L I R N E . N E T

In a new working paper, Ewan Sutherland, Research Fellow at the LINK Centre, considers the role of national auditors in telecom policy oversight. “With almost two hundred NRAs the question of their oversight, or the regulation of regulators, is now a very general concern. The processes auditors general use can and do improve the overall system and the workings of both ministries and regulators.” Sutherland sketches out the roles of auditors in ten countries and draws conclusions around the advantages that national auditors can bring to national telecom regulation in terms of processes and oversight; and the parliamentary level requirements to benefit from auditor’s assessments.

Click here to download the full paper in .pdf format.

Click here to go to the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) and here for the Intosai Development Initiative (IDI).
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The recent LIRNEasia publication ICT Infrastructure in Emerging Asia: Policy and Regulatory Roadblocks in its Chapter 3, “I Just Called to Say: Teleuse under a Ceasefire,” explores the value and modes of access to telecom in the Jaffna District of Sri Lanka. Clearly there is a great need for infrastructure in such areas to replace infrastructure targeted by war. This chapter observes that post conflict societies “despite considerable financial constraints, have a higher demand for telecom services than people in areas directly unaffected by conflict.”

Another new paper by Agnieszka Konkel and Richard Heeks, considers the issue of ICT infrastructure development in conflict zones from the perspective of investment. Drawing on the cases of Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia, the paper elaborates some counter-intuitive evidence to conventional wisdom, in that insecurity does not necessarily deter investment. The authors speculate on three possible hypotheses:

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The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has posted a series of position papers and commentaries on equitable access to ICT infrastructure. The papers in this series formed part of a wider programme on equitable access including a workshop organised by APC; a joint APC-LIRNE-IDRC session for the 2007 Internet Governance Forum in Rio; and an online dialogue hosted by LIRNE and APC.

Click here to go to the APC Equitable Access resources page.

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What kind of information should regulators routinely make available on their websites? Are national regulatory authority (NRA) websites a useful information point? Four new LIRNE studies provide feedback to regulators across different categories of information provision. Some NRAs already provide extensive information via their websites others from the same region offer only a bit of static of information. These regional assessments of national telecom regulatory authority websites seek to illuminate best practices for using NRA websites as vehicles to provide information about the sector to the full range of stakeholders.

The draft Working Papers are available via the links below.

Benchmarking Latin America NRA Websites by Hugo Carrión (DIRSI)
Estándares de comparación para los sitios web de los Entes Reguladores Nacionales de América Latina

Benchmarking Caribbean and North American National Regulatory Authority Websites by Opal Lawton

Benchmarking Asia Pacific National Telecom Regulatory Authority Websites by Lara Alawattegama and Chanuka Wattegama (LIRNEasia)

Benchmark Indicators for African National Regulatory Authority Websites, Monica Kerretts-Makau (Research ICT Africa!)

Please use our Contact Form to order a copy of the full final report with comparative appendices (available in August 2008).

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On 23 June in Ottawa, Canada, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies (LIRNE.NET) network held a meeting with researchers from the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Dialogue on the Information Society (DIRSI), LIRNEasia, the LINK Centre and Research ICT Africa (RIA!), Comunica, and from the LIRNE network in Europe - Center for Communication, Media and Information Technologies (CMI) at Aalborg University, and the Center for Information and Communication Technologies (CICT), at the Technical University of Denmark. The intention of this event, in addition to presenting research, was to have a conversation with the invited participants and amongst ourselves. The four sessions of this day-long event were constructed in such a way as to provide opportunity for dialogue and creative reflection on the work of the network, why we do what we do, how we engage ICT regulatory research effectively and ensure impact.

Continue to the rest of this entry for presentation downloads and meeting information.

Click here to see photos of this event.
Click here to read the LIRNEasia report on this event.

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