- Tell me more about the DEFA.
What is it about and how did you come up with it?
- The Digital Economic Framework Agreement, the DEFA,
is truly something we are very proud of.
I don't think there's any region in the world
that's been able to come together so quickly,
and this is what the spirit of DEFA is -
the ability for us to integrate our region digitally.
I think this is where partnering
with a strong knowledge partner like BCG has helped us.
In a very short span of time,
we were able to garner the data that we needed.
The other important thing we needed
was we needed to go and scour,
what are some of the other digital agreements out there?
I think there were roughly about 30 agreements
that we made a very deep study into
to pick up the best practices
of what we need to incorporate in our own DEFA.
But the most important element of our journey
was the ability for us
to very quickly harness what private sector wants,
both small, medium sized, large local players in the region,
as well as global players that are operating in our region.
What is it that's going to make a difference
in their decision making,
and what are they expecting us
to be putting into this agreements
that's going to be impactful
to their own growth and development?
And I think once we had that information
and once we showed some of this clarity to the leaders,
it was so easy for us to get the commitment from them
that this is the way to go.