Welcoming delegates to a packed Vega Convention Centre at the Sungate Port Royal Hotel, Mr Erdogan said that once more, Turkey looked forward to another success of a global ITU event.
The opening ceremony was also addressed by ITU Secretary-General, Yoshio Utsumi, and Turkey’s Minister of Transport, Binali Yildirim.
Turkey: upwardly digital
The Prime Minister painted a picture of the Turkish ICT landscape. Turkey is making steady progress along the path towards becoming an information society. Its information and communication technologies (ICT) market has high potential, given ongoing reform of the sector and the country’s population of more than 73 million. The Prime Minister underlined that the government and the private sector had great expectations from this conference, whose decisions would have important implications for the telecommunication industry worldwide.
The government is creating important employment opportunities for the younger generation in the information and communication sectors. As the Prime Minister stated it, much attention is now turned to research and development in order to achieve this goal. The government is encouraging the private sector to develop new R & D centres, which it would support to offer young researchers a chance to be leaders in the ICT revolution.
Privatization had been a key component of the government’s policy to create a competitive ICT market structure said the Prime Minister. The year 2004 saw the end of monopoly in voice communication and infrastructure. Now the emphasis is on the e-Transformation Turkey Project that will provide a coordinating mechanism for improving ICT in the country.
Turkey’s Minister of Transport, Binali Yildirim, highlighted just how rapidly telecommunications are expanding in the country. With more than 19 million fixed-telephone lines, over 50 million mobile subscribers and an estimated 16 million internet users, there are growth opportunities in almost all national spheres of ICT. Turkey’s young and dynamic population augments this potential. He commended ITU for its role in guiding the telecommunication sector and expressed the hope that the decisions of the conference would lead to a further extension and wider use of ICT and help close the digital divide between and within countries.
Moving with the times
ITU Secretary-General told delegates that this Plenipotentiary is faced with momentous decisions which will affect the lives of all people around the world. “The birth pangs of the information revolution are over,” he said. “We are at a critical juncture where we must make the right decisions, right choices, to make our Union the strong cornerstone-unobtrusive but always there to act-as an anchor of the multi-stakeholder development of the information society,”Mr Utsumi also said.
A new environment
What has happened since Mr Utsumi’s election in Minneapolis in 1998 and re-election in Marrakesh in 2002? The world has experienced the “dot com” boom and bust. It has seen the power of the internet reaching the shores and cities of every country. Government monopolies have been bracing for private competition. Analogue networks have changed to digital networks. And mobile telephony has boomed. Traumatic events and natural calamities have focused the world attention on the importance of communications in disaster mitigation and relief.
Highlighting these changes Mr Utsumi stated that in all his endeavours, his unwavering focus and unflinching belief had been turned towards achieving the Union’s goal of “development of telecommunications for one and all”. But “believing is a fine thing”, and “putting those beliefs into execution is a test of strength,” he said quoting the poet Khalil Gibran. He said that the past few years had been a real test of his inner strength and beliefs. But he expressed satisafaction that he had delivered on the pledges he took and on the promises he made in 1998 when he was elected.
“Since Minneapolis, more than two billion new users have been added to the world’s networks, most of them using mobile phones, and more than 800 million users have been connected to the internet” Mr Utsumi said. ITU had anticipated and helped create this change, for instance, in setting aside spectrum and by developing interoperability standards. “Telecommunications now lie at the heart of a global ICT business that is valued in terms of trillions of dollars, and which contributes more than 7 per cent of global wealth,” he told delegates.
Making ITU more efficient and effective During the past eight years, ITU had successfully implemented management reforms including operational planning, results-based budgeting and time-tracking. “We have improved the efficiency of our work, for instance by eliminating the backlogs in the processing of satellite notifications, and in reforming the business model of TELECOM,” Mr Utsumi pointed out. ITU had also succeeded in absorbing requests from the membership for additional activities, without any significant increase in the contributory unit. He said that in total, efficiency measures of more than CHF 75 million had been implemented since 1998, making it possible to undertake more work with fewer resources.
Dealing with the WSIS challenge: time to broaden ITU’s horizons The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was a pivotal event in which ITU played the leading role. WSIS has given ITU the opportunity to position itself in the vanguard of the information society. But in assuming that position, ITU must demonstrate that it is no longer just a “technical agency” that simply “makes the phones work” or “records satellite filings”, Mr Utsumi underlined. “ITU must now show that it has a mandate and capacity to engage more broadly in the development of ICT and in their use for the benefit of humanity.”
WSIS helped to highlight the challenges raised by the information society. It also brought together new players and new interests. The WSIS process enhanced the public image and awareness of ITU, even among Heads of State and Government. But despite ITU’s leading role, WSIS decided that it was necessary to create a separate forum to discuss the issue of internet governance, because ITU was not sufficiently open to the new players that were brought together at the summit, and not flexible enough in its working methods to accommodate new issues. Its traditional ways of working through study groups was considered not to be appropriate, and a more flexible response is needed, Mr Utsumi stressed.
Leadership and innovation
Referring to his tenure as Secretary-General, Mr Utsumi said that ITU had been able to demonstrate leadership and innovation in several important matters requiring international policy coordination. Success stories, he said, included the agreement on the IMT-2000 family of standards for third generation (3G) mobile communications. Another example is the World Telecommunication Policy Forum of 2001. This helped Member States and Sector Members to develop a common understanding of the implications of voice over internet protocol (VoIP).
