Anthony Debono was re-elected first vice-chairman of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) and one of four members of the CTO's Executive Board at its 43rd meeting in Kampala, Uganda, on September 11.
With CTO chairman Cuthbert Lekaukau, chairman of the Botswana Telecom Authority, who was also re-elected, not expected to seek re-election to the chair next year, it is probable that Mr DeBono, who represents Maltacom, will be elected CTO chairman for 2005 and 2006.
The CTO meeting was attended by some 70 ministers of communication, directors-general of regulatory authorities and chief executives of telecom operators in 22 Commonwealth countries, in Asia, the Pacific, Europe, North America and Africa.
The main outcome of the meeting was a commitment by member countries to strengthen the CTO, a London-based international organisation with some 50 full and associate Commonwealth member countries, by expanding its membership to include a wide range of ICT organisations, private industry and development partners, in addition to more Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries.
An important council decision, taken to reflect a number of new responsibilities assigned to the CTO's secretariat, was to increase the organisation's administrative budget for the 2003-2004 financial year by more than 20 per cent and approve the recruitment of more staff to enable a new chief executive officer, Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah of Ghana, and the secretariat to carry out a broadened mandate.
Dr Spio-Garbrah's first official engagement is a global multi-lateral event in Malta from October 6-9 on Human Resources Management and Development. A former Minister of Communication and acting chairman of the National Communication Authority of Ghana, Dr Spio-Garbrah is a former Ambassador of Ghana to the United States and Mexico.
He also served as Minister of Education, Minister responsible for Mines and Energy, and member of UNESCO's Executive Board in Paris.
Prior to his appointments in the Ghanaian government, Dr Spio-Garbrah was Head of Communication of the Abidjan-based African Development Bank and an External Relations Officer of the International Finance Corporation in Washington, DC. He worked earlier for Southwestern Bell Corporation and Hill and Knowlton, Inc., both of the US.
The new CEO presented an outline of his vision for the organisation for the next four years at a CTO forum in the run-up to the meeting. The new CTO will be "a dynamic partnership of member governments, member regulators, member development agencies, member financial institutions, member foundations, member NGOs and member civil society organisations, all committed to the overarching task of using ICT to facilitate global co-operation and especially to accelerate the development of our member countries".
Outlining his vision for the organisation, the new CEO proposed that the CTO must do five principal things over the next few years:
¤ it must continue to offer opportunities for capacity-building in the ICT sector through targeted training to selected officials in institutions in member countries;
¤ it must become and be seen as an effective conduit for bridging the digital divide and as a centre of cutting-edge knowledge on ICT issues for the benefit of its members and the global community at large;
¤ it must become more relevant to the needs of its member countries, especially its developing member countries, by becoming more engaged in the processes of social and economic development, in particular by promoting the use of ICTs in the cardinal fields of agriculture, education, health, e-commerce and e-governance;
¤ it must become an instrument through which its partners, especially those from the industrialised world, become more knowledgeable about opportunities for transactions in the ICT sector in other member countries;
¤ it must widen its membership and attract and embrace many institutions and associations that form part of the brave new world of ICT in a variety of collaborative arrangements.
To achieve these long-term goals, Dr Spio-Garbrah called on the CTO to focus on four priority activities over the next four years. The first is to implement the Council's on membership growth by embarking on an aggressive membership diversification strategy and programme.
He asked the CTO to aim to bring back into the organisation previous member countries, extend the membership of the organisation to other Commonwealth countries, and reach out to countries outside the Commonwealth family.
He suggested that the CTO should also work to attract into the organisation sector members from among telecom operators and ICT product manufacturers, and work to include in its membership service providers of all kinds, from fixed and mobile companies to satellite and fibre optics businesses, as well as Internet service providers.
In addition, the umbrella of the new CTO, he said, must extend to cover regulators, development agencies, financial institutions that fund CTO operations, consultants and civil society organisations.
Dr Spio-Garbrah said that the second priority of the CTO should be to continue to review funding arrangements for the organisation, and grow the CTO's revenue stream both through membership development and innovative income-generating activities, while maintaining and improving on its current stable of development and training programmes.
Thirdly, he proposed that the CTO should support its membership diversification strategy and revenue generation with more focused corporate and marketing communication, including greater attention to understanding the opinions of the membership as well as the needs of the beneficiaries of the CTO's interventions in member counties.
Finally, according to Dr Spio-Garbrah, the CTO should pay attention to the strengthening of its human resources at headquarters, enhance productivity measures, and use the best external expertise available so as to enable the organisation to deliver on the foregoing tasks in the most efficient and cost effective ways.
Dr Spio-Garhrah was requested by council to develop a new strategy for the organisation's growth and to submit it to an extraordinary meeting of the council to be held in London towards the end of January. The CTO also decided to hold its 44th meeting in Sri Lanka, at about the same time next year, at the invitation of the Sri Lankan government.
In the run-up to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, Malta has been highly active in a number of Commonwealth-related bodies, strengthening further its association with the Commonwealth.