From Lanka Business Online:
The World Bank late Tue approved US$ 53 mn to roll out the e-Sri Lanka project, which aims to bridge the digital divide in Sri Lanka.
Rolled out through the Information Communication Technologies Agency (ICTA) over a five-year period starting Nov., the project aims to improve public service delivery, increase private sector competitiveness, promote new sources of growth, accelerate social development, bridge the digital divide, and support peace.
ICT diffusion across the country will be the enabler for development throughout the key sectors of the economy.
The funds will come through the International Development Association (IDA), the World Banks concessionary lending affiliate, with 40 years maturity and a ten-year grace period.
“This is an exciting program and we are delighted to be able to provide support…
The service sector drives network economies and information societies. The foundation of this sector is the communication network. As such, modern network economies depend on effective reforms in telecom infrastructure to strengthen links among local, national, regional and international networks and markets.
Professor William H. Melody
Technical University of Denmark
London School of Economics
… in his presentation on public administration in an e-economy to the Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration.
Melody further explained that e-government, as the application of new technology to deliver public services - is efficient, effective, and responsive. Timely application of new technology will make the government better, cheaper and faster.
Mr. Lalith Weeratunga, Secretary to Hon. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, co-chair, reported that the Sri Lankan government is taking steps to reengineer itself as a…
Tags: CISCO Internet Business Solutions Group, communication network, e-gov, e-government, Information Communication Technology Agency, Lalith Weeratunga, LIRNEasia, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Public Administration, public services, Rohan Samarajiva, Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration, Sri Lankan government, Technical University of Denmark
London School of Econom, telecom infrastructure, William H. Melody.
These are live notes, so they’re borderline incomprehensible. The value was more in that Rohan wanted to make a live text record of conference proceedings on the Net.
Payal Mallik, Group 1:
Case Studies, success stories of application. From India- Karnatika, first action was to formalize the land records which translates to land reforms through ICTs. Governments get to see the productivity gains from ICTs.
Citizen/Government Interface: this morning governance was pointed out as a critical area. What nature should the interface take?
Gap Between Content Development and Demand: Language issues, and what to ppl actually want from these applications.
Proposed Projects removed, I think the microimpact is still a little far from realization.
Happy with proposed projects: These subsidy studies should be underlined in a certain, clear theoretical framework. This…
Tags: Broadband, certain technology, e-channelling, e-choupals, electricity, Global Knowledge Partnership, Important tools, India, Randy Spence, Singapore, Sri Lanka, The Netherlands, VOIP.
a speech by Executive Director Rohan Samarajiva
In one of my intemperate moments I’ve said that Asia is a category that is of use only to international bureaucrats. There is little that the entire region holds in common. This is the area that has the largest concentration of poor people in the world.
Asia is seen, however, as driving the world economy. The Asian Tigers, and the Juggernauts of China and India. If you look at the ICT issues, you get into this orgy of self-congratulation, but if you really look at the number - developing Asia is a straggler. And what about people? This LIRNEasia organization is about people. We have people, the only problem is that our people flourish in Australia, in Canada. When we…
Tags: Afghanistan, Asia, Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Broadband, Canada, China, India, Korea, LIRNEasia, Nepal, Rohan Samarajiva, Sri Lanka, Taiwan.
We selected the Eastern Part of Nepal to implement our policy of making available telephone service on demand, including rural areas. We specified that telcom was crucial to national development, and tried to encourage private investment. We also stipulated that the basic provider (ie the incumbent) must invest 15% in development.
We selected 893 areas with minimal phones, 534 with no phones at all. Gurkas come from that area and there was much migration from that area. We knew that unless we brought the private sector it would be very expensive. We designed the project and said that you have to complete the entire project in 18 months, given certain incentives (subsidy, based on international competion). The one asking the least subsidy would be awarded the…
Dr. Randy Spence spoke of his experiences in Somalia, where there isn’t much government to speak of. But people are using ICTs.
However, he emphasized that ICTs must drop in cost for the investments of the 1990s to bear fruit. “I’m involved in nanotech and biotech, and fairly rapid diffusion of this technology will be very important.”
Although mobile and wireless access are expanding, fixed line and Internet access lag - and the differences are largely due to regulation.
