This analytical case study reviews the critical success factors underpinning unanticipated outcomes in Mauritania\'s telecommunications policy reforms in the late 1990s.

1. Private Sector and Infrastructure
225
April 2003
Findings reports on ongoing operational, economic, and sector work carried out by the World
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Mauritania
Enhanced National Capacity in
Telecommunications Sector Reforms
Findings
auritania’s 1998–2001 tele- These outcomes raise three ques-
M communications reforms re-
semble many World Bank-
supported reform programs where
tions of broader interest to capac-
ity enhancement efforts. First, how
did capacity enhancement amplify
overcoming capacity constraints policy commitment, leading to tar-
can determine success in achiev- get outcomes? Second, how were
ing development outcomes. Over- global and local knowledge com-
coming capacity constraints en- bined, making the crucial differ-
abled this desert nation of over 2 ence in achieving results? Third, to
million largely nomadic inhabitants what extent was the capacity en-
to attain unanticipated levels of hancement process itself results-
outcomes in three years of telecom- based and continually linked to
munications reforms. New private outputs and outcomes?
investment of US$ 100 million in The complex interplay of success
telecommunications was attracted factors can be viewed by relating it
over two years, equivalent to 10 to (i) the country environment; (ii)
percent of GDP; telephone line ac- the client/Bank interface in the
cess multiplied twenty-fold; 6,000 context of this specific reform; and
new telecommunications-related (iii) Bank processes and the Bank
jobs were created in the informal team which supported the reform
sector in the capital city as a source of global knowledge and
(Noukachott) alone; and a multi- outside facilitation.
sector regulatory agency was estab-
lished which is now regarded as a Country-specific success factors
model in Africa. From lacking criti- in capacity enhancement
cal skills at the outset of these re-
forms, Mauritania became a source Mauritanian policy-makers recog-
of lessons for neighboring countries nized their own strong initial com-
on how to competitively tender util- mitment — the essential condition
ity licenses, effectively regulate for the subsequent success — as
utilities in a competitive setting, itself insufficient to realize ambi-
and privatize a telecommunications tions for change amidst the insti-
operator. Support for this capacity tutionally constrained environment
enhancement came from relatively in 1998. National capacities, not
modest external assistance with an financial resources, were seen as
estimated cost of slightly over one the binding constraint to imple-
million dollars (World Bank Group ment a new telecommunications
staff time as well as consultancy policy statement that represented
support).1

2. a break with past traditions of state telecommunications operator, With early ownership of the ca-
monopoly. Moreover, prevailing in- which had initially been the sole lo- pacity enhancement process,
vestment surveys ranked the coun- cus of reform planning). Eventu- Mauritanians avoided equating
try in the bottom half of country ally, the capacity enhancement en- national capacity with technical as-
risks in Africa. Mauritanian aware- compassed a transformation pro- sistance. They judiciously used
ness of urgent capacity needs went cess linked to the country’s poverty outside consultants mainly to fill
beyond telecommunications policy reduction strategy and went be- short-term skills gaps, such as in
and regulation and utility yond being just a series of, albeit legal, audit, and technical areas.
privatization, and extended to in- important, regulatory changes and Rapidly translating learning into
vestor promotion and strategic use transactions for restructuring the action, Mauritanians boosted their
of media. telecommunications sector. own confidence through flawless
With the Bank as the key part- A simple yet highly effective in- execution of intermediate steps —
ner, capacity enhancement, which strument for awareness-raising such as adopting best practice ba-
unfolded as an integral part of the was the iterative fine-tuning of a sic telecommunications legislation,
reforms, was not only enabled by project management planning tool and separating and corporatizing
this initial commitment but also jointly developed with the Bank telecommunications entities — in
reshaped commitment in unfore- team. This mapped a 280-action record time. Outside consultants
seen ways. Parallel awareness-rais- 36-month detailed reform package who had advised on similar reforms
ing and action learning processes and implementation plan validated in neighboring countries were sur-
transformed the early vision of a by worldwide experience and also prised not only at the speed at
small number of reform champions customized for Mauritania’s cir- which the Mauritanians wanted to
in the telecommunications sector, cumstances. This detailed plan also implement their reforms, and to
and inter-ministerial buy-in was enabled Mauritanians to diagnose learn as they went along, but also
achieved for a framework of broader and better understand their own their readiness to consider specific
utility sector reforms. Meanwhile, gaps between what capacities were detailed reform options which had
Mauritanians internalized a vision required for reform design and not been tried elsewhere in Africa.
