ECOWAS Targets Seamless Communication in W’Africa

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

The Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) Parliament has commenced a process targeted at ensuring seamless communication within the sub-region.

Speaking during the opening ceremony of the Delocalised Meeting of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications and Information Technology/Education, Science and Culture/Trade Customs and Free Movement in Niamey, Niger Republic, the Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, Sidie Mohamed, while lamenting that there were difficulties associated with roaming within the ECOWAS sub-region, promised that this would soon be a thing of the past.

He noted that issues concerning telecommunications, mobile roaming and its tariffs were quite critical and constitute major ingredients in the ECOWAS Integration Process.

Tunis also said in a study on Mobile Internet Adoption in West Africa, conducted by the Bonn Institute of Labour Economics in 2021, it was found that the widespread adoption and use of digital technologies have multifold potential for the sub-region.

Tunis added that the study recorded benefits such as improved financial inclusion through mobile money applications, enhanced access to job opportunities from more effective delivery of basic services through e-government applications, as well as expanded access to markets through e-commerce.

He, however, expressed regret that none of the benefits were achievable without first standardising the tariff regime in the sub-region and making it cheaper, given that free communication is the anchor of free movement of people, goods and services and intra-regional trade.

He said: “Additionally, data from the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) shows that at the end of 2021, 515 million people subscribed to mobile services in Sub-Saharan Africa, representing 46 percent of the population, estimating an additional 100 million new subscribers by 2025, taking the total number of subscribers to 613 million, which is 50 percent of the region’s population.

“Again, in 2021, mobile technologies and services generated around eight percent of GDP across Sub-Saharan Africa, almost $140 billion of economic value addition. The mobile ecosystem also supported more than 3.2 million jobs (directly and indirectly) and contributed substantially to public sector financing to the tune of $16 billion raised through taxes on the sector.

“Projections are that, by 2025, mobile’s contribution will grow by $65 billion (to almost $155 billion), as the countries in the region increasingly benefit from improvements in productivity and efficiency brought by the increased subscription to mobile services.

“Further to that and in the sub region in particular, the mobile telecommunication space directly employs around 200,000 people formally, with another 800,000 jobs in the informal sector.

“Clearly therefore, it can be concluded that the mobile telecommunications industry is at the heart of both economic and social progress in West Africa, which are the main objectives of the ECOWAS.

“This also implies that mobile connectivity has the potential to accelerate sub regional digital transformation and drive socioeconomic advancement in many areas of our lives including healthcare, education, digital commerce, industrial automation and smart city infrastructure, thereby supporting the sub regional quest for integration.”

He, however, said the burden or cost of connectivity serves as a great disincentive for mobile adoption and penetration.

He said: “This is especially the case for mobile roaming services in the ECOWAS sub-region. The lack of standardization and harmonization in the tariff regime among the mobile network operators in the Community has become the first challenge to integration, given that communication is the prerequisite to integration anywhere in the world.

“A careful look at the data shows clear and conspicuous disparities and a lack of standardisation in the tariff rates for networks in the sub region, where only a 100-meter distance separates our countries in some cases.

“With this level of disharmony in our tariff regime, communication becomes a burden, and it is difficult to stimulate commerce and integration.”

In his remarks, Speaker of the Republic of Niger National Assembly, Seini Oumarou, said the meeting was to look into such a relevant subject as the roaming of telephone communications in