The Nigerian Communications Commission NCC) has stressed the need for deeper collaboration among African Telecommunications and Communications Regulators to strengthen the use of data, evidence and market intelligence in driving more effective and responsive regulation across the continent.
Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Dr Aminu Maida, who stressed the need while speaking at the Heads of Regulators Roundtable during the African Telecommunications Union (ATU) Conference of Plenipotentiaries (CPL-26) in Abuja, emphasised that communications regulation has become increasingly central to economic growth, digital transformation, and national development across Africa.
The NCC chief Executive described the event’s theme; “Building Africa’s Network Intelligence Ecosystem for Evidence-Based Regulation,” as timely and relevant to the future of communications regulation on the continent. 
According to him; “It gives us an opportunity to consider how better use of data, evidence and market intelligence can strengthen regulatory decisions, and how African regulators can learn more systematically from one another”.
Dr Maida noted that even though regulators operate within different market environments and legal frameworks, they face many similar challenges, including infrastructure development, cybersecurity, affordability, satellite services, resilience of networks, and the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence technologies.
The NCC boss further said that exchanges among regulators often reveal shared experiences and lessons that can help institutions address complex policy and regulatory issues more effectively.
Maids also stressed the need to make such knowledge-sharing more deliberate, systematic, and beneficial to regulatory authorities across the continent.
In his words; “Very often, the challenge one regulator is trying to solve has already been encountered, in one form or another, by a colleague elsewhere on the continent”.
In her own remarks while chairing the roundtable, Mrs Rimini Makama, who is the Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management of the NCC, noted that “developments such as broadband expansion, satellite services, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital public infrastructure” are making communications ecosystems increasingly complex, thus requiring regulators to move beyond traditional regulatory approaches.
Makama further stated that regulators across Africa now have access to growing volumes of technical, market and consumer data.
She emphasised that the real challenge lies in translating this information into actionable intelligence capable of supporting better regulatory outcomes.
The Heads of Regulators Roundtable forms part of ongoing efforts by African communications regulators to promote evidence-based regulation, enhance regional cooperation and build more resilient, innovative and consumer-focused communications ecosystems across the continent.
