CTO propels Commonwealth digital divide plan

The UK Ministry of Trade and Industry and the UK Office of Communications (OFCOM) hosted the first meeting of the Commonwealth-ITU Group in London last month in preparation for the 2006 Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which is scheduled to be held in November at Antalya, Turkey.

The Commonwealth-ITU Group is one of the mechanisms through which the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) assists ITU member countries to harmonise their views and positions, enhancing the Commonwealth countries' clout in international ICT fora.

The main purpose of the meeting was to provide an opportunity to compare regional proposals and identify common objectives relating to the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, which is the top policy-making body of the ITU.

The plenipotentiary conference, held every four years, is the key event at which ITU member states decide on the future role of the organisation. It has a mandate to set the Union's general policies, adopt five-year strategic and financial plans and elect the Union's top management team.

UK Minister of State for Industry and the Regions Alun Michael welcomed the participants to the London conference, which was being held just after the CHOGM in Malta, where ICTs were, for the first time, top of the agenda, and the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia.

Both events raised the political profile of the digital divide to the highest political level and it was now the onus of the ITU to take forward some of the major challenges. Mr Michael stressed the need to ensure digital inclusion for all peoples of the world.

In the UK, he said, broadband had reached 99 per cent coverage and it was trying to convert the actual usage by all to bring ICTs to the people and make them relevant to their needs.

He observed that the considerations of digital inclusion were a high priority worldwide and the primary focus should, therefore, be on accelerating accessibility of technology.

The conference was also addressed by the Minister of Communications of Ghana, Albert Kan-Dapaah, who highlighted the CTO's success at the Malta CHOGM and drew attention to the need to develop modern communications infrastructure to meet the demands of ICTs.

He called on the ITU to support home-grown initiatives, such as that provided in the partnership framework for infrastructure development for ICTs in Africa.

Mr Kan-Dapaah stressed the need to recognise the African Regional Action Plan on the knowledge economy that was adopted by the African Union as a framework encompassing the action lines of the World Summit on the Information Society.

The Ghanaian minister noted that the challenge for Africa was how fast resource mobilisation could be harnessed to bring the programmes to fruition.

De Bono's address

Anthony De Bono, chairman of the CTO and also vice-chairman of ITU's Development Advisory Group, in his address to the conference proposed that the CHOGM Declaration should now be promoted with the ITU both at the World Telecommunications Development Conference to be held in Doha, Qatar, next April, as well as at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference.

Mr De Bono said that the Commonwealth can contribute meaningfully to the measures aimed at bridging the digital divide. He confirmed that CHOGM in Malta had endorsed the Commonwealth Action Plan for the Digital Divide as its road map, and viewed the Commonwealth's priorities as being the development of policy and regulatory capacity, the promotion of local access and connectivity coupled with the strengthening of local and regional networks.

There are currently 51 Commonwealth countries in the ITU and many of these are influential in the regional telecommunications organisations. Considering that the ITU conferences are now largely determined by regional proposals, and the Commonwealth countries are influential in four of the six main regional organisations, this offers the possibility for a co-ordinated effort by the Commonwealth countries to be mostly successful.

Mr De Bono reminded the conference that this strategy paid dividends at the ITU World Standardisation Assembly in Brazil in 2004. The four regional organisations that the Commonwealth countries are represented in - the Conference for the European Post and Telecoms (CEPT), the InterAmerican Telecommunications Commission (CITEL), the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) and African Telecommunications Union (ATU) - made formal presentations at the UK conference.

Taking account of these presentations, the conference identified common Commonwealth objectives, ranging from ITU's reform to address the challenges of WSIS, CHOGM, the election system of the Union, implementation of resolutions and, also, the issue of the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs).

It was also approved that Malta and UK develop a draft resolution incorporating the major positions in the CHOGM declaration to be forwarded to the ITU World Telecommunications Development Conference in Doha, and the Plenipotentiary Conference in Turkey.

The Commonwealth-ITU Group also agreed that a co-ordinator should be appointed for each common Commonwealth objective. The co-ordinator would be responsible for the further development of the common Commonwealth objectives and for pursuing these objectives through to a successful conclusion at the ITU's Plenipotentiary Conference.

Regional co-ordinators, who would be responsible for reporting to the group of developments in their region, were also appointed for each region (Asia-Pacific, Africa, Europe and the Americas).

Overall co-ordination

On the recommendation of Mr De Bono the overall Commonwealth co-ordination will be led by the Ghanaian minister. Ghana's election to spearhead the Commonwealth contribution to the ITU was in appreciation of the highly successful role it played during the negotiations of WSIS, when Minister Kan Dapaah co-ordinated Africa's position to help secure vital consensus on the thorny issues of the WSIS.

To further strengthen the Commonwealth lobby, Mr De Bono advised the UK conference that it was of cardinal importance to make official arrangements with the ITU protocol for the Ghanaian Minister to address the plenary, thereby consolidating the Commonwealth's unified approach.

In his closing address Mr Kan-Dapaah thanked Mr De Bono for his successful role in taking the CTO to such an unprecedented high level of visibility, the UK Government for joining the CTO in the projection of the Commonwealth on the world stage, and all the delegates for their support and confidence in him to lead the Commonwealth objectives at the next Plenipotentiary Conference.

Mr Kan-Dapaah said he was sure that the Commonwealth would be the most influential lobby at the conference, especially in the light of the importance given to ICTs in the Malta CHOGM declaration, as it had been underscored by the UK minister and the CTO chairman.

The Ghanaian minister was pleased with the outcome and timeliness of the conference and opined that it enabled an exchange of views on important topics while these were still in draft form. This should help avoid a divergence between the final regional proposals and the provisional objectives agreed at this conference.