases. Monitoring and evaluation of national implementations and regulatory benchmarking In the case of a binding harmonization process, a transposition calendar is a useful tool. It will materialize the commitment of member states to perform national implementation in a reasonable time frame. Nevertheless, this is also a tool that can be implemented with non binding regional guidelines. Actually, member state may want to commit to complete the update of their national legislations by an agreed date. Even if the continent seems to be divided into two spheres of influence of the binding and non binding models, one shouldn t look at these models as fundamentally different. Depending on the circumstances, a sub region may want to alternatively use one and the other. One common subject is the monitoring and evaluation of the implementation process of a harmonized regulatory framework. They are several methodologies developed around the world but two best practices focused the HIPSSA team s interest: the EC Implementation Report and the ECTA Regulatory Scoreboard. They stand for two different points of view: the first one is the one of the REC in a binding harmonization process and the second one is the one of competitive operators that are interested in the implementation of all available regulatory tools further to the mere legal transposition. Regulatory benchmarking is an essential element for comparing the effective regulation across the member states of a Rio. It will identify the countries which will need more support in terms of capacity building and the one where further advocacy is required. This is a dynamic tool as much as regulation in a dynamic process. A yearly review will help some of the national regulation authorities to follow up their performance and make sure they stay on the track towards the goals they assigned to themselves. Regulators usually need to have a vision of the regulated market they want to achieve or to tend to.

6 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 6 / 26 Institutional and human capacity building Some further lessons were learned during the pilot ITU-EC project regarding institutional and human capacity building. Capacity building is a transversal dimension of the HIPSSA project that can be divided into three different components: Advocacy Technical assistance and Training Advocacy activities are closer related to the specific steps of the harmonization process such as the development and adoption of the harmonized regional and national ICT policies. They help to raise awareness among stakeholders and to build up political momentum at the time of initiating the adoption of harmonized legislations. Technical assistance will be required in most steps of the process but will definitely be at heart of national implementations. The third dimension will take various forms like face-to-face workshops, e-learning, training of trainers and development of training material. These actions will take place at both levels, regional and national. Training workshop will be as often as possible held back-to-back with other key events like validation meetings in order to save on travel costs. Capacity building actions will be conducted all along the project implementation in close relation with the other activities and in coherence with the specific areas they are related to. HIPSSA supports the REC to achieve their specific goals within the AU reference framework Several harmonization initiatives have been going on since the end of the nineties on the African continent and a lot of work has already been done. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) opened the path in 1998 with its Model Telecommunications Bill in collaboration with the regional regulators association (TRASA at that time). The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) has an ongoing project called RICTSP with the European Union s support. However, there is a high degree of heterogeneity among the regions in terms of advancement in their harmonization processes. The HIPSSA project will support each of them to achieve their specific goals taking into consideration the current level of development of their ICT regulatory harmonization initiatives. Nevertheless, priorities of the sub-regions will have to be in line with the priorities adopted under the AU reference framework in order to converge towards a pan-african regulatory framework. Sub-regional regulatory harmonization initiatives are at different stages Today a majority of sub-regions have harmonized regional framework. For early starters, regional guidelines are becoming outdated and need to be upgraded to take into account the evolutions of markets and technologies. Some regions anticipated the launch of the HIPSSA project and prepared an action plan for a strong cooperation. HIPSSA will support the review and update of their regional harmonized framework and will initiate the implementation of the revised framework at national level like with SADC and CRASA.

