Connecting Africa and Asia: ICT policy research and practice for the global south

Citation

Gillwald, A. (2013), "Connecting Africa and Asia: ICT policy research and practice for the global south", info, Vol. 15 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/info-06-2013-0036

Connecting Africa and Asia: ICT policy research and practice for the global south

Article Type:

Guest editorial

From:

info, Volume 15, Issue 5

The global south is afflicted by an absence of high-level skills and insufficiently numerous and prolific scholars in the area of information communications technology (ICT) policy and regulation. Where such pockets of research do exist, historically they have been disconnected and not engaged in the kind of debate that spurs academic excellence to inform innovative policy reform. A regular forum to bring together scholars in Africa, Asia and Latin America to engage rigorously on ICT policy and regulation is vital to nurturing such intellectuals to drive policy reform. In the tradition of the US ICT scholar and practitioner gathering, the Telecommunications Policy and Regulation Conference (TPRC) held in Washington annually, and the European Communications Policy and Regulation conference (EuroCPR), a vehicle for this in the global south, CPRsouth was launched for Asia by LIRNEasia in 2006. This was followed in 2010 with the first conference of CPRafrica organized by Research ICT Africa.

With support from the International Development Research Council (IDRC), CPRsouth and CPRafrica conferences have brought together academics, practitioners and young scholars to engage on topical policy and regulatory issues on the basis of peer-reviewed research. The objectives are two pronged: first, to improve the quality and output of research in the area of ICT policy and regulation; and second, to enable African scholars to engage in global debates and through this to support the development of intellectuals able to conduct rigorous policy and regulatory research, to contribute toward evidence-based policy formulation in the South, and positively influence ICT policy outcomes.

In collaboration with info editor Colin Blackman, the best papers of the annual conference have been published in special African issues since 2011. This third special Africa-Asia issue includes the best papers of the first combined CPRafrica/CPRsouth conference hosted by Research ICT Africa and the University of Mauritius in 2012.

With the theme of “Connecting Africa and Asia: ICT Policy Research and Practice for the Global South”, the conference was appropriately held in Port Louis, Mauritius, the long-time cultural and economic meeting point of Africa and Asia. The diversity of the papers reflects the dynamism within the sector in Asia and Africa but also the unevenness of development. Unresolved policy and regulatory problems continue to plague large parts of both continents as do the challenges of new era regulation that need to be addressed simultaneously if these countries are to fulfil their promise of becoming the growth markets of the future.

Resulting from a collaboration arising from a previous CPR conference Ibrahim Kholilul Rohman, from Indonesia and Christoph Stork from Namibia demonstrate the importance of price transparency in Indonesia’s massive telecommunication market with the number of active SIM cards reaching 220 million in a population of nearly 240 million. With eight mobile operators competing fiercely for market share, and a pricing structure for cellular services that is unique, this is critical to ensuring that consumers are well informed concerning the range of services and prices available. Besides conventional price discrimination between on-net and off-net, peak and off-peak rates, loyalty discounts, and airtime cash-backs, prices differ also by region and distance, with both per minute and per second billing in addition to flat-rate billing. With complexity of product design and pricing amplified by misleading advertising, a straight product comparison is impossible for consumers. The authors propose the Rohman-Stork Pricing Index as a way for the Indonesian Telecommunication Regulation Agency (BRTI) to create transparency and monitor price developments in the market.

Also in the LIRNEasia and RIA tradition of seeking alternative regulatory strategies appropriate to the environment in which they are to be applied, Roshanthi Gunaratne and Rohan Samarajiva proposed that on the basis of regressions which indicate that income and education are the primary drivers of internet use, an evidence-based estimation using the readily available HDI data can be used to define a new index that will provide a more accurate estimate of the proportion of individuals using the internet. They contend that there are significant shortcomings in the current method of estimating the indicator “proportion of internet users” in the absence of demand-side surveys, which is the case in most developing countries, by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Errors in such base indicators ripple through the multilateral system, causing significant errors in composite indicators, which this method could limit.

The benefits of having such demand side indicators is evident in the paper by Christoph Stork, Enrico Calandro and Alison Gillwald which is able to demonstrate that the mobile phone is now the key entry point for internet use in Africa. The previous RIA ICT household and individual user survey undertaken in 2008 showed alarmingly little access to the internet on the continent, together with a large-scale absence of computers and smart phones, all of which were compounded by the high cost of connectivity. Mobile access to the internet over the past three years has increased internet penetration to 15.5 per cent across from less than 2 per cent on average. Mobile internet requires fewer ICT skills and financial resources, and does not rely on electricity at home, compared to computer or laptop and fixed-internet access, in general. Other findings highlight the unevenness of internet take-up across and within countries. Understanding prepaid mobile internet further provides a pro-poor dimension to public policies seeking to improve internet access, which historically was available and affordable only to the elite.

Mariama Deen-Swarray, Mpho Moyo and Christoph Stork’s paper analyses access to and use of ICTs among informal businesses providing fascinating insights into the extent to which informal businesses employ ICTs in their daily activities, and the challenges they face in making use of ICTs. The study uses the extraordinarily rich data set garnered from ten African countries to show that mobile phones remain the most commonly used ICT among informal businesses, while the use of other ICTs (such as fixed-lines, computers and the internet) remains negligible. Small businesses were found to communicate more with their suppliers than with their customers via mobile phone. They attribute the lack of use of the different kinds of ICTs to need, affordability, availability and access.

