12. Involving key players at the national level

- Who determines ICT policy?
- Governments
- The importance of broad-based, high level leadership
- Civil society actors
- Is there evidence of civil society involvement?
- The experience in Africa
- Some successes
- The private sector

Who determines ICT policy?

Broadly speaking there are three groups of national stakeholders: government and other public sector bodies; civil society; and the private sector. All play a role in national ICT policy-making.

The Office of the Prime Minister or the President, the Ministry responsible for communications, other ministries relying on communications facilities to deliver their programmes, the telecommunications operators (if they are still publicly owned), the regulator (if it has already been established) are all part of the government constituency.

Interested civil society organisations include non-govern-mental organisations promoting the internet, trade unions, community development organisations, professional associations, forums of ICT users.

The private sector ranges from single entrepreneurs setting up small ICT businesses to the big multinationals active in the country (internet service providers, software developers, technology producers, telecoms providers) and includes businesses that are users of technology, industry groups, chambers of commerce.

Negotiations should aim at a consensus among the three sectors on appropriate ICT policy; all share responsibility for ensuring that policy is carried through in legislation and regulation and for monitoring the implementation of the policy once the regulatory institutions have been established.

Governments

Government is usually the driver of ICT policy development. Key players from the public sector are the Ministry responsible for communications, the national telecommunications operator and the regulator. Other ministries with an interest in the outcome should also be involved. These include, for example, education, health, trade and industry.

The importance of broad-based, high level leadership

Leading the policy reform process from the office of either the President or the Prime Minister – as was the case in Mozambique – has advantages: it demonstrates high level commitment to ICT policy, it ensures that the process is not captured by the narrow technical concerns of the communications sector and it ensures that all interested ministries and public sector bodies will be encouraged to participate.

Civil society actors

The success of policy depends on how people use the new tools that become available to them – computers, fixed line phones, mobiles or the internet – once the policy is implemented. It is trite but true to say that the chances for them to use the tools successfully to meet their own needs will be increased if they have a say in defining how the tools are delivered. Civil society organisations are one key link (parliamentarians are another) between the broad population and policy processes. They have unique experiences and values to contribute regarding the use of the tools for social objectives.

Is there evidence of civil society involvement?

Open consultations in public meetings held throughout the country, and interactive web sites that provide space for comments and access to relevant documents, are used widely in the North to ensure public participation in both policy and regulation. This is the case in Canada, for example, both for internet policy development (http:// connect.ca) and for telecommunications (http:// www.crtc.gc.ca).

It is more of a challenge to organise civil society participation in developing countries where the habits of consultation may be less entrenched, organisational structures less developed and communication of all kinds more difficult.

In Mozambique, telephone and internet use is limited outside the capital and a few provincial towns. The govern-ment is, however, championing ICT as a tool for development throughout the country. During the course of policy development the Information Policy Commission organised a series of public meetings in the provinces to engage local groups as its work progressed.¹

The Indian government, following the recommendation of its National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development, encouraged each state government to develop an IT policy. In this case the state-level polices appear to have been defined largely by the government and private sector.²

The experience in Africa

The Association for Progressive Communication (APC) commissioned a series of studies on the involvement of civil society in the development of ICT policy in Africa.³ The studies cover Benin, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and Senegal. They provide a good starting point for understanding the role that civil society organizations can play in shaping ICT policy – and the challenges they face.

Some successes

There are success stories. In Cameroon, perhaps partly because government leadership on information society issues was fragmented among different ministries, civil society organisations with a history of ICT work were able to establish themselves as important credible interlocutors of government in spite of its normally secretive way of doing business. In Egypt, civil society was instrumental in ensuring recognition of the legal right to privacy in the recently adopted Communications Bill.

In general, however, civil society participation has been ad hoc and often delivered through individual experts rather than through representative voices of civil society groups. Often there are no channels available for CS participation. In Spain, for example, a large campaign was built up in the internet against the government’s new internet bill, but it made little impact outside the restricted circles of internet users. So while it is the case that there is almost universal acceptance of the principle that information policy will only be an effective instrument if it is developed by all stakeholders including civil society, work still needs to be done to strengthen the instruments which will guarantee that civil society is present and listened to.

Proposals emerged to reinforce civil society’s role in ICT policy processes by:

    • Exploiting international links: international organisations as divergent as APC and the World Bank today agree on the need for civil society participation in policy and strategy development
   • Organising the ICT civil society sector internally through the establishment of a national ICT forum – competition between organisations hampered effective communication in a number of the countries studied
   • Linkage with CSOs with broader development goals in order to build awareness of ICTs and provide appropriate training to help CSOs use ICTs effectively
   • Increasing understanding of government processes, lobbying and public relations.

The private sector

Computing, communication and media businesses – large and small - all have a stake in the policies that govern the ICT sector.

Import duties on hardware and software, the restructuring of the telecommunications sector to allow for competition by fixedline, and mobile operators and the concentration of ownership of radio, television and the print media, are examples of the kinds of issues of concern to business as well as consumers.

The ICT private sector in the North is generally well organised but in developing countries it may face many of the same challenges as civil society in trying to organise and develop positions that can impact on policy processes. It can engage government systematically on ICT issues only if it is itself organised into interest groups. For example, the internet service providers in South Africa acted individually throughout the telecommunications reform process that took place in the mid-1990s. ISPs realized the benefits that could accrue from forming an association to develop and lobby for joint positions. The creation of the ISPA (Internet Service Providers Association) has enabled much more effective input from ISPs into subsequent South African ICT policy processes.