of success hinging on the joint ca- implementation and what actually Having assimilated what the de-
pacities of a network of ministries existed. It sharpened the focus for tailed content of a best practice
and agencies (mainly the inter-min- learning at individual and organi- telecommunications reform pro-
isterial committee, the project man- zation levels, once a clear mapping gram could look like, it was left to
agement unit, and the multi-sec- of specific roles, responsibilities, the Mauritanians to take respon-
tor regulatory agency, all of which and accountabilities for success sibility for difficult and innovative
were created under the reform, as emerged. decisions as their capacities for
well as the existing state-owned evidence-based policy design grew
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3. along with confidence in rule-based outcomes not only in record time, ences some three to four years ear-
decision-making. in comparison to similar reforms lier, but also on how they would
elsewhere, but well beyond the have modified their approach in the
Bank/client interface success scope of what had been originally contemporary market context
factors in capacity enhancement envisaged in the March 1998 policy which Mauritania was facing in the
statement. year 2000.
From the outset, Mauritanian “ What to learn when “ was guided Joint learning processes evolved
counterparts and the Bank team by a pragmatic, single-minded fo- through Bank missions, but also
accepted mutual responsibilities in cus on a key outcome: accelerat- through frequent videoconferences,
which success would depend on a ing private investment under a new e-mail exchanges, and a study tour.
high level of trust and on joint telecommunications regulatory These were always linked to spe-
learning. Neither side dwelled on framework. With ideas continually cific outputs and outcomes in the
preconceptions of what the coun- drawn from among Mauritanians or reform program (e.g., framing
try might or might not be able to elsewhere, the Bank team ensured learning needs prior to the study
achieve, given limited capacities that all members of the core group tour and applying learning imme-
and a tight time-frame. Instead, were candidly presented a complete diately, or preparing for the first in-
both focused on analysis which re- and independent view of where the vestors’ conference with a focus on
vealed to decision makers the sub- decision priorities lay. Initially, the the unique selling points of the
stantive and process issues of spe- Bank team focused awareness rais- Mauritanian tender of fering).
cific reform alternatives. The Bank ing on the risks of not addressing Mauritanian officials became in-
team continually mobilized global adverse investor perceptions of creasingly adept at articulating the
knowledge — in which the Bank country risk and commercial poten- specific choices shaping their pro-
has a comparative advantage — but tial. What could enhance interest competitive reform strategy (e.g.,
the Mauritanian counterparts ac- among investors shopping globally privatizing the national operator
tively adapted and combined this for competitive telecommunications through capitalization rather than
knowledge with local understand- investment opportunities, amidst sale of government shares). Eigh-
ing of institutions and processes. the backdrop of the East Asian fi- teen months of this capacity en-
While focusing on the capacities of nancial crisis followed by the grow- hancement process readied the
a core group of about ten individu- ing indebtedness of major telecom- Mauritanians in April 2000 to face
als at various ministerial levels and munications operators worldwide? their first investor forum during
below, the Bank team avoided fa- Acting on the results of continual this reform with an offering en-
voring a particular agency or min- joint brainstorming on this ques- hanced by well-informed design
istry. This helped the Bank team tion, the Mauritanians crafted a and requisite institutional capabili-
to directly or indirectly nurture a strategy which would come to dif- ties.
