Lome - Togo — ECOWAS has taken another practical step towards addressing the dearth of up-to- date and accurate data which will reflect its current market mapping in the telecommunications-ICT sector through the official launching of its regional data base on Tuesday, 22nd June 2010.
A demonstration of the mode of operation and mapping methods of the data base was done at the launching and witnessed, among others, by the Togolese Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, the ECOWAS Commissioner for Infrastructure as well as representatives of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the regulatory authorities for posts and telecommunications from ECOWAS Member States.
In addition, a formal hand-over of IT equipment for data collection and analysis to ensure an effective use of the system was made to selected national focal points, officially referred to as National Correspondents for Indicators (NCIs). The creation of the data base, known as the Management and Information System for Telecoms (SIGTEL), will help reduce the number of data collection missions for monitoring convergence criteria in the telecoms/ICT sector, encourage savings in terms of mobilization of human and financial resources for data collection and ensure the availability of reliable and real time data for the sector.
As one of the priority projects of the ECOWAS Commission, SIGTEL will help inform and provide direction for decision-makers within the region for their development policies on telecoms-ICT, evaluate the potentials of new activities arising from opening up the telecoms-ICT market to competition and determine the possibilities for market penetration by competitors. It will also help increase available knowledge of the telecoms-ICT market in West Africa, enable regulatory authorities in the region to adapt regulations to changes in the sector as well as serve as a tool for Member States to assess their progress towards achieving the objectives set by the ECOWAS Commission and NEPAD for the telecoms-ICT sector.
A four-day training for the national focal points began immediately after the launching of the SIGTEL data base, which is located at the ECOWAS Commission in Abuja, Nigeria. In March 2007, these national focal points received basic training on SIGTEL. Their role includes the collection of data required by ECOWAS from all telecoms-ICT operators and service providers working within the region, the collection of data from national regulatory authorities or any other entity playing this role, the processing of the data collected at the national level and the transmission of the collected data to the SIGTEL database for consolidation.
Earlier at the launching, the ECOWAS Commissioner for Infrastructure, Mr. Celestin Talaki, noted the high rate of development in the telecoms-ICT sector, which he attributed to the design of policies and measures taken to remodel the legislative and regulatory environment towards attracting private initiatives in the sector. To further support this development and attract more investments in the sector, Mr. Talaki said that the encouragement of a sound knowledge of the sector is a big advantage to stakeholders.
While expressing gratitude to the ITU and European Union (EU) for their technical and financial support, respectively in the establishment of SIGTEL, Mr. Talaki charged the focal points to master the features of the new data base and ensure its effectiveness. He expressed confidence that with the active participation of Member States, SIGTEL would be a useful tool for all stakeholders, including international institutions, ICT operators and service providers and end-users, to assess the progress made in the realization of the objective set by ECOWAS for the telecoms-ICT sector.
In his address, the Togolese Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Mrs. Cina Lawson, noted ECOWAS' efforts at developing its ICT infrastructure and creating an enabling framework to better mobilize the necessary investments in the sector. He said the progress made by ECOWAS was in tandem with the objectives of African Heads of State as evidenced in their "Connect Africa" summit held in October 2007 in Kigali. According to the minister who was represented by the Director of Cabinet in the Togolese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, Mr. Atafeitom Tagba, ECOWAS has launched the harmonization of the regulatory framework in the region, in addition to the data base which will provide decision-makers with points of reference to facilitate the effective determination of their medium and long-term development objectives.
The minister stated that the launching of the SIGTEL data base marked the end of a process which began with a validation meeting in Lome in September 2003 and followed by another in March 2007, also in Lome. Speaking in the same vein, the Director-General of the Regulatory Authority of Posts and Telecommunications of Togo, Mr. Palouki Massina, expressed the hope that the data base, the outcome of a long process, would meet the expectations of all stakeholders.
While observing that the launching was taking place on the heels of the 2010 world conference for telecommunications, Mr. Massima expressed confidence that the training workshop, within the framework of the Hyderabad (India) Declaration and Action Plan, would enable the focal points to provide support for programmes on the collection of ICT indicators to feed the data bases of the ITU.
