Development of Policy and Regulations to enhance e-Commerce, Data Protection, Intellectual Property Rights & Public Key
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Secretariat and the European Union (EU) have 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 four (4) year 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 will implement the programme on behalf of 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 the 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).