ICT Policy Formulation and e-Strategy Development: A ... - un-apcict

ICTs promote human development and help achieve the goal of reducing poverty in three
ways:
· By facilitating access to knowledge and information-sharing;
· By helping developing countries catch up and be part of the evolving information
economy; and
· By acting as enablers of development by encouraging empowerment.
ICT policies and e-strategies need to address these issues.
e-Strategies for Infrastructure Development
ICT strategies will need to consider telecommunications strategies governing access to the
networking and communication media. Of particular concern is the development of Internet
access strategies. The key is to ensure the availability of as much bandwidth as is necessary to
users in the country at a cost that is as low as possible, consistent with the commercial operation
of the telecommunications network. In order to limit expenses for unused bandwidth,
bandwidth-provisioning solutions based on dynamic bandwidth allocation may be appropriate.
These include ensuring bandwidth coming to the country, and by extension, meeting
bandwidth requirements within the country. The development of national ICT infrastructure
is the purview of the national operators, but government has a role in developing the policy
that will guide and encourage infrastructure development efforts and investments because
this is in the public interest. Universal access policies, for example, are intended to do just that.
The demand for access to the network will drive the growth of national ICT infrastructures and
Government policies will help relate the right market conditions to make this happen.
The concern of ICT strategy should be with ways to spur the growth of national infrastructure
in a manner that keeps costs down so that the largest number can benefit from its use. Universal
access policies are intended to ensure that all inhabitants of a country are assured of receiving
basic telecommunications services. These services have invariably been considered to include
access to the telephone but are defined more broadly by WTO (see Box 7 on next page).
Encouraging competition
Probably the most important consideration in preparing an infrastructure development strategy
is the need to encourage competing telecommunications and Internet access solutions, services
and providers. Competition is key to delivering value and service to ICT users. Past experience
has demonstrated that monopoly operators overcharge and may also limit access to the
Internet. Consistent with this policy is the need to ensure that peering 2 among and between
telecommunications, especially Internet service providers (ISPs), is assured.
A strong and independent regulatory regime
A strong regulatory agency is required. This agency will be responsible for overseeing the
2
See ‘What is peering?’; available at http://iroi.seu.edu.cn/books/ee_dic/whatis/peering.htm.
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ICT Policy Formulation and e-Strategy Development