Digital Ecosystem Assessment_ Guinea Conakry / Digital Society, Rights, & Governance.

I- GENERAL CONTEXT

A. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT

With several military coups, the democratic environment is marked by political instability as the section armed forces run the country after the military coup on September 5th, 2021, against President Alpha Condé. Experts argue that severe political instability, weak institutions, and relatively authoritarian political governance caused this coup. However, in January 2022, transitional process, President Mamadou Doumbouya established the National Transitional Process.

In 2023, the country joins with Mali, Burkina and Niger, requiring France to depart from their territories after a military coup in Niger. Socially, the headcount poverty ratio was in 2017 at $2.5?a day. The multidimensional poverty index, which measures poverty across cross-cutting themes, was 38.4 for education, 21.4 for health and 40.3 for living standards.

B. ECONOMIC | DIGITAL ECONOMY.

In 2022, the mobile money penetration rate was 20%, the internet penetration was 52%, and the cell phone one was 100%. Whereas it was estimated at 7% of the GDP, the digital economy's share of Guinea's GDP is, for 2023, estimated at 5.6%. The political crisis seriously affected media right and digital rights in the country.

II. DIGITAL SOCIETY, RIGHTS, AND GOVERNANCE

The legal framework of Guinea is full of texts that give stakeholders provisions to exercise their rights actively. However, political instability mitigates those liberties expressions.

A. INTERNET FREEDOM

?Digital rights, Digital repression, and Internet governance are the milestones of Internet freedom. In Guinea, internet censorship and shutdown before and after the military coup. In fact, recently on May 17th, the most important social network and platforms have been technically restricted in the context where the current authorities wanted to control citizens' political protest. This practice challenges the desire of the Government to ensure security and public order and the Guinean Citizen's rights to protest. Furthermore, it could mitigate the right to internet access which is now recognised as a human right. It is important to note that the current Niger's coup support could generate a bunch of disinformation and potential internet shutdown in the country.

B. CIVIL SOCIETY AND MEDIA

The elaboration of the transition Charter?after the military coup has shown civil society organisations' diversity and dynamism. Focus digital ecosystem, civil society organisation on elections (Citizen Coalition for Elections and Governance_CoCEG), journalism, and blogging (Guinean Bloggers Association_Ablogui) give an overview. The blogger association's government program monitoring underlined that media professionals lack updated skills. This issue should be fixed, especially in this current context of disinformation and online harm. In addition, the lack of infrastructures for a better media scope, no plan to digitise the economy and make it contribute at 3% of the GPD, and the no significative cybersecurity activities realisation must be noticed. However, a cybersecurity and data protection law?was adopted in July 2016.

The second civil society association with international partner advocacy and technical support uses media to influence national and global governance. Indeed, by deploying observers across the vote stations all over the country, with statistical methodology get valuable arguments to impact the democratic process positively. The recent NDI technical assessment recommendations underlined that NGOs and Media organisations should monitor the political transition process and promote online speech and the right to information. Nevertheless, the legal framework and the stakeholders' regulation give precision on Guinea's Digital Environment.

C. DIGITAL GOVERNMENT

The elaboration of the transition Charter?after the military coup has shown civil society organisations' diversity and dynamism. Focus digital ecosystem, civil society organisation on elections (Citizen Coalition for Elections and Governance_CoCEG), journalism, and blogging (Guinean Bloggers Association_Ablogui) give an overview. The blogger association's government program monitoring underlined that media professionals lack updated skills. This issue should be fixed, especially in this current context of disinformation and online harm. In addition, the lack of infrastructures for a better media scope, no plan to digitise the economy and make it contribute at 3% of the GPD, and the no significative cybersecurity activities realisation must be noticed. However, a cybersecurity and data protection law?was adopted in July 2016.

The second civil society association with international partner advocacy and technical support uses media to influence national and global governance. Indeed, by deploying observers across the vote stations all over the country, with statistical methodology get valuable arguments to impact the democratic process positively. The recent NDI technical assessment recommendations underlined that NGOs and Media organisations should monitor the political transition process and promote online speech and the right to information. Nevertheless, the legal framework and the stakeholders' regulation give precision on Guinea's Digital Environment. ???

C. DIGITAL GOVERNMENT

The digital environment legal framework and specialised institutions can principally structure Guinea's digital governance. However, some tax related to internet data could impinge internet governance as it affects people's purchasing power.

On the one hand, it is essential to say that the digital legal framework of Guinea is quite important in regulating its information society as it covers personal data protection, cybersecurity, telecommunications, postal activities and E-Commerce and electronic transaction. But as mentioned above, the general context of the country is oriented to the political transition many information society activities and improvements have not been realised. It is important to underline press and media are regulated by the ORGANIC LAW L/2010 / 02 / CNT OF JUNE 22ND, 2010, on the Freedom of the Press. It is crucial to notice that this law entrenched the abolition of custodial sentences for press offences. Insult and defamation committed by the press and other communication means have special sanctions and penalties regime no longer including imprisonment.

But in 2020 and the beginning of 2021 journalists, because of online publications, have been arrested under the cybersecurity law. These arrests prove that freedom of the press and the internet can be mitigated depending on the political crisis context.

On the other hand, the Guinea government created institutions to conduct internet governance. Indeed, the Posts and Telecommunication Regulation Authority is the main organisation which governs and ensures the laws' application and fair competition between Internet service providers and crucial stakeholders. Besides, infrastructures and internet taxes are the challenges that remain challenged in Guinea's digital environment. Regarding infrastructures, let us underline that the encouraging trends provided by International Telecommunication Union on the regulatory tracking score (68,33) the mobile broadband prices is problematic because low classes are affected. In fact, in 2016 the Government enacted a regulation, L/2015/002/AN, which increased by 5% the price of internet data by creating a bottleneck as the ISP directly repercussed this on everyday data internet consumption. ?

This situation depicts that endogenous and exogenous factors stress the digital environment. Overall, one could recognise that, while the number of internet users, from 2022 to 2023, increased by 114 thousand, i.e., 2.3%?the political crisis is striking down the digital environment. ?

III. RECOMMENDATIONS

?An excellent political state and governance is prior to prosperous digital environment dynamism. The following recommendations are firmly dependent on that condition. ?

1. Realise the government policy on internet governance effectively. ?

2. Hold a workshop session on taxes and infrastructures to balance citizens' rights and internet service providers' interests properly.

3. Redefine the IT and IP policy to attract investors and propel the creative industry. ?

SOURCES :

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?Freedom House (n 1) 1.

?Wolrd Bank, ‘World Bank Open Data’ (World Bank Open Data) <https://data.worldbank.org > accessed 19 August 2023.

?United Nation Developement Program, ‘Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023’ 2.

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?National Democratic Institute (NDI), ‘STATEMENT OF THE NDI TECHNICAL ASSESSMENT MISSION TO GUINEA-CONAKRY, MARCH 9-15, 2022’ (15 March 2022) <https://www.ndi.org/publications/statement-ndi-technical-assessment-mission-guinea-conakry-march-9-15-2022 > accessed 20 August 2023.

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?Abdoul Bah, ‘Délits de presse en Guinée?: diffamation ou injure?: distinction, moyens de riposte et sanctions. Par ?Juriste.’ [2021] Village de la Justice <https://www.village-justice.com/articles/guinee-delit-diffamation-injure-distinction-moyens-riposte-sanctions,38717.html > accessed 22 August 2023.

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