The challenge of bringing the benefits of ICTs are also the focus of Jaime Manalo’s paper. He provides insights into how the challenges in bringing the benefits of ICTs to agricultural production can be met through the use of infomediaries. Using the rice-farming communities in the Philippines, this paper makes the case for context-specific innovative strategies. This was done with the use of Filipino youth so that even those in the uplands might benefit from ICT-based initiatives. His research demonstrates that schools can serve as the nucleus for agricultural extension, because farmers’ children converge in school and have necessary ICT skills though they are currently hampered by the dearth of adequate computer access points.

Manalo’s call for policy responsiveness to support such initiatives and use of the underlying research as evidence for effective implementation is echoed in the paper by Nuwan Waidyanatha, Kasun Perera, Manoj Silva, Brenda Burrell and Tichafara Sigauke, which entails a utility evaluation of a disaster management system. They contend that as telephone calls are the predominant telecommunication mode in Sri Lanka, that is the mode that should be used for disaster communication. After an experiment with interactive voice for connecting community-based emergency field operatives with their central disaster co-ordination hub they conclude that voice-enabled information exchange is useful and easy to use, because it diminishes the need for computer literacy and removes language barriers.

Jecton Anyango Tocho and Timothy Mwololo Waema from the University of Nairobi focus on the topical issue of e-waste and the responsibilities of e-waste stakeholders, how they dispose of e-waste, and the challenges they face in Kenya. After a comprehensive assessment of how other countries manage e-waste, they focus on the lessons Kenya can learn. They conclude that Kenya has an opportunity to create a robust e-waste industry with the potential for significant job creation.

The paper by former CPRafrica Young Scholars, Kathleen Diga, Fortune Nwaiwu and Paul Plantinga, explores how policymakers in South Africa, Uganda and Nigeria negotiate the complex relationship between ICTs and poverty reduction. Using a novel framework for analysing the extent to which the multiple dimensions of poverty are being addressed within African ICT policy they ask whether the appropriate institutional arrangements and policy processes are being adopted to do this. They argue that the dominance of an economic focus tends to downplay the human, political and social factors that influence policy outcomes. They argue that more participatory approaches to ICT implementation, if appropriated fully by policymakers and their agents, may lead to a more “contextually anchored” approach to ICT-supported poverty reduction.

Sticking with policy but moving to the area of content and broadcasting, Chris Armstrong provides unique insights into South African TV policymaking in the early democratic era. He explores the “disconnect” between policy intent and policy implementation in relation to the proposed devolved of television broadcasting to the regional and local level. Examining the first decade of democratic reform in the nineties he provides a detailed account of the impact of ruptures in deliberative policymaking and policy implementation failure which undermined sub-national TV delivery and, in turn, pursuit of the public interest objectives of universality and diversity.

Together these papers provide a transection of the dynamism of the sector in several developing countries across African and Asia and the policy and regulatory challenges that face them. All the papers provide policy critiques and recommendations on how these problems may be addressed, or how decision makers within these countries might enable the potential benefits of ICT to be realised to achieve developmental or public interest objectives.

The contribution that these papers collectively make to the body of knowledge in the ICT policy and regulatory research area would not have been possible without the time and support give to authors by the referee panel. These included Professor Leo Van Audenhove (Vrije Universiteit Bussels), Mr Jean Paul Simom (EuroCPR), Professor Roxana Barrantes (DIRSI), multilateral agency partner Dr Tim Kelly (World Bank), Professor Laurent Gille (Telecom ParisTech), Professor Rohan Smarajiva (LIRNEasia), Dr Laura Recuero Virto (OECD), Dr Kameshnee Naidoo (FinMark Trust), Dr Christoph Stork (ResearchICTafrica), Dr Colin Blackman (Camford Associates and Editor, info), Dr Lishan Adam (independent consultant), Professor Tim Waema (University of Nairobi), Dr Godfred Frempong (CSIR Science and Technology Policy Research Institute), Professor Anders Henten (Aalborg University), and Dr Taruna Ramessur (University of Mauritius) and Professor Alison Gillwald (University of Cape Town). Thanks also go to Professor William Melody who again assisted with a final set of reviews for publication.

Chairs and discussants for the conference, in addition to some of those mentioned above, who contributed to the rich debate included Professor Rohan Samarajiva (LIRNEasia), Mr Khaled Fourati and Dr Laurent Elder (International Development Research Council – IDRC), Mr Wangay Dorji (Bhutan InfoComm and Media Authority), Ms Payal Malik (Delhi University), Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala (Indian Institute of Technology), Ms Koesmarihati Sugondo (Directorate of General Posts and Telecommunications, Indonesia), Professor Zhong Liu (Southwestern University of Finance and Economics), Professor Chunhui Yaun (School of Economics and Management Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications), Professor Supriya Singh (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), Ms Sangamitra Ramchander (University of Oxford), and Mr Dan Faugoo (Mauritius National Computer Board).

Logistically, the journal would not have come together if it were not for the tenacity of Research ICT Africa’s Ondine Bello. It is only because of this that referee reports and papers and finally the publication was produced within something resembling commitment deadlines. Our thanks go to her for coordinating authors and referees and for liaison with Colin Blackman, who we also thank for his ongoing support of this important initiative. It has significantly boosted publication in this area by African scholars, has sparked new policy and regulatory initiatives, and resulted in reviews of policy and regulatory practices in Africa and Asia.

Alison Gillwald

Executive Director, Research ICT Africa and Adjunct Professor, Management of Infrastructure Reform and Regulation Programme, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.