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Support for Harmonization of the ICT Policies in Sub-Sahara Africa (HIPSSA)
  This project is a scaled up pilot project that was funded by EC and ITU and successfully implemented in West Africa. 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.
During the initial phase, the project will support respective countries in their on-going efforts to create harmonized regional telecommunication/ICT markets with possibility for a pan-African market as well as assist member countries without ICT policies to develop them. Countries with ICT policies will be supported in reviewing and up-dating while striving to harmonize them as regional/pan-African ICT policies.
The project will address the regulatory challenges facing the beneficiary countries with the goal of creating an environment conducive to massive investments in ICT infrastructure and ICT-enabled applications which the countries will adopt for day to day use in their economic and social activities. This is the over riding objective for the African countries which is in line with the goals of the WTDC (Doha, 2006) and the WSIS.
Policies, models, recommendations and guidelines will be developed by a team of experts and will be validated by countries in face to face workshops. Following validation of the policies/models/recommendations/guidelines, the material will be transferred to regional organizations with a view for joint adoption at the technical level and the development of related directives that countries may wish to commit themselves to, at the political level. Training courses will be developed and delivered to regional and national trainers who will use their expertise to enhance the required skills and capacity of all target groups at the national level in order to facilitate the transposition of the models and guidelines into national policy, regulation and legislation.
This project will result in the creation of a policy, legal and regulatory frameworks conducive to more significant investments in the ICT infrastructure. The development of ICT infrastructure in many African countries has mostly taken place in an environnement constrained by short term considerations, lacking coherence and flexibility. The challenge is therefore to ensure that a well coordinated approach towards infrastructure development responding to the needs of the countries in a more comprehensive, cost effective, strategic and most efficient manner is put in place.
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