He called on the conference to act with vision and clarity, at times forsaking narrow interests for the broader good of human kind. “It is imperative that we continue forward with greater momentum on the path of change ITU has embarked on since I took office eight years ago”, he stated. The world is changing and ITU must change with it. “We have to decide: are we to continue our archaic dogmatic traditions or relinquish them to soar with the pragmatic winds of change sweeping across the globe.” He urged the conference to “make ITU the universal flag bearer to build a more just and equitable information society”.
Down to business
The first plenary session of PP-06 opened with a decision that the elections would begin on Thursday, 9 November, starting with the post of Secretary-General. The Conference also elected the Chairman of the Conference, Mr Tanju Cataltepe of Turkey and 5 of the six vice-chairmen (Knut Smaaland of Norway, Leonid Reiman of Russian Federation, Philippe Mvouomo of Congo, Hikaru Chono of Japan and Mohammed Mulla of Saudi Arabia). It also elected a number of chairmen and vice-chairmen of the committees although several positions remain to be finalized.
Committee 2:
Credentials Committee
Chairman: Ernest Ndukwe (Nigeria)
Vice-Chairman: To be finalized
Committee 3:
Budget Control Committee
Chairman: Reynaldo Gonzales (Mexico)
Vice-Chairman: To be finalized
Committee 4
Editorial Committee
Chairman: Marie-Thrse Alajouanine (France) Vice-Chairman (English): Esther Val (United Kingdom) Vice-Chairman (Spanish): Manual Zaragoza (Spain) Vice-Chairman (Russian): Andrey Svechnikov (Russian Federation) Vice-Chairman (Chinese): Nie Zheng (China) Vice-Chairman (Arabic): Hassan Lebbadi (Morroco)
Committee 5:
Policy and Legal Matters
Chairman: To be finalized
Vice-Chairman: To be finalized
Committee 6: Administration and Management
Chairman: Frederic Riehl
Vice-Chairman: To be finalized
Working Group of the Plenary
Chairman: To be finalized
Vice-Chairman: To be finalized
Setting the tone
The United States began the formal procession of policy statements by referring to the WSIS Geneva Declaration of Principles, reiterating the commitment “to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life”. The delegate urged ITU to pursue policies aimed at evolving ICT to facilitate the free flow of information and extend the educational, cultural, scientific, political, medical and commercial opportunities to all. “Only through the actions of each government can an environment be created which would allow the promise of ICT to become a reality,” the delegate said.
Communications for all
With a view to expanding access to ICT in developing countries, the US has contributed over USD 250 million in the past three years. In 2007, the Digital Freedom Initiative will focus on increasing broadband connectivity and connecting rural areas. PP-06 would address new challenges and opportunities, such as NGN, as well as promote an enabling environment to achieve global economic development. It would be critical to elect forward-looking candidates and make ITU more accountable and efficient.
The delegate reaffirmed the US position of establishing a budget ceiling based on zero nominal growth. Priorities need to be established based on the Union’s core competencies and the financial plan should be focused on achieving the strategic goals.
Communications for safety
The Minister for Information Technology thanked the Union for its work in restoring and establishing communication links during the series of natural disasters following the Asian tsunami, including the devastating South Asian earthquake. He said that Pakistan would support ITU in standardizing emergency response to disasters within the framework of the Tampere Convention.
The Minister said he was proud of Pakistan’s “indomitable association with ITU” and reaffirmed his country’s commitment to strengthening the Union as “an effective and efficient body to amicably address the challenges of the future.” He added, “The development of telecommunications on regional and global basis is critical for the overall improvement of economic, social, political, and cultural values. It promotes the sharing and exchange of such values across different cultures, and in doing so, fosters healthier inter-cultural relationships and stronger links between people across the globe.”
Pakistan reaffirmed its support to ITU in meeting the challenges and objectives in the rapidly evolving ICT sector. ITU should continue to assist developing countries in establishing new policy and regulatory requirements.
Communications everywhere
The Minister of Transport and Communications of Kyrgyzstan thanked ITU for its assistance in developing ICT. “Even though Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous country, telecommunications has been developing apace,” he said. “Since 2002, Kyrgyzstan has seen major evolution of digital mainline radio lines, which are operated by four competing companies.” One in five people subscribe to mobile networks, and a broadband wireless access network would be the way to provide universal access, he added. In the next four years, fibre optic lines would cover the Republic and connect to neighbouring countries as well.
Communications for peace
The Minister of Communications of Colombia stated that development initiatives must ensure that all people have access to knowledge networks in order to make real progress towards realizing the Information Society. She said that PP-06 marked the crossroads for telecommunication development and bridging the digital divide. ITU had the responsibility to harness the potential of ICT to achieve peace, security, stability, good governance and the rule of law.
The Minister voiced her concern that international terrorism, which knows no borders, had played havoc in Colombia and the rest of the world. “Good communication can overcome these territorial constraints”, she said. She called for fair access to satellite signals, as proposed by CITEL, and said that NGN should be promoted as a tool for social and economic development. ICT would be key to building an inclusive Information Society, achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and bridging the digital divide.