The future may be wireless broadband, but for the foreseable future the policy is fixed line.
Dr. Michael Spence
Dr. Spence began by telling his economic perspective on the importance of good governance. “There’s a lot of talk about how all you need is a market system and that’s just nonsense.…
We’ve basically followed the cookbook in terms of having regulation .. but we still have problems.
SL is a country where we’ve given licences, but there hasn’t been much transparency. The model we’ve set out it individual licenses where scarce resources are involved, but only authorizations otherwise. In other words, you don’t need to come with the Minister’s brother-in-law to operate.
Also, license without access to scarce resources is not meaningful. Abu Saeed Khan spoke of licenses being issued without frequencies, and I think that is a fraud. The legislation has been drafted. Once it goes through we can deregulate the pricing for mobile operators, etc. In a way Mr. Morogoda and myself worked very hard against the World Bank’s policy of not supporting infrastructure.
Unless the reforms…
Dr. William Melody:
Think of any of the new technologies and in most countries it’s illegal. The laws are written to preserve things that are inherited, inherited regulation. The barriers to advancement are inherited regulation.
Dr. Melody stressed the importance of demand and its neglect at the hand of supply-side interests. Now, who has interest in developing information infrastructure?
New network operators, first. Also, Multisector infrastructure, like electricity, water, etc. Frequently these sectors lay down bandwidth for their own use, but are kept from sharing this largely be regulatory barriers. The tradition interest comes from regional and local governments, and there is room for co-ops, public/private partnerships, and ISPs.
As for the last item, the biggest ISP is often owned by the big monopoly. We don’t have a market…
The day two of “Expert Forum on Regulation and Investment” starts today with a focus to specifically identify, discuss and formulate possible recommendations/solutions to the issues raised over successful and productive discussion held yesterday with the launch of the forum. the participants will form working groups today and make recommendations. These recommendations will be presented and discussed at the plenary session. also will be used as triggers for discussion at the subsequent
Gillwald commented that there hasn’t been a careful focus on market structures, rather an emphasis on technical and legal human capital (as Dr. Bery previously noted). Gillwald described problems with an entrenched incumbent and an uncompetitive market leading to subpar service and profits, especially in the rural area. There is enormous unmet demand in South Africa, which is inaccessible due to regulatory market constraints. She did mention that many restrictions will be lifted in February of next year.
Full Paper (Word)
Full Presentation (PowerPoint)
The LIRNEasia Launch Party went well - with plenty of eating, drinking and dancing (and minimal photo-taking). Here are a few:
Bill Melody, Milinda Moragoda, and Michael Spence
Lighting of the lamp in gale force winds
The view from a Mount Lavinia Hotel Room
It was an auspicious launch with the personal message from Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered by Mr. Lalith Weeratunga, Secretary to Prime Minister (see previous post for tea with the PM) and a message delivered by MP Milinda Moragoda. Also in attendance were Manju Hathotuwa, CEO of the Information Communication Technology Agency. There were also 3 generations of Samarajiva’s including Ainsley and Evelyn Samarajiva. It took 7 people and 15 waiters to light the ceremonial lamp in the winds from the beach.
…
Tags: Ainsley Samarajiva, Bill Melody, Evelyn Samarajiva, Hotel Room, Information Communication Technology Agency, Lalith Weeratunga, LIRNEasia Launch Party, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Manju Hathotuwa, Michael Spence, Milinda Moragoda.
The pool at the Mount Lavinia Hotel
Word Document
Powerpoint
Teledensity: 2% in 1999 to 7% in 2003. Telecom revenues are expected to triple to $24 billion by 2005-2007, driven primarily by wireless. Wireless accounts for 40%, up from 7% in 2000.
Payal Mallik discussed the transformation of the Indian industry from a static monopoly to a dynamic multiple provider system.
“Regulatory effectiveness depends on the monopoly wielding power of the incumbent. The stronger this is, the greater the chance of undermining regulatory independance. Regulation is required to safeguard against arbitrary government action and collusive behaviour between the government and the incumbent monopoly. Privatization per se is not the thing, it is privatization with regulation. The task of the regulator is to protect industry from the government, and consumers from both (paraphrase).”
(From text) “In India, like…
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