7 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 7 / 26 In some cases, the harmonized regional frameworks were recently adopted like the ECOWAS directives, the ones of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) or the guidelines of COMESA. In some cases, national implementation has been completed in a large number of the member countries except in the CEMAC space where the regional regulatory framework will be first extended before moving on. Late comers to sub-regional harmonization like the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) or the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) struggle against a lack of political support from national governments which face other internal difficulties. In their case, a risk is tangible for a harmonized regional framework not to be implemented at national level. Therefore, further advocacy at national level is required and business and consumers associations can help to raise awareness and concern on the side of policy makers. In these sub-regions, resources should mainly be allocated to national implementations. Smaller REC present strong discrepancies between them like when comparing IGAD, where liberalization is still not fully completed some of the members countries, and the Eastern African Commission (EAC), which shows a healthy telecommunication market and is a front runner in the field of ICT regulation. Some REC presents among their members states significant differences like between Comoros and Mauritius within the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC). A customized work plan for each sub-region The sequential way of proceeding presented earlier needs to be adapted to the current situation of each sub-region. The HIPSSA detailed work plan has to be read keeping in mind the current stage of advancement of ongoing harmonization processes. There is a strong need for regional customization of the mainstream methodology. Depending on the sub regions, the project will start at different steps of the standard harmonization process. Nevertheless, even if at sub-regional level ECOWAS and UEMOA have adopted supplementary acts, CEMAC got new directives, SADC used guidelines that were an example for quite a while and COMESA is now implementing its guidelines at national level, the global harmonization goal remains. To make sure there aren t major divergent dispositions or incompatibilities across the regional regulatory frameworks a preliminary assessment will be conducted, analyzing the differences between them. An expert will review each of their starting points. This study could also include some preparatory work towards the conception of a forward looking continental orientation. Towards a global effort of harmonization at continental level In the wake of the sector liberalization, the ITU contributed to the development of pan-african recommendations published under the name of The African Green Paper in In May 2008, the 2 nd conference of African Ministers in charge of Communication and Information Technologies adopted the reference framework for harmonization of telecommunication and ICT policies and regulation in Africa. HIPSSA project committed to implement some of the actions listed as priorities by this reference framework under the objective of establishing harmonized policy, legal and regulatory frameworks at the regional and continental levels to create an enabling environment that will attract investment and foster the sustainable development of competitive African Telecom/ICT regional markets, infrastructures, and to increase access. However some questions remain open regarding the interaction of HIPSSA as the part of a global project covering ACP countries dedicated to 43 beneficiary countries in Sub-Sahara Africa with the objectives of the African Union Commission (AUC) which is an organization with a larger geographical scope on the African continent. Among them are the potential need for updating the

8 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 8 / 26 Green Paper, the development of pan-african guidelines and the support to the creation of a pan- African regulatory body. In this perspective, a further partner could be sought to support the remaining member countries in North Africa for such activities. Synergies between the HIPSSA project, stakeholders and ITU expertise and resources Strong synergies with other donors supported programs and related ITU activities are sought. Some stakeholders couldn t respond to the invitation to participate to HIPSSA launching meeting. They will be kept informed of further development and their collaboration will be sought. Contribution in kind will be sought from regional integration organizations and beneficiary countries. Hosting administrations can provide facilities for meetings and workshops. They can also take in charge support activities like interpretation and translation. REC should cover the travel expenses of their representatives. In compliance with the ITU rules and procedures only least developed countries (LDC) can request full travel fellowships. On a general basis, only partial fellowships covering the air tickets will be awarded. Provision of accommodation and catering services by stakeholders is welcomed. ITU will provide expertise and resources like experts rosters, training material, advisory services and access to strategic partnerships. Consultants will have access to ITU subject matter s experts in the region and in the headquarters. They will be encouraged to reuse available material developed by ITU teams in their field of expertise. This will be a major advantage for capacity building activities and ensure significant cost saving. To produce training or reference material, the InfoDev ICT regulation toolkit will be used as a starting point. In addition to traditional slides for presentation and handbook-like handouts, real life study cases and hand-on tutorials will be included in the training packages. Customized training material will also be adapted to enable their delivery through e-learning platforms. These cooperation principles were agreed with several ITU-D teams among them the Human Capacity Building. Four examples are detailed below. They are related to four specific topics: cost models, crossborder frequency coordination, cyber-security and analogue-to-digital broadcasting migration. Cost models Based on the success of last High-Level and Expert-Level meetings on cost models held in Geneva in November 2008, collaboration has been initiated with the Regulatory and Market Environment team of ITU-D. Some of their training material will be reused and regulatory accounting and auditing will be added to them. ITU is supporting the COSITU cost model and will be soon releasing its source code. The last trainings ITU offered on that subject didn t limit themselves to the implementation of COSITU but rather focused on how to build a cost model, comparing the relative advantages of different existing cost models and reviewing the general principles on how to use their results. These training intend to respond to the expectations of national experts in different types of situations: 1) The national regulation authority doesn t have a cost model, doesn t have the expertise and doesn t have funding but accepts to use a model from the shelf. 2) The national regulation authority doesn t have a cost model, doesn t have the expertise but has funding to have one develop by an external consultant. 3) The national regulation authority is using COSITU and would like to adapt it to its special needs.

