The ITU Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR) took place in Port Vila, Vanuatu, from 9-12 July.
Regulators from around the world identified and endorsed a set of
regulatory Best Practice Guidelines to fast forward digital
connectivity and allow people everywhere to benefit from digital
transformation and participate in today's digital economy.
The Guidelines emphasize the need for a more actionable, collaborative, and
innovative outcome-based approach to regulation. They urge regulators and
all stakeholders to be open to new regulatory tools and solutions and act
now.
The
GSR-19 Best Practice Guidelines
call for the adoption of three new and innovative approaches for achieving
inclusive digital infrastructure and services, based on:
-
Core design principles for collaborative regulation
− to help respond to new technology paradigms and business
models.
-
Benchmarks for regulatory excellence and market performance
− grounding regulatory decisions in robust, multifaceted and
thoughtfully interpreted evidence can prove instrumental in generating
positive market dynamics in the short and long term.
-
Regulatory tools and approaches at hand for enabling digital
experimentation −
to contribute towards improving digital market outcomes, countries need
to leap forward to the next level of collaborative regulation with a
new attitude and a new toolbox.
At GSR we debated many of the obstacles and barriers to achieve global
connectivity from affordability, to trust and security concerns, to lack of
digital skills/awareness, to lack of relevant content.
We laid out the key ingredients to tackle these barriers including
collaboration, innovation, cooperation, community engagement, education,
partnerships, and more… noting that there is no one right model no
one right recipe - each country must adapt
We reaffirmed, through frank and interactive conversations the urgency to
act if we want to achieve inclusive connectivity - while being
technologically inclusive too.
Complacency is not an option. If we cannot tackle the connectivity
challenge we will not achieve social and economic development - we will not
achieve the 2030 agenda.
This is our collective responsibility. The responsibility for each and
every one of us.
