The National Telecom Regulatory Authority of Egypt (NTRA) hosted Tuesday the first Regulatory Forum for Citizen Services, with the participation of six regulatory authorities: the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), the National Organization for Social Insurance (NOSI), the Egyptian Water and Wastewater and Consumer Protection Regulatory Authority (EWRA), Gas Regulatory Authority (GASREG), Waste Management Regulatory Authority (WMRA), and Land Transport Regulatory Authority (LTRA).
The forum aimed to share expertise, achieve cooperation among regulatory authorities, and improve the quality of life and service level for citizens. It also aimed to maximize the use of digital services and ensure citizens can access them smoothly.
The forum was organized to support and enhance the State’s efforts to achieve digital transformation and provide high-quality digital services for citizens. The forum addressed three major axes: raising social awareness of digital services and how to obtain them, the importance and role of cybersecurity in securing critical infrastructure, and the regulatory and governing role of the State’s different regulatory authorities to preserve the rights of users. It also discussed ways to achieve participatory regulation among entities to ensure citizens are satisfied with the services provided.
Hossam El-Gamal, Executive President of NTRA, emphasized the importance of cooperation among regulatory authorities to have a unified vision of providing digital services smoothly and quickly. He also highlighted the importance of participatory regulation among all regulatory agencies and authorities, as the cornerstone of digital transformation and the provision of integrated digital services in different scopes. He said that participatory digital services depend mainly on coordination between various sectors.
He added that it was necessary to achieve integration and cooperation among regulatory authorities to create an effective regulatory environment for governing services and addressing the challenges raised by emerging technologies and integrated digital services. He also stressed the importance of participatory regulation among regulatory authorities and institutions as a major global trend in service regulation and provision, and one of the most important mechanisms and criteria for evaluating and ranking countries on the global indicators set by international organizations.
He noted that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) chose Egypt as a model for successful countries in implementing participatory regulatory frameworks for telecom services provided to users, in a study conducted by ITU on many countries. This was a result of the progress made by Egypt in moving up to a higher level of digital technologies in the Global Connectivity Index. The report issued by ITU praised the NTRA and the Egyptian experience for using participatory regulation as a tool to achieve an integrated digital economy and create an active regulatory environment that efficiently provides digital services.
