Optimism and importance of public private partnerships for investment promotion marked discussions at last week’s CTOs International ICT Conference in London.

The two-day conference on ICT investments in emerging economies saw the participants adopting a common position on the need to promote effective partnerships to speed up investment-enhancing processes in developing markets.

The conference, organised by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), was attended by ICT stakeholders from both developed and developing countries including Nigeria made up of policy makers, regulators, operators equipment manufacturers, fund managers, USF agents, management consultants, NGO representatives and solution providers.

 The audience examined the investment opportunities that exist in emerging markets, and identified the likely challenges and possible methods to overcome them to ensure the realisation of successful investment initiatives in the ICT industry.

The markets discussed included Africa, Asia, Middle-East, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

The event featured presentations and discussions by leading figures in the International ICT arena from across the Commonwealth on various aspects of investments in the ICT in developing economies.

In a keynote speech, Secretary-General of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas indicated the importance of information and communications technologies in the development of today’s world and how ICTs have come to define the way “we live, work and do business”.

Zooming in on West Africa, the Secretary-General-elect of the African Caribbean Union, Chambas also announced measures being taken by governments in the region to reform economic policies and to create investment-friendly environments to attract investments into their respective countries.

He added that West Africa’s ICT industry in particular, presents unique growth opportunities for interested parties and encouraged potential investors to make the move to create businesses in the sub-region.

The high point of the two-day meeting saw an overwhelming response and interest from presenters, speakers, and attendees, with participants presenting papers on a variety of topics related to the conference theme of “Examining Business and Investment Opportunities in Developing countries”.

The range of subjects covered by the panels included the future for investment in ICTs regulation needed to promote investment consistency and predictability, and broad band investment in emerging markets, mobile money transfer and mobile banking besides others.

Other highlights included discussions on the importance of public private peoples partnerships to generate much needed investments, especially as a large part of investment in networks is in civil works, which the local communities could contribute. Taking into account the realities of the global market, the policy and regulatory panel identified, as priority, the need for linkages of policy with the regulatory regime to ensure that the policy priorities are implemented properly within a practical context.

They stressed that though ICTs is an attractive field there are still challenges in generating investments in emerging markets.