10th Forum on Telecom/ICT Regulation and Partnership in Africa

FTRA 2009

Lusaka, Zambia, 20-22nd May 2009.
"UNIVERSAL SERVICE/ACCESS FUND"

The 10th Forum on Telecommunication/ICT Regulation and Partnership in Africa (FTRA-2009) was held in Lusaka, Zambia from 20 to 22 May 2009. This three day forum was organized by the ITU at the kind invitation of the Government of the Republic of Zambia through the Communications Authority of Zambia (CAZ), in close collaboration with the African Telecommunications Regulators’ Network and the African Regional Working Party on private sector issues. Over 150 delegates attended from 30 countries and 15 Organizations and participants included regulators, policy makers and ITU-D Sector Members as well as representatives of regional and international organizations.

The theme of the FTRA-2009, Universal Access and Service Fund (UASF), emanated from the proposals made by the participants of the 9th Forum on the Telecommunication/ICT Regulation and Partnership in Africa held in Dakar, Senegal from 4th to 6th June 2008, where it was recognised that, despite an impressive growth in telecommunication penetration and access to ICT due to the liberalization of the sector, the less privileged part of the population, the majority of which live in rural areas, still had no or limited access to ICT services even in countries which had successfully included in their legislation the necessary amendments or new legal instruments to establish a Universal Access and Service Fund (UASF).

The 10th Forum on Telecommunication/ICT Regulation and Partnership in Africa (FTRA-2009) addressed this issue and in particular the difficulty in disbursing the funds collected through UASFs. A Background Report, compiled by ITU, was used as the working document for the forum, based on telecommunications/ICT Indicators for Africa for 2008 and the responses to questionnaires which were specifically prepared and sent to all countries for this purpose.

This forum provided the opportunity to analyze in depth the mechanisms for the allocation and use of UASFs and adopted 10 recommendations in order to promote the roll out of networks and services to rural areas.