“In our growing world of hyper-connectedness, the telecommunications- and ICT industry holds a central position: its enabling role has become very visible in multiple dimensions of society’s progress toward digital development. The digital ecosystem is complex, least because it is constantly evolving. Creating the right enabling environment through setting policies and regulatory agendas, that benefit all stakeholders can be challenging and requires an acute understanding of different stakeholders’ needs, motivations and objectives.

The Internet and “everything digital” has spurred demand for digital products and services across borders. Consumers increasingly use the Internet and its services and applications to shop, bank, communicate, network and research, and so much more. Firms rely on the Internet to sell their products and services and for internal operations. Governments offer their services online. All rely on network infrastructure, which has to be secure, resilient and fast to be able to deal with the increased data flows generated from online activities. And more is coming: IoT devices will emit vast amounts of data 24/7, 7 days a week, which requires significant storage and processing capacity. At the same time, internet business models and global competition are disrupting traditional business models and services, and are putting a strain on traditional revenues and investments.

To be recognized as the unified Telecom Operators’ voice and the leading Digital Stakeholder Platform for consensus-driven policy- and regulatory change in the SAMENA region.

It is SAMENA’s mission to serve as a sector-development partner to governments and industry for the joint creation of a flourishing and sustainable ICT sector to enable sustainable digital transformation. Our key objectives are to enable sustainable growth, incentivize investments and broaden value creation through effecting adoption of new regulatory approaches in the areas of Digital Services, Data Regulation, Spectrum Management, and Industry Fees & Taxation.

The Council was initially led by Dr. Muhammad Ali Al Wohaibi, then-CEO of Oman Telecom. Subsequently, SAMENA Council was chaired by Orange Jordan Telecom Group’s CEO Mr. Mickael Ghossein and then the group CEO of Saudi Telecom Company, Eng. Saud Al Daweesh. Elected in 2011, Sheikh Mohamed Bin Isa Al Khalifa, Group CEO of Batelco served as a chairman of the SAMENA Council’s Board of Directors until September 2013 and was succeeded by Dr. Nasser Marafih, then-Group CEO of Ooredoo. In 2016, the Board of Directors elected Dr. Khaled Biyari, Group CEO of STC, to lead SAMENA Council. On February 27, 2018, in Barcelona, STC was again elected to chair the Board of Directors under the leadership of STC GCEO Eng. Nasser Al Nasser.