{"id":290,"date":"2014-07-09T19:03:11","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T19:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/?page_id=290"},"modified":"2014-08-12T15:38:27","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T15:38:27","slug":"regulatel","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/regulatel","title":{"rendered":"REGULATEL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Consolidation of the Latin American Telecommunications Regulators Forum<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The REGULATEL Forum is recognized as the only regional body that brings together national telecom regulator authorities in Latin America. Telecom regulators work in a market growing in size and complexity, and feel multiple pressures from operators, Governments and, to a lesser extent, consumers. REGULATEL is highly appreciated by its members as a \u2018regulator-only\u2019 space where regulatory professionals can meet to work together and exchange information. As a repesentative of one of the national regulators expressed, \u201cW<em>e regulators tend to feel lonely.<\/em>\u201d The project was strongly supported by its direct beneficiaries.<\/p>\n<p>This relatively small project aimed at consolidating the Forum[1] as well as supporting the implementation of regulatory good practices and the harmonization of regulatory integration in Latin America. It succeeded more on the latter, but did not advance enough on REGULATEL\u2019s institutional sustainability.<\/p>\n<p>From a cost-benefit perspective, the project is successful and a good investment of development funding: positive outcomes (of interest also to the UE) achieved with small funding. The main reason is arguably the networked nature of the Forum: the project supported a group of individuals and organizations which were already committed to the productive functioning of the Forum and participated directly to ensure it. From that perspective, the project stimulated REGULATEL\u2019s own social capital, which will be essential to its longer-term sustainability.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Highlights<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> Networking and knowledge sharing <\/span>. The best regulatory practices in the region were discussed, documented and disseminated for their adaptation to the national contexts (related to traditional telecom issues as well new ones like the ones derived from Internet-related convergence).<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> Significant dialogue and interaction with European counterparts <\/span>. There are close relations with BEREC (Europe\u2019s equivalent to REGULATEL), including joint annual meetings, training activities, seminars, etc. For EU regulators, Latin America is the region outside Europe where they have the most advanced relationships.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> A window into EU\u2019s regulatory practices <\/span>. The best regarded project action was the \u2018Programme for Regulatory Excellence\u2019 hosted by Spain\u2019s Commission for the Telecommunications Market (CMT\/CNMC[2]), whereby 23 staff from 9 Latin American regulators spent 6 months working in Barcelona in different CMT departments and learning about EU telecom regulation practices (which are basically common across the EU).<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> International prestige <\/span>. REGULATEL is acknowledged internationally as the regional reference in telecom regulations. In 2012 it was accepted as a regional member to ITU in the three sectors of interest for regulators: ITU-T, ITU-R, ITU-D, which will allow it to better represent common regional interests.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><em>Drawbacks<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> Uncertainty about sustainability <\/span>. The exit strategy was not successful, affecting directly the prospects for sustainability of the REGULATEL Forum (a key purpose of the project). The action plan to achieve it was not adequate. A proposal by the project manager (and president of REGULATEL AD) was only submitted to the members near the end of the project and was not accepted.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Note : a transition project (formally outside the @LIS2 programme) was granted by the EC for 8 months (Nov 2012- Aug 2013), specifically to seek alternative solutions for sustainability. It was managed by the rotating Presidency of the REGULATEL Forum. The good news is that this small project did generate some agreed-upon changes for short-term institutional sustainability, and which may yet result in a longer term sustainability (to be discussed in a special Plenary in Buenos Aires later on 21-23 July 2014)<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> Difficulties with financial reporting <\/span>. Project management had problems with some justifications for co-financing contributions. There was confusion between these and \u2018in-kind contributions\u2019. Different administrative procedures in the regulatory authorities also did not contribute to timely and precise justifications co-financing contributions. The EC requested a formal financial audit. Its results indicated that a part of the funds was not properly justified, leading to holding the final disbursement to the implementing agency, REGULATEL AD. Better communications at the start of the project, including more proactively by the EC,as well as more participatory project design to ensure awareness about all aspects of project management would have helped prevent these difficulties.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/REGULATEL2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-258  aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/REGULATEL2.jpg\" alt=\"REGULATEL\" width=\"478\" height=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/s\/1vmkwvxyshsc14r\/Findings%20-%20REGULATEL.docx\" target=\"_blank\">Read more\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Consolidation of the Latin American Telecommunications Regulators Forum The REGULATEL Forum is recognized as the only regional body that brings together national telecom regulator authorities in Latin America. Telecom regulators <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/regulatel\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-290","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/290\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuelacevedo.net\/lis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}