Egypt tops National Telecom Regulatory Authority Websites in Africa

Information and communication are necessary to ensure that national telecom regulatory authorities can perform their responsibilities efficiently and effectively. The laws and regulations governing the sector must be known if they are to be effective. Consumers need to know their rights and the channels available for them to seek redress. If information about the sector is available in a meaningful form it is used to evaluate performance and highlight areas in need of improvement. If not, it can conceal failure and impede development. Transparent information and communication practices are an indicator of a credible regulator and attract investment in the sector.

One of the key communication channels available to a national telecom regulatory association is its website and the recently published book ‘NRA Websites: Benchmarking National Telecom Regulatory Authority Websites’ is the first near-global effort to establish benchmarking indicators to evaluate the websites of national regulatory agencies. Published by Learning Initiatives for Networked Economies (LIRN.NET) it discusses in depth the state of regulatory authority websites in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and North America and an annex provides a one page snapshot of the websites of the websites of 93 telecom regulatory authorities.

'Benchmark Indicators for African National Telecom Regulatory Authority Websites' was published as a chapter in the book 'Benchmarking National Telecom Regulatory Authority in which the NTRA website of Egypt scored the highest ranking in Africa and is assessed to be almost fully at the interactive level, as it scored 2.48 points, according to the report. Each website was assessed across different categories of information provision. To achieve a consistent ranking, each element was given a score of 1 to 4 based on the degree of richness. The Egyptian NTRA, had an overall average score of the highest benchmark across all subcategories with several of the subcategories benchmarked as interactive (score of 3) – having most of the items linked, forms in PDF or online, downloadable and hyperlinked to relevant legislation. Egyptian NRA not only made clear choices of ensuring that each subcategory provided adequate information but also in addition ensured that items such as regulations and forms for each category were linked there.

Nigeria, Mauritius Kenya and South Africa were also benchmarked as providing and enhanced level of information via their NRA websites. Following closely were Uganda, Algeria, Senegal and Tanzania. Together, these NRA websites were considered to have had adequate content that allowed the user to make informed decisions. The content in most of the categories was available via downloads. As for the Egyptian website, these had most of their functional categories clearly organised for the user.

The NRA websites for the Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Togo, Gambia, Niger, Mauritania and Angola performed poorly. These websites simply did not provide relevant content other than basic introductory pieces and very little digested or descriptive information and in many instances having no information at all. On the basis of the findings of this survey, an immediate observation is the number of websites that have come under review. Out of the 54 countries Africa, only 55% (30) were reviewed as having independent regulatory bodies with a website. This is comparative to Asia where three out of ten NRAs or 29% of NRAs did not have a website as at 2005.

While it may be unfair to attribute the lack of this information to lack of understanding of role of regulator, and that this may be due to lack of other issues such as resources and lack of regulatory body institutions that are in place, it nevertheless indicates a need for improvement and raises concerns regarding e-governance.

The National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) acts as an independent and prudent arbiter among the different ICT sector stakeholders: the industry, the state and consumers. Founded in 2003 according to the Telecommunications Regulation law as a national authority to administer the telecommunication sector, the scope of its work, as a general outline, covers issues related to transparency, open competition, universal service and the protection of user rights.

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Benchmark Indicators for African National Telecom Regulatory Author...