Action Line C6 Enabling Environment: Collaborative regulation for digital transformation

Regulation has entered a new age. The days when regulators dealt with pure technology changes – such as the analogue to digital transition – are over. Today, digital transformation is sweeping across whole economies, changing our outlook forever. As mobile phones have become even more ubiquitous in their coverage and use, they have also become portals to a host of online services.  Regulators find themselves grappling with an ever-growing array of challenges associated across different sectors – including digital identity, data protection, blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

It has become increasingly clear that Telecom/ICT policy makers and regulators must work together as well as with other stakeholders to shape our common future in ways that make the most of the benefits of digital technologies, while safeguarding and protecting consumers. Collaborative strategies, policies and regulatory measures across the sectors are required where one takes into consideration the needs across the sectors and develops and promotes the necessary support systems and the appropriate policies to enhance connectivity and create the required awareness and skills to allow ICTs to foster digital transformation and the digital economy.  Such actions will help improve people’s lives around the world and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Proposed Panel Content

This session will address critical questions policymakers need to address to ensure cohesion, consistency, and coordination, and avoid overlaps in terms regulatory collaboration for digital transformation.   The immediate questions are how to collaborate and with whom?

Panelists will highlight the respective roles and responsibilities of regulators and market players, identify challenges and opportunities of regulatory collaboration, and discuss how to more effectively build synergies and identify collaborative approaches to address existing challenges, promote dialogue, and thus enable digital transformation.