Category 7 – Government Leadership Awards

Category 7b. Best government policy for mobile development

Mobile is the most widespread communication infrastructure in the world. With more than six billion connections globally, there is near-ubiquitous network coverage in the developed world and significantly higher penetration than fixed telecom networks in developing countries. Most of the world’s population has access to some form of mobile communication, in even the most remote areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The economy of a country and its people benefit when the national regulatory framework stimulates competition and investment, enabling a thriving mobile sector to contribute fully to social and economic development.

This award recognises policy and development environments that have successfully fostered the mobile revolution in the developing world.

The award will be announced on Tuesday 26th February 2013 at the Government Mobile Forum, held during Ministerial Programme at the Mobile World Congress 2013.

Eligibility:

Entry is open to the governments of all United Nations-recognised countries.

Judging criteria:

Entries for the Mobile for Development Award will be judged on the following main criteria:

• Development of policies designed to facilitate access to broadband through mobile technology
• Good practice in regulation and policies that have fostered socio- economic growth
• Demonstrated evidence of the country benefitting from mobile technology
• Development of a policy framework that captures mobile’s contribution to the country’s development

Category judges will include senior representatives from industry and academia.

Entry Forms, supporting materials and formats:

If you are referring judges to a website, please refer to one (1) website URL, where specific information relating to your application can be found. Please note judges will not have time to browse websites looking for the information so please do not submit a URL for homepage or an index page; the best possible URL will include specific information about your policies.

The online entry form includes an upload facility for you to provide multimedia content. You can upload five (5) additional files to accompany your application, with a maximum file size of 5MB each. These can be government frameworks, illustrated PDFs, JPG for photos or PowerPoint for technical diagrams or statistics. Please ensure these are relevant to your entry and keep to a maximum of two (2) pages.

We encourage you to submit an existing video to support your application. You may provide one (1) URL to a video link demonstrating your entry. This should be either privately or publicly posted to YouTube (if a private post, please provide a user name and password for judges to access). The video should be no more than five (5) minutes in length.

Specific application form questions for this category:

In addition to submitting contact information, you will be asked to answer five (5) questions. A maximum of 1,500 characters (approximately 250 words) including spaces is permitted per response.

Preview of questions:

1. Name of the government or regulatory organisation submitting your country’s application.
2. What you consider to be the key achievement of your organisation in relation to telecommunications policy-making in the last year?
3. Provide an outline of your approach to the promotion of mobile broadband in your country, including policies to foster socio-economic impact.
4. Describe any steps you have taken in the past year to promote mobile technology as a critical part of your country’s development.
5. Describe any initiatives that have enabled partnerships between private or public sector organisations that have encourage mobile uptake in your country.