In addition, I start off from what was stated by Michael Spence at Harvard Forum II. This was a LIRNEasia activity.

My slideset is here.

In September 2009,  LIRNEasia Chair and CEO, Rohan Samarajiva, participated in the second Harvard Forum on “Connection and human development” held at Harvard University, USA.

Harvard Forum II was convened by Nobel Laureates Amartya Sen and Michael Spence, in collaboration with Randy Spence and theInternational Development Research Centre. Its aim was to bring together leading thinkers in the area of development to discuss how ICTs could contribute to poverty reduction in developing countries, both now and in the future. It was a follow-up to the Harvard Forum I held in 2003, where several needs in the ICT for development (ICT4D) area were identified (including ICT governance and regulatory reform, especially in the telecommunication sector).  One of the outcomes of Harvard Forum I was the funding of organizations such as LIRNEasia that seek to remove policy and regulatory barriers to the use of ICTs. This time, the focus was on “what next?”. Implicit was the question of whether such organizations need to shift their focus to applications, since the access problem has been more or less solved. One of the key takeaways was the need to concentrate on incentives, rather than on interventions.

Rohan’s paper on “Leveraging the Budget Telecom Network Business Model to Bring Broadband to the People” has been published in a Harvard Forum II Special Edition of Information Technologies & International Development (ITID) journal. It is available for download here.

This time the focus was on “what next.” Implicit was the question whether we need to now focus on applications since the access problem had been solved. In my first intervention I used data from Burma/Myanmar to show that the access problem had not been solved everywhere (interestingly this resonated with Amartya Sen who had spent his youth there). Many more interesting things were said particularly by the other Nobel Laureate in the room, Michael Spence (I have a LBO column coming based on that discussion), but still the phrase that stuck in my mind was that of Laurent Elder: incentives, not intervention.

Here is what Hernan Galperin of DIRSI had commented. He has included all the links to the real-time blogging and commenting that Ethan Zuckerman did.

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. Anyone who’s studied information flows in an economy knows that good governance is the foundation of the market system. As an example, a country that doesn’t have a central bank that can control interest rates, etc is a country that’s in trouble. Everyone knows the consequences of a weak central bank, what we need to do is let people know that there are consequences to having instability in the ICT sector.

On What’s Important

On data: A reasonably accurate portrait of the portrait of the state in these dimensions is useful. If you look at the Chinese data, you can debate if the growth is exaggerated, but the data is there and it’s clear.

Foriegn Investment: Creating appropriate conditions for. Competition is the best way since it assures that pricing is appropriate.

Internet: I would not like to see the Internet set aside in favor of ‘plumbing’. I would like to see LIRNEasia get Internet and the www talked about and worked on. I didn’t realize this until I was in Cambodia at an cafe, and then’s when I realized that the Internet wasn’t ‘real’ at that speed. The right answer seems to be high speed connections to hubs where the Internet is real.

We do this in part to reduce volatility and encourage investment. We need to do stuff that is unpopular. The regulator also serves as someone the politicians can point to and say ‘it’s not my fault’.

Finally, let me just say that the network based information technology we’re now seeing develop is in economic terms lowering transaction costs all over the place

It’s absolutely crucial that we not end up in a situation where those powerful forces are at play in one part of the world and not the other.

It’s impossible to not get discouraged about success, but there’s no other way to do it. (This is said with a smile. It was encouraging)

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.

Today is the official start of the LIRNEasia Expert Forum on Regulation and Investment. Rohan Samarajiva is enamoured of ‘real-time updating’, hence you will be getting a plethora of information.

Dr. William Melody delivered the commencement address, beginning with a simple question: “What are the characteristics of 21st Century Network Economies and Information Societies?” He also answered the question ‘What does LIRNE do?’ saying that “it serves mainly to develop human capital and contribute expert opinion to the world dialogue on regulation. LIRNE is established in Denmark, the Netherlands, South Africa, UK, and now Sri Lanka.

The World Dialogue on Regulation mission is to facilitate an international dialogue to generate and disseminate new knowledge. While our primary target is primarily involved to people who are involved in regulation, it is not our only audience. Perhaps the greatest party that has to understand the process is the incumbent telecom monopoly who can come to understand that by letting others participate they can benefit.” (FULL PRESENTATION)

Dr. Rohan Samarajiva followed, saying that Sri Lanka has over 300,000 people on waiting lists for phones, which is not good. To illustrate the demand for investment, I will read for you the needs assessment submitted to the Tokyo Conference.

“If we make the modest assumption that the North and East must have the same teledensity as the country as a whole, we would require a total of 786,000 connection in this region in the coming five years. You can see that we’re not doing that well, except for India. That is the problem we’re facing. It is to address this problem that this expert forum is designed. (FULL PRESENTATION)

Nobel Laureate Michael Spence spoke to the growth that effective ICT implementation can engender, and to the enormous benefits this can bring – especially to the poor.

Dr. Suman Bery, an emminent Indian economist delivered the keynote address, speaking on the infrastructure problem in general:

“In many ways the infrastructure sectors got into trouble because of a combination of populism and patronage. Regulators have not been given the tools to cut through this knot, and things are not very different from the decade before. What is the way out? I would have to say that I find it difficult analytically to point to any sharp set of scissors. I think it’s going to be a slow and patient process. Unless we get it right the investment flows will not be forthcoming, and getting it right will be a great feat of political economy.”

To this end, Dr. Bery recommended that resource-strapped regulators receive as much support as possible from a broad range of researchers and experts, like the expert forum assembled today in the Mount Lavinia Hotel.