9 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 9 / 26 4) Two regional training sessions are already planned for 2009 in Africa and will be held at the Centres of Excellence, AFRALTI in Nairobi for English speaking countries and ESMT in Dakar for French speaking countries. HIPSSA would set up training workshops in 2010 for COMESA and interested parties. Cyber security Cyber security became a major concern for African governments who realized the danger that such threats would represent if the continent was left without protection against electronic malicious acts. ECOWAS/UEMOA adopted a draft directive against cyber criminality during their last ministerial meetings and their member countries have now plans for creating national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) in pilot countries (Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Ghana) and to have one of them become a regional structure. CEMAC is preparing a directive on cyber security with the support of UNECA. COMESA is preparing a recommendation. An Ad-hoc working group will meet end of April During this meeting, the opportunity to discuss on the setup of a Computer Incident Response Team will also be the objective to have a regional structure. In order to avoid duplication, coordination will be achieved with the team in charge of cyber applications and cyber-security at ITU-D (CYB). This team would provide expertise and possibly procure hardware and software. They will enable beneficiary countries to benefit from the partnership between ITU and IMPACT. The cyber-security team could also take in charge experts and staff missions. HIPSSA would mainly support human capacity building. Cross-border frequency coordination. In Central Africa where several capital cities lie a few kilometres away from the border, major cases of cross-border interferences are handled by the regional association of regulators and the ITU. After a quick overview of international best practices in the field of frequency management, the Harmonised Calculation Method (HCM) Agreement implemented in Europe appeared as a potential solution to provide a harmonized methodology for qualifying these interferences in Africa and avoid them ex ante. Nevertheless, it will require some degree of adaptation. The HCM Agreement, adopted by seventeen EU member states 1, deals with co-ordination of frequencies at borders for the purposes of preventing mutual harmful interference and optimising the use of the frequency spectrum. Its objective is to predict possible interferences among different services and provide proper protection for existing networks, stations, and links or for future services. The HCM Agreement provides for detailed administrative procedures concerning frequency coordination and also includes technical provisions. The HCM software has been developed to ensure harmonised use of the calculation methods laid down in the agreement and is available free of charge. The technical working group verified that the agreement can be extended to any other region with proper adjustments and added default terrain data from other regions among them Africa on the dedicated server. 1 HCM Agreement designate an agreement between the frequency planning authorities of Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Croatia, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Switzerland, regarding the co-ordination of frequencies between 29.7 MHz and 39.5 GHz for the Fixed Service and the Land Mobile Service in accordance with Article 6 of the ITU Radio Regulations.

10 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 10 / 26 A base for collaboration was established with ITU-D Technology and Network Development (TND) team. Analogue-to-Digital Broadcasting Migration ITU-D has been implementing the Digital Broadcasting Roadmap in Africa project with the contribution of the Korean Government. The project consists of two phases. The first phase was devoted for carrying out feasibility study within African countries aiming to collect relevant information on current status of television broadcasting as well as African broadcasters plans in shifting from analogue to digital terrestrial television broadcasting (DTTB) and mobile television (MTV). The second phase has been devoted for the development of guidelines for transition to digital broadcasting, customization of these guidelines for the selected countries and deployment of the pilot systems. The feasibility studies on DTTB and MTV were carried out from January 2008 to July 2008 by two experts and coordinated by TND team. A brief summary of survey s results shows that out of the 22 countries which answered the questionnaire, one third has no plans on how to introduce digital terrestrial broadcasting services, another third is currently developing a plan, one quarter is finalising a plan and one is conducting a trial. The second phase of the project will enable the realization of the project objective of assisting the African countries in making their own roadmap to shift smoothly from analogue to digital terrestrial TV and on the use of mobile TV. This phase is scheduled to be carried out between September 2008 and August A proposal document for the second phase of the project was developed and four countries (Egypt, Ghana, South Africa and Tunisia) were recommended as potential pilot countries for the customization. HIPSSA could support customization of guidelines and roadmaps to each sub-region or extend it to a subset of beneficiary countries. Detailed work plan for each sub-region The African Union recognizes four sub-regions on the continent: North Africa, West Africa, South Africa and East Africa. The ITU Africa Region is mainly covering Sub-Sahara Africa and comprises 43 member countries. The continent is covered by many sub-regional organizations (SRO) which are also referred two regional integration organizations. Some are regional monetary communities (RMC) and they are often consisting in a subset of countries which are members of a larger regional economic community like in West Africa (UEMOA and ECOWAS) and Central Africa (CEMAC and ECCAS). Overlapping of SRO is an issue for a project which has countries as end beneficiaries but which wants also to empower Rio. Some organizations have established formal partnerships to enable close coordination and mutual representation like between ECOWAS and UEMOA. Overlapping is an acute reality in Eastern and Southern Africa. Other regulatory harmonization projects provide a concrete answer to this challenge in a distribution of member countries each of them will look after. In addition, the African Union encourages rationalization of REC and there are on going plans for deepening the regional integration like with the tripartite agreement between SADC, EAC, and COMESA to have a unified common market and customs area.

