Global Voice Group, South Africa-based management and monitoring solutions leader, has developed a governance technology that it says will help communications regulators in developing countries to establish “efficient and innovative funding mechanisms.”
The new solution offers rewarding opportunities to nations seeking fairer share of the funding for development, expressly as the world’s telecoms industry is characterized by imbalances in the redistribution of revenues sourced from international communications, especially between the South and North.
Several countries across the globe have suggested they are planning to impose premiums on international communications that seek clearance into their territories to bankroll a range of programs in domains including public televisions, education, ICTS and universal access.
GVG says it commits to set up the right technologies and procedures to maximize collection of these premiums as well as control their potential influence to ensure positive net results.
Designing of innovative funding mechanisms has by now climbed to top as a priority for many African countries, including Congo, Ghana, Liberia, the Central African Republic, Guinea, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Zambia, which seek contingent sources of funds to finance developments without increasing debts.
A number of organizations, according to GVG, are also actively promoting similar mechanisms including “the Leading Group on innovative funding for development composed of international organizations (World Bank, OECD, African Development Bank, IMF) and more than 63 nations.”
Recommendation D-156 of the International Telecommunications Union (IUT) that deals with network externality premiums is in addition aligned with the apps of such innovative funding mechanisms to intercontinental interconnection tariffs.
In line with additional funding generated by the company’s projects in Ghana, Congo, Liberia, the Central African Republic and Guinea, the monthly fund collectable from the innovative funding mechanism is estimated at US .40 per subscriber.
Based on the entire Africa with its estimated 600 million mobile subscribers, implementation of premium on international bound voice calls would signify an additional collection of close to US$ 3 Billion each year.
GVG however acknowledges there is no impact on tariffs paid by the local subscribers in the African nations where the measure has since been implemented, as it applies solely to the wholesale tariff made from abroad—particularly from North America or Europe.
Africa’s needs, according to Andrew Alli, President of the Africa Finance Corporation, should be considered in all areas of development aside from just the infrastructure.
“We need to look at new ways for financing infrastructure across the continent and bring innovations into the instruments we currently have in place,” Alli was recently quoted saying.
