The inaugural conference of CPRsouth, Capacity and field-building program to develop an Asia-Pacific knowledge network on ICT policy regulation, will commence on January 19 in Manila, Philippines. The three day conference is being held in association with the National College of Public Administration and Governanace, University of the Philippines, Diliman.
Communication Policy Research (CPR) south is intended to be a vehicle for building capacity in communication policy research in the Asia Pacific in the first instance, and then in the South. The core functions of CPRsouth are to organize an annual conference and to provide a virtual platform for interaction among communication policy researchers in the South. The objective is to create policy intellectuals capable of informed and effective intervention in ICT policy and regulatory processes in specific country contexts, within the larger context of communication policy research as a field flourishing in the universities and research institutes of the South. More info…
The specific objective of this conference is to provide a foundational knowledge for scholars working on ICT policy and regulation in the region and help build a network among them. The events also include a Pre-conference tutorial on 17-18 January 2007 and the inaugural meeting of the CPRsouth Board which are to be held on the same venue.
The agenda for the conference can be found here: download agenda
1 Comment
Grace Mirandilla
Dear all,
Thanks for a wonderful conference and for giving us young scholars a chance to hone our research skills and the privilege to talk to experts in our respective fields. Hope you enjoyed your stay in the Phillippies.
Thought I should share this article from the Inquirer, a leading major daily in the Philippines.
Salamat!
Grace
=====
Keep politics, telecom regulations separate, RP told
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 04:27pm (Mla time) 01/21/2007
MANILA, Philippines–The Philippines should work on making the government agency that regulates telecommunications less subject to political interference, according to a group of researchers that recently looked into the regulatory environment for telecommunications in six Southeast Asian countries.
Rohan Samarajiva, executive director of Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies (LIRNEAsia), said that the Philippines should make clear distinctions between the role of Congress and regulatory agencies like the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
Congress should limit itself to setting policy guidelines while regulators work on the implementing rules, he said.
A recent case where Congress questioned the granting of the third-generation mobile network licenses to local operators despite clear guidelines set by the NTC was an example that shows “legislation directly poking with regulation,” Samarajiva added.
“What kind of signals does this give to outsiders?” he asked.
Such an environment forces regulators to “second guess,” which makes for an unstable regulatory situation, Samarajiva said.
Despite political interference, however, LIRNEAsia’s recent six-country study called “Telecom Regulatory Environment Assessment (TRE)” found the Philippines second only to Pakistan in terms of having a perceived stable and sound regulatory environment.
LIRNEAsia is a non-profit organization established in Sri Lanka but which intends to operate throughout Asia. It was launched on September 2004 during the World Dialogue on Regulation’s Expert Forum in Sri Lanka.
http://technology.inquirer.net/infotech/infotech/view_article.php?article_id=44710