11 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 11 / 26 ECOWAS / UEMOA In 2004, ITU launched a regional project, in cooperation with the European Union (EU), to support the establishment of an integrated ICT Market in West Africa. The project took place in several steps. During the first two years, workshops were organized on the various regulatory topics and resulted in a final validation workshop. Best practice guidelines were adopted in Accra, Ghana, at the 3rd Ordinary General Assembly of the West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly 2 (WATRA) in September The final guidelines and the reports of the workshops on each regulatory topic are available on the ITU website: Model ICT Law & Policy, Licensing, Interconnection, Number Management, Spectrum Management, Universal access/service. Harmonized ICT regulatory decisions were adopted at the 6 th Meeting of the ECOWAS Ministers in charge of Telecommunications and ICT, held in Abuja Nigeria on 11 May The content body of these decisions was derived from the best practice guidelines adopted in Accra, Ghana, in The final report of the Ministerial meeting and the ECOWAS and the press release are available online on ITU website 3. The decisions previously adopted by the ECOWAS Ministers in charge of Telecommunications and ICTs in Abuja, Nigeria in 2006, were adopted as Supplementary Acts by ECOWAS Authority of Heads of States and Government during its thirty-first session held in Ouagadougou on 19 January ECOWAS and UEMOA already adopted a regional legislative and regulatory framework covering most of the topics the HIPSSA project is supposed to deal with. Therefore, completing all national transpositions in the member countries, monitoring and evaluation for an effective implementation and regulation are there priorities. Within the time scope of the project, both organizations would be interest to jointly conduct a review of their regional framework complying that way with the two years term stated in the Supplementary Acts. This review would enable them to identify if the regional legal framework needs to be upgraded to cope with the latest technological and market evolutions. Additionally, the two SRO identified two specific subjects for which they would like to get technical assistance and capacity building: collection of ICT statistics and cyber security. Completion of national transpositions Full transposition process According to ECOWAS and UEMOA, only four more countries need financial support and technical assistance to complete the full transposition process of the Supplementary Acts into their national legal system: Côte d Ivoire, Mali, Guinea and Ghana After discussion a common agreement was struck between ITU regional experts and SROs ICT expert that enough advocacy work was performed all along the previous ITU-EC project and that only a few meetings with political decision makers within the relevant ministries would be required to initiate the transposition process. These meetings will be performed by the consultants hired to prepare the update of national legal texts with the support of SRO ICT experts and their hierarchy and ITU regional advisers

12 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 12 / 26 This team of consultants will comprise one international consultant familiar with best practices across several regions and a national one with a legal background and a thorough knowledge of the national legal system. Ideally the international consultant could be already based in West Africa. This combination will guarantee to avoid any conflict with other national legal corpus like competition law and compliance with up-to-date practices in the international regulatory arena. In most cases, the preparatory meetings with ministries will require the international consultants to travel to the field and will be an opportunity for short technical meetings with all involved parties. After this initial step, the legal work they will perform will be founded on a gap analysis between the existing national legal framework and the dispositions of the regional one. Based on this analysis, suppressions, additions and modifications will be proposed. In certain cases, the advice of regional technical experts may be sought. This work will be completed within a month with approximately two weeks of work for each consultant. When this study is completed, they will communicate these results to the national expert working group (Comité National Technique de transposition) set up by the Dakar plan of action. This group gathers representatives from policy and legal offices of the relevant ministries including the ones in charge of telecommunications, justice and economy 4, from the national regulation authority s operational and legal departments, from the Parliament s specialized commissions in charge of ICT, from operators and business and consumer associations. Finally, a two day validation and adoption workshop will be organized. One day prior to these meeting, SRO and ITU representatives and experts will meet for coordination and preparation of the meeting. Some additional courtesy calls to national focus points would be arranged if the situation requires them. The first day will be dedicated to the restitution of the experts work and to discussions of amendments propositions submitted in advanced by