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.
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).
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.
LIRNEasia has a featured article in the June 2008 issue of the Indian-based international magazine i4d (Information for development). Anu Samarajiva (freelance), Ayesha Zainudeen and Harsha de Silva have contributed an article, LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka: Benefiting the bottom of the pyramid? highlighting LIRNEasia’s research on mobile usage by the poorest sectors of society. Research from LIRNEasia and DIRSI is also referenced in articles of this issue of i4d which is dedicated to the theme of Mobiles for Development. Also of note is an article on A Review of IDRC Projects – Mobiles are leading the way, by Ahmed Tareq Rashid (Researcher for Pan Asia Networking of IDRC) and Kathleen Diga (Researcher for Acacia – ICT4D Africa of International Development Research Centre).
Click here to go to the June 2008 issue of i4d.
The Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), concerned about the future of their national infrastructures, have prepared a report, Infrastructures: Time to Invest, that is likely to be of interest beyond the Netherlands. “The WRR is concerned about the quality of Dutch infrastructures [sewers, energy, telecom, water, etc.] in the long term. The attention devoted by administrators and market players to short-term effects geared towards efficiency, consumer interest and cost, has a detrimental effect on investment in the public interest in the long term.”
Download the report’s table of contents and executive summary here.
A collection of papers (including Professor Bill Melody’s “Private Equity Funds and Public Utilities: Where Incentive Structures Collide”), were prepared for this report and published under New Perspectives on Investment in Infrastructures (v19 jun 08) by Amsterdam University Press. These are also available for download. Click here for the information page or here to download the collection in .pdf.
