Page 14 - SAMENA Trends - November 2020

SAMENA COUNCIL ACTIVITY SAMENA TRENDS

Insights from SAMENA Accelerator

Advancement of Fiber Infrastructure, Digital Inclusion, Citizen-centric
Services in Healthcare & Education, Sustainability & Security for Businesses
Deemed Key to Building a Sustainable Digital Economy

Economy, the observed policy-level consensus during the SAMENA Accelerator
on building PPP, conducting ICT capacity-building, and improving enabling
frameworks to realize benefits from citizen-value-driven implementation of
digital technologies across the SA-ME-NA region, has underpinned the need
for developing frameworks that can help harness the "connect, compute,
comprehend" technological capabilities to provide "value" in both societal and
business activities.

Drawing representation from the League of the
SAMENA Telecommunications Council's SAMENA Arab States as a 22-member country organiza-tion,
Accelerator series of policy-level roundtables, Minister-level participation from several GCC and
serving as an extension of the Council's overarching
advocacy goals to help build the SA-ME-NA region's South Asia regions' transforming digital economies,
digital economies, and initialized in November 2020 as well as participation of renowned global ICT
with the collaboration of Huawei Technologies
Middle East and strategic partnership of stc Group, development and international cooperation dev-
and Zain Group, have addressed foundational issues elopment bodies, SAMENA Accelerator on Fiber
and needs in a region-wide drive to accelerate (November 19) and SAMENA Accelerator on Digital
development of the Digital Economy.
Economy (November 25) have identified and pressed
Drawing representation from the League of the upon key policy initiatives and focus areas for the
Arab States as a 22-member country organization,
Minister-level participation from several GCC and region's Policymakers, Regulators, ICT Private
South Asia regions' transforming digital economies, Sector, as well as Adjacent Sector stakeholders
as well as participation of renowned global ICT
development and international cooperation The SAMENA Accelerator roundtables have delved into enabling the sustainable
development bodies, SAMENA Accelerator on Fiber Digital Economy imperative from multiple key enabling environment
(November 19) and SAMENA Accelerator on Digital perspectives, including the need to address Fiber deployment challenges and
Economy (November 25) have identified and pressed seeing the Private Sector's role in new lens, and to corroborate the urgency with
upon key policy initiatives and focus areas for the which the right policies and governance frameworks should be expedited in the
region's Policymakers, Regulators, ICT Private
Sector, as well as Adjacent Sector stakeholders, to
help harness digital technologies in improving the
socio-economic profile of the region. It is critical
that the SA-ME-NA region promptly foster and
enable ICT infrastructure investments, especially
in Fiber deployment, and that the region's digital
transformation and policy-making endeavors,
as a general principle, sustain progress on the
implementation and fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda
for Sustainable Development.
Recognizing the criticality of universal, secure,
and affordable connectivity, for which expansion
of ICT infrastructure is a pre-requisite and the
fundamental enabler of development of the Digital

14 NOVEMBER 2020