members of the working group or task force. An agreement will have to be reached during the second day in order to receive the approbation of all parties and the adoption by the government s representatives. The remaining step will be discussions and a final vote with the Parliament. One week long training workshops can be planed to take place back to back to these validation workshops. The transposition experts will then be selected in relation to their ability to prepare training material and conduct the workshop. This type of combination of technical assistance for national implementation and training actions will require some additional work at home from the side of experts and mobilize additional technical experts to work with the international consultant but will also save a lot on travel costs, a significant post in the project s budget. Focused and partial support for ongoing transpositions Niger has already undertaken the preparation of an update of its national legal framework but will require some financial assistance for the validation workshop in a format close to the one described above. A targeted training action could be planed in conjunction with this workshop. Liberia and Gambia would also benefit of capacity building workshops on selected topics among the regulatory subject covered by the Supplementary Acts. Monitoring and evaluation of national transpositions and regulatory implementation The needs reported by the ECOWAS and UEMOA ICT experts will be confirmed by a short study conducted by a regional or international expert familiar with the region and with the national transpositions that were previously completed by some of the REC member countries. 4 Or maybe finance.

13 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 13 / 26 In order to track progress in the national transpositions and the implementation of regulatory dispositions derived from the regional framework further to the adoption of the new national legal framework, the selected expert will be assisted by an international consultant familiar with best practices of regulatory benchmarking in the ICT sector like the EC implementation report or the ECTA regulatory scoreboard. They will conduct jointly a study on methodologies relevant to the sub-region and will conduct a training workshop for the Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (Comité régional de suivi et d évaluation). The resulting training material will be adapted to e-learning requirements to be made available to the members of the National Monitoring and Evaluation Committees (Comité national de suivi et d évaluation). Cyber security ECOWAS and UEMOA ministers in charge of telecommunications and ICT adopted in October 2008 draft directives on cyber criminality and personal data protection during their respective meetings in Praia (Cape Verde) and Cotonou (Benin). They also recommended the creation of Computer Incident Response Centers and the training of all involved stakeholders. The first regional meeting on cyber-security in Africa was held in Yamoussoukro, Côte d Ivoire, and repeated these same recommendations. The sub-region is therefore proposing to assist 3 pilot countries in order for them to set up Computer Incident Response Centers or Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) and later extend the setup of equivalent structures in all member states. These pilot countries are Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Ghana, Burkina Faso being candidate to assume the role of a Regional CERT and take the lead of the network of national CERT in the regions. Ivory Coast prepared a feasibility study which is not yet publicly available but provides detailed cost information of the actions to be undertaken when setting up a CERT in the sub-region. This pilot projects will be supplemented by the training actions in favor of the following stakeholders: national regulation authorities, law professionals, parliamentarians, law enforcement officers, and consumer associations active in the ICT sector. A partnership between ITU-D CYB team and the HIPSSA project is envisaged to share the activities to be conducted in this field of expertise. Hardware and software could be acquired through direct assistance to the countries from ITU-D and the project would take care of training workshops with CYB providing expert and taking in charge missions of its staff. Finalizing ECOWAS system for tracking ICT indicators (SIGTEL) SIGTEL requires an ongoing update of its information system of the personnel managing it and of the national focal point providing the measurements of these indicators. The promotion of its current computer technician to another ECOWAS department will leave the position empty and will require a new recruitment, a thorough hand-over and some additional training actions. Review of ECOWAS/UEMOA regional harmonized regulatory framework The HIPSSA project is running until mid-2011 and all national transpositions will be completed by mid In the meantime markets and technologies will have significantly evolved. Therefore, ECOWAS would like to initiate a study to review its legal texts composing the regional regulatory framework adopted in 2006 and In this perspective, a disposition was included in the Supplementary Acts adopted by ECOWAS and UEMOA which plans to initiate such review beginning of 2011.

