Given its position as the apex regulatory body for Information Technology (IT) in the country, the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, CCIE, has given a nod to the invitation by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) for the Agency to be a part of the Digital Economy Community of Practice where pathways that would drive collaboration towards achieving a sustainable and inclusive digital transformation would be created.
The DG who gave the confirmation of interest during a courtesy call on him by the representatives of the group in his office described the visit as timely and the subject matter viable, adding that it aligns with NITDA’s renewed approach towards redefining regulation and how best to offer it to Nigerians.
“We just finished developing what we call Regulatory Intelligence Framework which will help us decipher the whole idea and impact of regulation. We do not want to sit in our offices, use armchair theories to come up with regulation that would never work.”
“We are looking at regulation that would promote market creation, enable innovation, customer protection and the delivery of efficient and effective services”, the DG noted.
Inuwa emphasised that the Agency believes in collaboration in order to succeed in executing its mandate, affirming that the Agency would review the details of their requests and revert accordingly.
Earlier, the Senior Policy Specialist and leader of the team from the Policy Innovation Centre (PIC) of the Nigerian Economy Summit Group (NESG), Mayokun Adediran, while briefing the NITDA management on the essence of the visit said, the PIC is planning a national dialogue to advance conversations about the operationalisation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) and a policy analysis to understand the digital economy policy context in Nigeria and the critical role the institution played alongside other stakeholders in the development of the policy framework.
“The PIC is a dedicated not-for-profit centre within the NESG sponsored by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is the first national body of its kind in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa, tasked with applying behavioural theory and other innovative policy tools to inform programme/policy design and implementation in Africa”, Mayokun explained.
While noting that the main aim of the Global Digital Access Project (DAP) which is a U.K. Government flagship initiative led by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (OCMS), is to foster collaboration between public and private sector stakeholders in the Digital Ecosystem.
He went further to explain that the partnership which necessitated the need to have a platform to garner the efforts from all parties informed the plan to inaugurate the Digital Economy Community of Practice that would house collaboration between the private & private sector stakeholders.
“From time to time we would need to discuss and analyse policies to ensure that there is inclusion and digital transformation in Nigeria”.
“Nigeria is a recipient of DAP’s support aimed at responsible, sustainable digital inclusion and transformation. The Policy Innovation Centre (PIC) of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) is supporting the implementation af the DAP project”, he said.
Mayokun who highlighted other facts also added that “on behalf of the FCDO, the PIC conducted multi-stakeholder consultative dialogues at the national and sub-national levels to understand the context of the digital economy in Nigeria and a multi-phased co-creation workshop (CCW) at the national level”.