widening circle of dialogue with the ferentiate their offering to private Four weeks later, every private
individuals and institutions tasked investors through unique policy bidder for the first license recog-
with designing and eventually ex- content and optimal execution. nized that real capacity had been
ecuting the reform program. This practical capacity enhance- built, as each vigorously congratu-
Mauritanian decision-makers ment process also benefited an in- lated the government for a profes-
thus acquired an informed view of creasingly evidence-based ap- sionally and transparently con-
the trade-offs between speed and proach to policy design and regu- ducted tender process concluded in
quality, also taking into account lation. As capacity enhancement May 2000. The same capacity that
the need for building consensus shifted to technical areas — tariffs, helped generate a new world record
within government as well as pri- interconnection, and frequency for proceeds (adjusted on a per
vate sector and civil society. This management — Mauritanians came capita income basis), for
also placed squarely in their hands to critically scrutinize, compare, Mauritania’s first mobile telecom-
the decision whether to adjust the and contrast success factors in munications license, was then ap-
scope and speed of reform. Ulti- other country settings. The Bank/ plied to the even more difficult
mately, as confidence in decision- client team jointly sifted global good transaction of privatizing the na-
making grew, Mauritanians be- practices to ask what was relevant tional operator. Evidence-based
came less risk-averse to bold deci- for a specific set of problems in policy thinking led the government
sions. The cumulative learning pro- Mauritania. During a study tour to to boldly open all telecommunica-
cess re-shaped the initial policy Latin America, Mauritanian coun- tions services to competition prior
commitment, enabling the terparts quizzed counterparts in to privatizing its own telecommu-
Mauritanians to adopt policy Peru and Bolivia not only on their nications operator, thus going well
changes and achieve successful telecommunications reform experi- beyond the original policy. The stra-

4. tegic sale was successfully con- The Bank telecommunications 1 For more details, see also World Bank
cluded only a few months later, set- team tackled Mauritanian needs for Africa Region Good Practice Infobrief
No.71, December 2001,
ting another record on the conti- customized solutions with a will- www.worldbank.org/afr/findings/
nent for privatization proceeds in ingness to depart from the more default.htm; “Développement et concur-
telecommunications (on a per line traditional approaches to telecom- rence: l’exemple de la Mauritanie” ENA
basis). More tangible impact of ca- munications reforms within the Mensuel, Paris, February 2002; World
Bank Africa Region joint staff/client
pacity enhancement process mate- Bank. They resisted frequent skep- video debriefing March 5,2002 accessible
rialized as a record pace of infra- ticism that rapid results could be to Bank staff on afr/aftqk/debriefing;
structure investment and service achieved in such a difficult envi- “Making Competition Work in Infrastruc-
roll-out followed within a year. ronment. Avoiding narrowly cast- ture: Telecommunications Reform in
Mauritania” in Building A Consensus For
ing the capacity enhancement pro- Development Assistance: A Case For Aid,
Bank-specific factors in cess as telecommunications reform p. 103 (World Bank, June 2002).
successful capacity enhancement enabled the Bank team and coun- 2 See separate forthcoming companion
terparts to strategically ally with Findings paper “How Malians learned to
succeed in telecommunications reform
Fundamental to the Bank’s knowl- change processes and teams else-
and enhance national capacity”.
edge broker and facilitator role was where. The ambit of the new regu-
a strong Bank team value which latory agency extended to all util-
considered counterpart abilities to ity sectors as a means of efficiently
understand and solve their own using scarce Mauritanian capacity,
problems as paramount. For this, and telecommunications reforms
possessing or mobilizing technical joined the ongoing PRSP process This article was written by
expertise was imperative, but the through a working group on infor- Govindan G. Nair, Lead Financial
Bank team also invested in rela- mation and communication tech- Economist, the World Bank Institute.
tionship-building. Very candid ex- nologies. Both sides incorporated For more infor mation, e-mail
changes with the client were capacity enhancement as an inte- Gnair@worldbank.org
coupled with what Mauritanian gral part of project preparation and
counterparts saw as a seamless implementation. Bank costs re-
working relationship between the mained below-average as part of
Bank’s Country Department man- preparing and supervising a Bank-
agement, Country Office, and the financed telecommunications re-
telecommunications team. An “in- form technical assistance project,
tegrated” Bank team with effective less than 10 percent of which was
communication channels enabled actually used to achieve the results
the client to request and receive, described here.
formally and informally, “just-in- Finally, the Bank team under-
time” knowledge and advice on scored the value of capacity en-
critical-path issues in the reform, hancement by encouraging the cli-
often against very tight deadlines. ent to capture their early and later
Mauritanian counterparts came to lessons, including through video-
trust the Bank’s ability to provide taped key events, such as investors’
clear, unambiguous, and timely conference and web site documen-
guidance for a continuous problem- tation of all stages of license ten-
solving process for which the ders and regulations. Thus,
Mauritanians always felt a strong Mauritanians shared their experi-
sense of ownership. ence with other countries. At least
one subsequent telecommunication
reform success (in Mali) can be
partly attributed to this cross-
country learning experience.2