Why Developing Countries Can
Gain from Standards
Dr. Laura DeNardis,
Yale Law School
Nadi, Fiji, 17 September 2009
Some Questions
What are the direct public policy
implications of ICT standards?
What are the consequences of lack of
standards participation to developing
countries?
How is the ITU's Bridging the
Standardization Gap project examining
these issues?
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Standards Have Public Policy and
Economic Implications
ICT standards are the technical blueprints necessary
for interoperability and connectivity within global
information infrastructures but have many economic
and policy implications.
Technical Interoperability
Effective Government Services
Public Interest Effects
Innovation Policy and National Competitiveness
Global Access to Knowledge
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Effective Government Services
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Public Interest Effects
Standards design decisions sometimes have effects on
substantive public interest issues.
Individual
Privacy
eHealth
Systems
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Intellectual
Property
Environmental
Issues
Financial
Networks
Political
Information
and Processes
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Innovation Policy and National
Competitiveness
From an economic standpoint, ITU standards capability is
a critical factor in a country’s innovation and competition
policy.
Innovation Policy. ICT standards provide a common platform from
which innovation can proceed.
Entrepreneurial Opportunity. Standards can determine the competitive
openness of national ICT markets.
Global Competitiveness. ICT standards can provide the opportunity for
nations to become more competitive with other nations in technology
product markets.
Global Trade. ICT standards facilitate infrastructures for global trade or,
if proprietary, can be used to create technical barriers to trade
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Global Access to Knowledge
Interoperability, achieved through agreed upon ICT
standards, enables information sharing within
governments, between governments and citizens, and
more ubiquitously, in the overall information society.
Emerging forms of digital education
Medical and health diagnostic information
Participation in digital cultural life
Participation in global political sphere
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Pronounced Effects of Standards on
Developing Countries
"The development and use of open, interoperable, nondiscriminatory and demand-driven standards that take into
account needs of users and consumers is a basic element for
the development and greater diffusion of ICTs and more
affordable access to them, particularly in developing countries."
World Summit on the Information Society
Declaration of Principles, Paragraph 44
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National Involvement in Standards
Participation in ICT standards can take a number
of forms:
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Consequences of Lack of Participation
in Standards
Lack of participation in any aspect of standardization
carries consequences to developing countries:
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Impeding Public Services
Lack of access to or adoption of effective ICT standards
can create problems such as inhibiting public services or
compromising critical infrastructures.
Public Safety Problems. Lack of interoperability between first responder
technical infrastructures can impede services during a natural disaster.
Public Accountability Concerns. Digital government archives can be
problematic if the formats and network protocols necessary to access
these documents are incompatible with technologies used by the public or
if they rely on proprietary standards that may become inaccessible or
incompatible in the future.
Network Outages. Use of products with technical standards vulnerable
to network security attacks can disrupt the functioning of public services,
disrupt public utilities or financial networks, or compromise individual or
national security.
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Exclusion from Policy Making
If developing countries are not involved in standardssetting, their interests are not reflected in design of
standards that establish policy.
Possible reasons for exclusion:
Late entry into standards-setting processes
Institutional barriers to participation
Technical barriers to participation
Financial barriers to participation
Knowledge barriers to participation
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Innovation Barriers
In the developing world, the production of innovative
products based on ICT standards holds the potential to
create new economic opportunities.
Standards barriers to innovation can include:
Lack of access to ICT standards
Research and development capacity
Standards education capacity
Lack of human resources
Insufficient private industry capacity for standards
adoption
Lack of a national standards policy for standards
adoption or procurement
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Economic Inefficiency
Furthermore, inefficiencies and lack of interoperability
resulting from the lack of adoption of universal standards
or the use of incompatible standards can drive up the
cost of the following:
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Global Trade Barriers
In the context of ICT globalization, technical
interoperability is the precursor to economic
interoperability.
The WTO’s Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) asserts that
standards should not create unnecessary obstacles to trade.
Relatively closed standards can serve as alternative trade barriers in
contrast to open standards which have tended to promote competition
and free trade.
In the global knowledge economy, countries failing to use universal ICT
standards can be impeded from tapping into global exchange markets
with trading partners.
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Global Knowledge Barriers
Lack of technical interoperability or information access in the
developing world can also cut off citizens from:
Emerging forms of digital education
Medical and health diagnostic information
Participation in digital cultural life
Participation in global political sphere
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ITU's Bridging the Standardization
Gap (BSG) Project
ITU is committed to improving opportunities for
developing countries in standardization and is seeking
to identify remaining standardization disparities and
recommend actionable measures that can help
improve national standards capacity.
ITU has embarked upon an ambitious project entitled
“Bridging the standardization gap between developing
and developed countries.”
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Bridging the Standardization Gap
Project Objectives
To facilitate increased participation of developing
countries in standardization
To ensure that developing countries experience the
economic benefits of associated technological
development
To better reflect the requirements and interests of
developing countries in the standards-development
process
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Current BSG Standards Capacity
Assessment Project
OBJECTIVES
Understand the primary gaps that must be bridged to improve the
standards development, implementation, and usage capacities of
developing countries.
Identify variables necessary for developing countries to effectively
develop, access, and deploy standards.
Develop a national profile of standards readiness and recommend
best practices for national standards participation
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Current BSG Project Activities
1.
Distribution of the Tool for Assessing Standards Capability
(TASC), a questionnaire designed to elicit a self-assessment of
standards capacity for effectively developing, accessing, and
deploying ICT standards.
2.
Development of a set of case studies of standards capability.
3.
A quantitative evaluation of national standards capaility
4.
Present actionable recommendations and best practices for the
resources, knowledge, policies, institutional activities that can
bridge the standardization gap between developed and
developing countries.
Preliminary Project Results will be Discussed in Next Session
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laura.denardis@yale.edu
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