{"id":5543,"date":"2014-02-24T16:31:48","date_gmt":"2014-02-24T16:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/newsroom\/?p=5543"},"modified":"2015-05-13T10:55:06","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T10:55:06","slug":"gsma-botswana-lebanon-spain-united-arab-emirates-in-its-government-mobile-excellence-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/newsroom\/press-release\/gsma-botswana-lebanon-spain-united-arab-emirates-in-its-government-mobile-excellence-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"GSMA HONOURS THE GOVERNMENTS  OF BOTSWANA, LEBANON, SPAIN AND THE UNITED  ARAB EMIRATES IN ITS GOVERNMENT MOBILE EXCELLENCE AWARDS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Barcelona:<\/strong> The GSMA today recognised the governments of  Botswana, Lebanon, Spain and the United Arab Emirates at the mobile industry&rsquo;s prestigious  Government Mobile Excellence Awards, which honour governments&rsquo; significant  achievements in driving the growth and socio-economic impact of the mobile  industry in their respective countries. This year, the Government&nbsp;Mobile  Excellence Awards have been expanded to include four categories: Government  Leadership, Spectrum for Mobile Broadband, Economic Policy for Sustainable  Mobile Growth and Connected Government. The awards acknowledge government  policies and regulation that encourage investment and support transparency,  competition and regulatory independence. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The governments of Botswana, Lebanon, Spain  and the United Arab Emirates have demonstrated a clear commitment to putting mobile  at the top of their digital agendas,&rdquo; said Tom Phillips, Chief Regulatory  Officer, GSMA. &ldquo;We encourage administrations from around the globe to be  inspired by their achievements and adopt similar best practice measures in  order to encourage  greater mobile industry investment, support innovation and increase the  provision of mobile services for their citizens.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p><strong>Government Leadership Award &#8211; Government of Botswana<\/strong><br \/>\n  The  2014 Government Leadership Award was presented to the Government of Botswana  and the Honourable Minister of Communications, Mr. Nonofo Molefhi. The Minister  and his Government&rsquo;s leadership and vision for a digital Southern Africa were  the catalyst for a regional collaboration at the &ldquo;Encouraging Digital Inclusion  in Southern Africa&rdquo; Ministerial Summit held in Kasane, Botswana in September  2013. This summit culminated in the signing of a joint communiqu\u00e9 by six countries,  supported by a commitment from the GSMA to expand capacity-building efforts in  the region. The agreement serves as a framework for enhanced regional policy  coordination.<\/p>\n<p> <strong>Spectrum  for Mobile Broadband Award &#8211; Government of the  United Arab Emirates<\/strong><br \/>\n  The United Arab  Emirates Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has been at the  forefront of the international drive to increase the spectrum available for  mobile broadband. The TRA chaired the ITU World Radiocommunication Conference  in 2012 and led intensive coordination and consensus building efforts to identify  the 700MHz band for mobile, at an international level. In May 2013, the United  Arab Emirates became the first country in&nbsp;the Middle East, Africa or  Europe to identify the 700MHz spectrum band for mobile \u2014 a milestone in the  development of what promises to become a nearly global harmonised spectrum band  for mobile broadband.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Economic Policy for Sustainable Mobile Growth  Award &#8211; Government of Spain<\/strong><br \/>\n  The Digital Agenda for Spain, approved in February 2013,  is the government&rsquo;s strategy to develop Spain&rsquo;s digital economy and society. With  121 concrete measures and a budget of \u20ac2.3 billion, the strategy combines an  innovative legislative framework, to promote mobile network deployment; a  publicly-funded programme, to expand mobile network coverage in less profitable  areas; and the allocation of more spectrum for mobile broadband. To increase  investment in mobile infrastructure, the Government of Spain is developing a  new General Telecommunication Law, which will increase legal certainty and  provide efficiency gains for mobile operators through legislation that reduces  the cost of network deployment. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Connected Government Award &#8211; Government of Lebanon<\/strong><br \/>\n  The  Government of Lebanon&rsquo;s &ldquo;Open Your Tomorrow&rdquo; project seeks to provide every  student with an affordable 3G tablet, purpose-built with academic content and  robust security. Working with a number of technology providers, the aim is to  improve education opportunities and provide children with a learning advantage,  levelling the playing field with children from around the world. Lebanon&rsquo;s  Ministry of Telecommunications funded the project by sourcing 15,000  Android-based tablets, all equipped with parental controls and an enterprise  mobility management (EMM) system provided by AirWatch. The Ministry of  Education&rsquo;s goal is to deploy an additional 400,000 tablets into schools within  the next two years and inspire content publishers and app developers to produce  educational materials for academic purposes. <\/p>\n<p>The awards were  presented as part of the GSMA&rsquo;s annual Ministerial Programme at Mobile World  Congress. More than 1,200 key government and regulatory representatives from around  the world are solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/public-policy\/regulatory-environment\/mobile-energy-efficiencyting with industry leaders to discuss specific regulatory  issues relating to the development of mobile communications. This year, the  Ministerial Programme has attracted more than 160 delegations, representing all  regions.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">&#8211; ENDS &#8211;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Translation:<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/newsroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/gov-excellence-award-240214-es.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Spanish<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>About the GSMA<\/strong>&nbsp;<br \/>\n  The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide. Spanning more than 220 countries and territories, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world&rsquo;s mobile operators  with 250 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset and  device makers, software companies, equipment providers and Internet companies,  as well as organisations in industry sectors such as financial services,  healthcare, media, transport and utilities. The GSMA also produces  industry-leading events such as Mobile World Congress and Mobile Asia  Expo.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>  For more information, please visit the  GSMA corporate website at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\">www.gsma.com<\/a>. Follow the GSMA on Twitter: @GSMA.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Media Contacts:<\/strong><br \/>\n  For the  GSMA<br \/>\n  Charlie  Meredith-Hardy<br \/>\n  +44 7917 298 428 <br \/>\n  <a href=\"mailto:cmeredith-hardy@webershandwick.com\">cmeredith-hardy@webershandwick.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>GSMA  Press Office&nbsp;<br \/>\n  <a href=\"mailto:pressoffice@gsma.com\">pressoffice@gsma.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barcelona: The GSMA today recognised the governments of Botswana, Lebanon, Spain and the United Arab Emirates at the mobile industry&rsquo;s prestigious Government Mobile Excellence Awards, which honour governments&rsquo; significant achievements in driving the growth and socio-economic impact of the mobile industry in their respective countries. This year, the Government&nbsp;Mobile Excellence Awards have been expanded to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"algolia_discover_type":[6627],"class_list":["post-5543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release","algolia_discover_type-article"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.4 (Yoast SEO v28.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>GSMA HONOURS THE GOVERNMENTS OF BOTSWANA, LEBANON, SPAIN AND THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES IN ITS GOVERNMENT MOBILE EXCELLENCE AWARDS - Newsroom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/newsroom\/press-release\/gsma-botswana-lebanon-spain-united-arab-emirates-in-its-government-mobile-excellence-awards\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GSMA HONOURS THE GOVERNMENTS OF BOTSWANA, LEBANON, SPAIN AND THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES IN ITS GOVERNMENT MOBILE EXCELLENCE AWARDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Barcelona: The GSMA today recognised the governments of Botswana, Lebanon, Spain and the United Arab Emirates at the mobile industry&rsquo;s prestigious Government Mobile Excellence Awards, which honour governments&rsquo; significant achievements in driving the growth and socio-economic impact of the mobile industry in their respective countries. 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