New developments, projects and publications

Strengthening the Kyrgyz Telecoms Sector - December 2007
The EBRD has undertaken a project to assist with the revision of the 1998 Telecom Law

 

International EBRD Seminar on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) - August 2004

EBRD has published a new handbook entitled Information and Communication Technology – Policy Reform and Rural Communications Infrastructure. Funded by the Government of Switzerland, this is an in-depth study into what ICTs are, how they function and the many ways they can be used to promote social and economic development by governments, entrepreneurs, learning institutions, research institutes, international organisations and non-governmental organisations.

This publication arose from a seminar organised as part of the EBRD Legal Transition Programme to address the issue of access to the basic information and communications technologies (i.e. telephony, internet) in the Bank’s countries of operation, particularly those countries in the EBRD’s Early Transition Country (ETC) region. The seminar was organised by the EBRD in Tokyo during August 2004 in cooperation with the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IRDC).

Both the seminar and publication are proving important tools in advancing the Bank’s policy dialogue in the increasingly relevant ICT area.

The seminar represented the first part of a new “universal access” initiative developed by the Bank to take advantage of its expertise in the area of telecom sector development. Moving forward, the output of, and lessons learned from, the seminar are currently being applied on a practical level by the Bank’s Legal Transition Team on the ground in Kyrgyzstan where the team is currently implementing the EBRD Universal Access Project – an EBRD Technical Cooperation Project assisting the government and sector authorities to develop and implement a strategy and financing mechanism for universal access throughout Kyrgyzstan.