3 Development of the Strategy The Rural Telecommunications Strategy is the culmination of several elements comprising stakeholder consultations, village surveys, detailed analysis, discussion points and recommendations. The strategy was developed with the assistance of more than sixty organisations from government departments, private sector and non governmental organisations throughout the country. The strategy is a synopsis of the key deliverables that have preceded it. The following gives a summary of complementary reports that have been issued in the course of the formulation of the strategy. The detailed reports are available for reference. Goals and Objectives - This report sets out the rural telecommunications program goals and objectives. The goals and objectives take into account the provision of services, the use of cost effective technologies, the use of appropriate funding models and the introduction of competition. The report also contains the definition of rural as it relates to the provision of telecommunications service and establishes the eligibility criteria to be applied to a village to see whether it qualifies for the rural program. Implementation Strategy – The Implementation Strategy addresses and makes recommendations on regulatory, commercial and technical issues. It also declares the operations, maintenance, and funding concerns of the program. It is this document which outlines the requisite licensing framework and interconnection regimes for the successful implementation of the program. It further charts an appropriate funding model envisaged to secure the rural program sustainability. Licensing and interconnection templates for rural telecommunications model have also been developed. Rollout Plan – This deliverable provides the framework and guidelines for the rollout of the program. It calls for the transparent identification of eligible villages which must be provided with service under the program. In addition, it recommends that the identified villages should be prioritised and grouped according to the criteria developed in the report. The report recommends the division of the country into four areas for purposes of financial sustainability, logical network implementation and operational efficiency among several reasons. Selection and Monitoring – An open tender process has been recommended to be used to provide services in the rural areas in order to enable a competitive environment in service provisioning. The report focused on the issues and resources that will be required to implement the program via the open tender process. This deliverable has produced templates that will be used during the tendering process. A service level agreement template for the monitoring of the operations and maintenance of the resulting infrastructure has also been developed. Rural Telecommunications Strategy 26 October 2006 10