The National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Egypt (NTRA) ascended to Generation 5 “advanced” on ITU-ICT Regulatory Tracker’s ranking, which is the highest level worldwide with regard to capturing progress in ICT collaborative regulation. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) actually classified NTRA as well as Egypt’s regulatory experience as such, for its high capability to adopt collaborative regulation as a tool to achieve an integrated digital economy and create an active regulatory environment that effectively and competently provides digital services.   

ICT collaborative regulation is the mainstay of digital transformation and integrated digital services in diverse fields, since providing such type of services basically requires cross-sectoral collaboration, and therefore integration between ICT regulatory entities and their counterparts at other sectors. This collaboration aims to create an effective regulatory environment for service governance and address the challenges raised by emerging technologies as well as integrated digital services.

Moreover, ITU’s ranking of NTRA on the ICT regulatory Tracker by Gen.5 would support Egypt’s leading role on the regional as well as international level in terms of ICT regulation, and would consequently create more investment opportunities; meanwhile, it would reinforce creating appealing as well as competitive investing environment and support rapid digital transformation. It’s worth noting that NTRA was keen on fostering cross-sectoral collaborative regulation with various regulatory entities to reinforce digital transformation. To this end, NTRA entered into an agreement with the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE( to support and enable digital payments, foster financial inclusion, and jointly cooperate to devise financial technology strategies. NTRA also drafted an agreement with the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) to reinforce the current system adopted to protect competitive practices, and support as well as drive investments and cooperation within several cases of competition across the ICT market. Furthermore, an agreement was also drafted between NTRA and New Urban Communities Authority as well as Housing and Building Research Center (HBRC) to invent codes and develop guidelines for deploying ICT and smart services infrastructure at new cities as well as communities. NTRA also cooperated with other government entities to ensure ICT infrastructure is protected and secured, in line with the national strategy of cybersecurity.        

NTRA’s ascension on ICT Regulatory Tracker to Gen.5 adds to a series of local as well as international milestones achieved in ICT regulation such as, launching initiatives to disseminate digital services in Egypt’s market, and having all segments of society integrated in digital transformation process as well as enabled to smoothly access telecom and internet services, particularly the elderly and people of determination. The milestones achieved by NTRA also encompass choosing My NTRA interactive App among the top 5 E-Government projects within the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), held in May 2002, after it had actually obtained the highest votes out of 966 projects overall. Remarkably, Egypt also hosted the Global Symposium for Regulators ITUGSR-23 with more than 700 ICT experts and policy-makers from more than 100 countries taking part, while the Egyptian African Telecom Regulatory Training Center (EG-ATRC), subordinate to NTRA, was accredited by ITU as an authorized international training center after it successfully passed all the ITU Academy criteria among more than 60 other global institutions participating. So as to be mentioned, Egypt was chosen to chair three Study Groups at Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R), Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T), and Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D).