|
Mr Chairman, Honourable Ministers, Secretary General
ITU, Excellencies, Distinguished ladies and gentleman, all
Protocols observed,
The CTO is honoured for this opportunity to make some brief
remarks at this Forum , and we thank the Secretary General for
this invitation. The CTO and the ITU have collaborated in many
ways in the past, most recently at a joint Forum in Sri Lanka
only two weeks ago on Standardisation for Next Generation
Networks (NGNs). We are pleased therefore to support this ITU
effort to improve the development of telecom policies. The
Secretary General and his ITU colleagues must be commended for a
report to this Forum that rightfully describes convergence,
increasing ubiquity in mobile access, the growth of the
Internet, and the development of NGNs as amongst the main
driving forces spurring on revolutionary changes in the ICT
world today.
While appreciating the S-G’s report and the contributions of
many countries and experts to its production, we are yet
reminded of some long standing challenges that still exist. One
of these, which this Forum could debate more robustly, is the
continuing problem of poor rural access to ICTs, especially in
developing countries, and the special, creative policies
required to improve such access. We are all aware that
inadequate rural access will have a detrimental effect on the
ability of many countries to achieve their Millennium
Development Goals or those set out in the WSIS declarations. And
some may argue that convergence and NGNs will automatically lead
to improvements in rural access. But we cannot forget at an
important global summit of this nature that despite the
phenomenal and much publicised increase in mobile penetration in
recent years, some 60% of people in many parts of our world
still have no access to basic ICTs, and that the majority of
these people live in rural areas. As policy makers and policy
analysts, we cannot avoid the obvious reality at this Forum that
the main remaining battlefield in the war against poverty-- in
which ICTs are such an important and potent weapon-- is the
rural space.
In a policy Forum like this, we must be willing to undertake
a critical assessment of why previous efforts to achieve
universal access have not succeeded and discuss what kinds of
new policies, legislation, regulation and business models will
encourage faster investment in ICT operations aimed at rural and
marginalised communities. We must also recognise the special
challenge of mobilising financial resources for rural
connectivity, at a time of global resource constraints even in
industrialised countries. There is no doubt that there still is
a funding gap in addressing the needs of the truly impoverished
and rural communities which the private sector alone cannot
bridge.
Members and friends of the CTO, many of whom are attending
this Forum, may be aware that over the last five years, the CTO
has undertaken a wide range of initiatives, including research
with rural communities and other stakeholders, capacity building
and training, as well as the delivery of knowledge-sharing
events dedicated to improving rural access. This work has
enabled us to consult those at the frontline of these efforts
and has therefore given the CTO what I believe is an unrivalled
understanding of the challenges at hand.
We understand that the challenges include, but are not
limited to: the incorrect advice given to many governments for
years that they had no role in investing public funds to connect
rural people; the relatively low institutional capacity of
fledgling ICT ministries and regulators; the focus of some ICT
operators on mostly urban markets; poor or non-existent
electricity supply in many rural communities; the difficulty in
creating sustainable and profitable business models for rural
services; the topography of some communities that can make the
roll out of conventional infrastructure unviable; and delays and
uncertainty amongst Universal Service and Access agencies on the
most appropriate ways to invest their accumulated resources.
Of course, these are just a few of the challenges.
Nevertheless, we at the CTO are excited about the potential to
connect rural communities and are eager to contribute to the
development of policies in our member countries that will help
seize the many opportunities. Let me highlight just four key
challenges that the development of appropriate policy could turn
into reality.
We need to develop policies that promote Public Private
Partnership Peoples’ (PPPPs) models, with the emphasis on the
last P—People. By ensuring through better policies that those at
the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) play an active role in
initiatives aimed at providing them with connectivity and
services, we can ensure that services are demand driven and
sustainable. Rural users and the civil society organisations,
traditional authorities and community agencies that often
represent them, can play instrumental roles in PPPP’s if and
when the public and private sectors give them a meaningful
opportunity to. A policy framework that actively encourages the
development of 4Ps would be easy to implement and would create a
wealth of benefits for all.
This forum must encourage the development of ICT policies
that encourage what I call “collaborative competition” or
”competitive collaboration”. Operators, in particular, must
learn to collaborate even as they compete, and to compete
efficiently whilst they collaborate with others. And so must
nation states and regulatory regimes. Our governments,
regulatory agencies, Universal Service Funding agencies,
operators and equipment manufacturers must all must avoid
playing Zero Sum games and work more together in order to create
a host of synergies. We have already seen examples of this with
the growing number of mobile operators who have entered into
co-location agreements that have reduced CAPEX in rural areas
and extended roll-out. But this has come after many years of
very expensive duplicated capital expenditure, for which
consumers are still paying, and which has delayed rural
penetration. While the depth of collaborative competition within
the ICT sector will vary, the need for policies that reward ICT
players who develop such relationships could be quickly devised
and implemented.
Mr Chairman, the CTO’s research indicates that, contrary to
some industry opinion, many rural users have the ability, and
are willing to pay for services. Moreover, their desires and
what they are willing to pay for goes well beyond basic
connectivity and includes services that could have a positive
impact on efforts towards achieving the MDGs. In addition to
entertainment services such as music ringtones, many rural users
will demand a range of financial services – not just money
transfer – as well as services that provide health, education
and job opportunities, all of which will positively impact on
their livelihoods. This latent demand for services also
indicates that with the right policies and initiatives it may,
and indeed should, be possible to draw rural dwellers into the
global ICT processing, supply and demand chains. What is needed
are the right national policies and new business models and
products from discerning operators and service providers.
Innovative lost cost, low power and reliable rural
connectivity solutions are being developed and could be used to
provide services in those rural locations where more
conventional, more widely used technologies are just not
appropriate. Operators can incorporate these technologies and
solutions into their services offerings and reach untapped
markets. Again, policies that mandate energy efficient offerings
by operators could improve rural connectivity.
There is a huge amount of technical knowledge, innovation and
drive within the private sector of many developing countries.
Much of this could be used to develop services that rural users
would demand, if the right policies would promote them. However,
in many countries, the indigenous private sector is not
motivated by creative policies to create the innovative local
content services that rural users demand. Despite the WSIS
declarations that emphasised the need to nurture local content
producers, few governments have taken any active steps to do so.
Devising policies that will help develop these local experts
will not only help to create local content for which there is
effective demand, but also will help fledgling content
industries to mature. This is why in another forum the CTO has
proposed the creation, for example, of an African ICT Content
Development Fund. Other regions of the world, such as the
Caribbean region, could benefit from creating similar regional
funds and mechanisms.
The CTO looks forward to discussions in this Lisbon Forum on
the subject of rural connectivity and the promotion of policies
that can enhance this important objective. We hope that as four
proposed working groups focus on the issues of convergence and
Internet-related public policies, next-generation networks,
emerging policy and regulatory issues and international telecom
regulations, they will devote some time to the special needs of
the rural poor and propose policies to address this large
segment of the world’s underserved market.
We at the CTO will continue our efforts to undertake further
research, consultancies, training and knowledge-sharing events
on this subject, with a view to contributing our quota to this
important ICT policy agendum. I am confident that together we
can develop better policies to seize the many opportunities that
will enable the remaining 2 billion-plus unconnected people in
this world to become an integral part of the global information
society.
Thank you.
|
