The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Secretariat and the European Union (EU) signed a Grant contribution agreement for the Enhancement of Governance and Enabling Environment in the ICT sector (EGEE-ICT) in the Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, and the Indian Ocean region (EA-SA-IO).
The EGEE-ICT is a programme that aims at supporting the effective review and/or development of various regional policy and regulatory frameworks in a harmonized manner that will contribute to enhancing competition, improved access to cost effective and secure ICT services.
COMESA as the lead REC is implementing the programme in collaboration with other Partner RECs in the EA-SA-IO region namely Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), East African Community (EAC), Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC).
The primary beneficiaries of the EGEE-ICT programme are 29 Member States of EA-SA-IO region namely (Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) , through their respective ICT Ministries and Regulators as they will use this programme to support the development and implementation of policies and regulatory frameworks that will provide a conducive environment for the effective development of the ICT sector. Others are Regional Association of Regulators that play a great role in the development of policy guidelines and regulations and in the harmonization process namely the Communication Regulators Association of Southern Africa (CRASA), East African Communications Organisation (EACO) and Association of Regulators for Information and Communication for Eastern and Southern Africa (ARICEA).
2.0 OBJECTIVE OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The overall objective of the programme is to deepen regional integration and growth of the ICT sector in EA-SA-IO region It has three specific objectives (Result Areas), namely:
- Regionally coordinated public and private sector ICT policy development.
- Enhanced policy and regulatory environment for competitive markets and gender sensitive ICT markets; and
- Improved infrastructure connectivity and access to ICT.
The detailed Terms of Reference (TOR) for the assignment are attached to this request for expressions of interest.