14 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 14 / 26 CEMAC The conference of CEMAC Ministers in charge of telecommunications and ICT met in Brazzaville, Congo in November 2008 and adopted a regulation, five directives and a decision creating a regional regulatory framework for the sector. These legislative and regulatory acts still need to be adopted by the Ministerial Council and the Head of Sates Summit to come into force.. Regulation N 21/08-UEAC-133-CM-18 relative to the harmonization of regulations and policies for electronic communications in the CEMAC member states. Directive N 10/08-UEAC-133-CM-18 harmonizing legal frameworks of activities related to electronic communications in the CEMAC member states. Directive N 09/08-UEAC-133-CM-18 harmonizing establishment and control modalities of electronic communications tariffs in the CEMAC space. Directive N 08/08-UEAC-133-CM-18 relative to interconnection and access to electronic communications networks and services in the CEMAC member states. Directive N 07/08-UEAC-133-CM-18 establishing a legal framework for electronic communications networks and services users rights in the CEMAC space. Directive N 06/08-UEAC-133-CM-18 relative to universal service in the sector of electronic communications in the CEMAC member states. Decision N 45/08-UEAC-133-CM-18 creating the Regulatory Technical Committee for electronic communications in the CEMAC member states. This sub regional regulatory harmonization initiative was conducted with the financial support of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF). It was implemented by Mr. Isidore Embola, CEMAC ICT Expert in collaboration with Mr. Jacques Blanchet of ACP Numérique. The development of legal acts was completed by Mr. Eric Vève. The Ministers conference entrusted the CEMAC Commission with a further mandate in the field of ICT policy and regulation. The objectives of this new mandate are the development of three more legal acts to supplement the seven existing ones: A directive on cyber-criminality and cyber-security with the support of UNECA, A directive on international interconnection outside of the sub region and A decision regarding the composition and the functioning of Regulatory Technical Committee created by the decision N 45/08-UEAC-133-CM-18. This sub-regional initiative is linked in a certain extend with the Central African Backbone (CAB) project financed by the World Bank. In order to ensure an open access to this new infrastructure, an update of national regulation may be required. Once the regional regulatory framework completed, CEMAC member states will start to transpose these regional acts into their national legal framework with the support of the CEMAC Commission National transposition synchronized with ECCAS national implementation These national transpositions will have to be planned in coordination with ECCAS and completed in synchronization (simultaneously) with the updates of national legal framework based on ECCAS guidelines. ARTAC, the regional association of regulators, will be closely associated to these activities.

15 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 15 / 26 ECCAS Until now, ECCAS doesn t have an «acquis communautaire» in the ICT sector. Despite ECCAS efforts to re-launch its activities in 1998, some areas haven t been covered yet like the harmonization of telecommunications and ICT national policies and regulation, development of broadband infrastructures interconnecting member states and capacity building for ICT A first step was completed with the UNECA support who conducted an assessment study of the ICT sector in Central Africa. Based on this first study ECCAS Executive Secretariat set up the RENFOR program with the ACBF financial support. Mr. Emmanuel Kamdem, ECCAS ICT Expert went on with the assessment of the telecommunications and ICT sector in Central Africa. Validation workshop of telecommunications and ICT sector s assessment for Central Africa The conclusions of the two assessment studies, first, on regulation and policy and, second, on infrastructures and services were validated by representatives of key stakeholders of the sector s development during a validation workshop held in Douala, Cameroon, end October The analysis of these two complementary dimensions led to the preparation of reference documents that will be used to adopt the sub regional organization s action plan: A draft reference framework for national policies and regulations was developed by Mr. Gaston Zongo, consultant. A draft regional strategic plan for the development of basic infrastructures in Central Africa was developed by M. Lucien Nana, consultant. In parallel, a pilot data base on telecommunications infrastructures, networks and services was implemented by Mr. Paul Hamilton, consultant. Restitution workshop of telecommunications and ICT sector s assessment for Central Africa A second workshop will be held in N djamena, Chad, in March 2009 with the objective of presenting to all national focal points and stakeholders the final versions of the two documents mentioned earlier. ECCAS Ministers Council ECCAS Ministers will adopt the two reference documents during the next Council session. In order to ensure an optimal synergy between the two sub-regional organizations of Central Africa and allow smooth national implementations of both harmonization processes, the Council would ideally include the discussion of CEMAC directives on its agenda and possibly proceed to the adoption of these acts as useful reference or guidelines with the opportunity to supplement them with further dispositions. «Assises nationales» ECCAS telecommunication and ICT policies and regulations harmonization initiative faces three major weaknesses (1) the lack of political support some national decision makers, (2) internal difficulties of some member states and (3) the fact that the ECCAS treaty do not provide instruments adapted to harmonization of policies and regulations like directives and frameworkdirectives. In addition, multiple memberships of some certain member states with several REC cab

