Page 9 - SAMENA Trends - June-August 2021

SAMENA COUNCIL ACTIVITY SAMENA TRENDS

ndustry and private sector leaders gathered online on 22 June 2021 to discuss
collaborative regulations for digital transformation, creating a more friendly win-win
Ienabling environment in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the recovery phase.
Organized on the occasion of the Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR-21), the meeting adopted
an outcome statement, which was presented to GSR-21, representing an industry perspective on
development and regulatory issues.

In her opening remarks, Ms. Doreen Bogdan
Martin, the BDT Director, highlighted the
incredible opportunity the ICT sector had been
presented with during the COVID-19 crisis. She
emphasized the important role the private
sector and industry play along with all other
stakeholders to connect the remaining half of the
world’s population.

Mr. Bocar Ba, CEO of SAMENA Telecommunications
Council and Chairman of the meeting, gave
an overview of IAGDI-CRO and its mandate in
accordance with WTDC-17 Resolution 71. He
encouraged ITU Sector Members and Member
States to support ITU-D’s work and promote the
sector.

Multi-stakeholder collaborations

Participants agreed that enhancing collaborations is crucial for the society to address the challenges of
COVID-19 and connect the unconnected. The sanitary crisis has revealed that enabling frequent dialogues
could lead to fast response to the pandemic, and the industry called for more conversations with regulators.
Simply put “it takes a village” to pull through crisis, and to ensure that no party is working in vacuum.
Mr. David Kirkpatrick, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Techonomy, highlighted the importance of mobilizing
the private sector in stronger, durable, and innovative partnership approaches. Taking the example of
the GIGA project, he believed that the private sector could bring endless creativity to connect people all
around the world and there should be new ways of working together.
Ms. Kui Kinyanjui, Head of Regulatory and Public Policy at Safaricom, used the example of the education
sector to show how partnerships between the government and various former competitors of the private
sector could be realized with a purpose. During the pandemic, efforts to make online learning accessible,
both in terms of hardware and contents, had enabled transformative, easy access to quality education.
Another example to take note of was described
by Ms. Maria Alexandra Velez, Senior Director
of Government and Regulatory Affairs at SBA
Communications, where the industry service in
Brazil worked hand-in-hand in a partnership with the
municipal authorities. Their myriads of expertise in
connectivity and deployment of infrastructure were
shared and expressed, to bring forward a creative
regulatory environment serving the benefit of all
relevant sides and the general public.
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9 JUN-AUG 2021