16 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 16 / 26 be seen as a weakness or as an asset. Therefore, ECCAS is defending a strategy focusing more on the national level than on the regional one. The development of the harmonized regional framework shouldn t receive too much of the available resources. Most of the resources should be allocated to national level in order to deliver a significant volume of activities. A broad participation of all kind of stakeholders should be promoted through an open process of consultation. The form having the preference of the REC would be a sort of national forum called Assises nationales enabling weak stakeholders to be heard and strong ones to assume their responsibilities. A tight cooperation with business and consumers associations will help to raise awareness among political decision makers. The HIPSSA project will support advocacy activities with the help of external consultants that will also developed revised national legal frameworks in line with the orientations given by the ECCAS reference documents and CEMAC directives, when applying. At the end of this consultation process, the revised legislation should be adopted by the governments and presented to the parliaments. In order to help national regulation authorities to rapidly and efficiently use the new regulatory tools the revised legislation is catering them, massive multi-stakeholders training sessions should be provided on an national basis. Regional ICT Observatory ECCAS with the financial support of ACBF has planned a feasibility study for a regional ICT observatory collecting ICT indicators measurements and also geographical data on infrastructures network and services. This study is programmed to be completed by mid-november As mentioned earlier a pilot database has been developed by Mr. Paul Hamilton and a production version should be up and running by mid-march It will then become the first asset the Observatory would be entrusted with. HIPPSA with the help of the ITU-D team specialized in statistical data collection and interpretation could provide a regional training workshop. IGAD IGAD is cooperating with other REC in the East and Southern African joint Regional ICT Support Programme (RICTSP). IGAD, COMESA, EAC and IOC prepared a joint request to the EU for funding under the 9 th European Development Fund (EDF9). An agreement was signed in November The period of execution of the project ends on 30 June 2011 but the operational implementation phase ends on 30 June RICTSP is implemented by COMESA as Regional Authorizing Officer (RAO). Following a decentralized approach, IGAD acts as Delegated Regional Authorizing Officer (DRAO) and is in charge of the implementation of the program in five out of the seven countries in IGAD Region, namely, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan. Kenya and Uganda (members of the IGAD) are beneficiaries of the same project under East African Community (EAC). The RICTSP beneficiary countries under each REC are listed below.

17 HIPSSA project s implementation strategy Page 17 / 26 Table 1 - RICTSP beneficiary countries under each REC IGAD EAC COMESA IOC Djibouti Kenya Angola Comoros Eritrea Tanzania Burundi Madagascar Ethiopia Uganda Dem. Rep. Congo Mauritius Somalia Malawi Seychelles Sudan Rwanda Swaziland Zambia Zimbabwe (Source: IGAD request to ITU) The RICTSP contains various sets of activities aimed at achieving three key result areas: 1. The development, and monitoring of implementation, of ICT policy guidelines and strategies and monitoring of e-readiness status; 2. The provision of high speed internet connectivity to regional key stakeholders to reduce costs of doing business in the region and promote migration to a new information system for customs in selected countries (ASYCUDA++); 3. Improved and more efficient access to economic, commercial and policy information of practical use and the establishment of incubator projects to demonstrate the viability of the internet, including e-commerce. Improved capacity for entrepreneurs to exploit ICT opportunities and e-commerce techniques. Only the first result area (R1) presents a strong potential for synergy and a high need for coordination. Furthermore, the HIPSSA project should avoid duplicating a network of national focal points in the regions and may be permitted to have access to the organizational structure set up for RICTSP namely the National ICT Working Group (NICTWG). National policy guidelines, strategies and regulatory framework NICTWG prepared terms of reference (ToR) for the recruitment of short-term experts for the development of ICT policy, strategies and regulatory framework to be adopted at national level in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti. Table 2 IGAD member countries status of ICT Policy/Strategy and regulatory framework Country ICT Policy ICT Bill or legislation Djibouti ICT Strategy None Eritrea No National ICT Policy but Sectoral policies exist None Ethiopia Yes None ICT Regulator(s) Operator & Gov t Communications Dept. Gov t Communications Dept Ethiopia Telecom. Authority (ETA) Other Instruments None None Broadcasting Authority Somalia NONE NONE NONE NONE