The 12th meeting of the Advisory Committee of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organisation (IAC – ITSO Advisory Committee) was held last 25-26 March in Washington, D.C., chaired by the USA (Steve Lett). This was the last IAC meeting before the upcoming ordinary session of the Assembly of Parties (AP34), due to meet this 22-24 June in that same city. The documents discusses at this 12th meeting should also be examined at the AP, which is the organisation’s top body.
The draft ITSO Strategy Plan, a contribution from the Director General (José Toscano of Portugal) was one of the documents subject to the most debate. Based on the document “ITSO’s Goals and Objectives (2008-2013)”, a contribution approved by the 32nd Assembly of Parties in October 2008, this proposal launches the debate on the organisation’s future after 18 July 2013, the date the respective financing will have to be renegotiated with the operator Intelsat. Note that most of the attending Parties were in favour of the undeniable need for the ITSO to continue in order to ensure respect for the Basic Principles (namely global connectivity and price protection, particularly in remote access and low income countries), with the usual reticence raised by the USA, the United Kingdom and Canada.
The future ITSO Strategy Plan (whose draft final version was open to additional comments from the Parties until 10 April), likewise advocates pursuing three strategy goals: maintaining the offer of public telecommunications satellite services; protection of orbital positions of the so-called ‘common heritage’ and associated frequencies; and promotion of a comprehensive structure for communications and information.
Among the planned actions to consolidate these goals are renegotiation of a new business model with Intelsat for LCO (lifetime connectivity obligations) contracts, designated the Special Renewal Program; capacity-building actions concerning satellite communications in partnership with the ITU and other satellite organisations such as IMSO and EUTELSAT IGO; clear determination of the consequence of continuing or not continuing ITSO after 2013, producing a recommendation on the subject to present to the 2012 AP; the ITU secretary general’s support for the “Connect the World to Help Connect the Unconnected by 2015” initiative and for the Millennium Development Goals; and the examination with other entities, specifically organisations such as the ITU, World Bank and CITEL, of opportunities to reduce the digital divide by means of satellite communications.
Malaysia presented the contribution on “Further Elaboration of Strategic Plan of ITSO”, which aims to introduce the concept of results-based budgeting (RBB) in the ITSO Strategy Plan, as guidelines for the adoption of performance indicators, so as to increased transparency and efficiency in the organisation’s management.
Also discussed was the organisation’s budget for 2011-2012. The director general (DG) took note of the various comments made by the Parties. Following the request made during IAC11, the DG presented a comparison of the budget with the financial results for fiscal year 2009 (period from 1 July 2008 to 18 July 2009), which records non-budgeted spending of more than 500,000 dollars. After strong criticism from the USA, accompanied by Canada and the United Kingdom, the former requested that this contribution be presented to the AP as an informative document. The USA also set the condition that these results should in its understanding strongly affect the decision to grant a bonus to the previous DG (Ahmed Toumi of Morocco), to be decided at the next AP, and asked the outgoing DG to be contacted for explanations.
Of the remaining documents approved by the Committee for later subjection to AP34, also noteworthy are the Staff Manual and the determination of criteria for the Compensation Committee to assess the director general’s performance. This latter contribution arose at the request of AP32 and was produced by the TPO human resources company and subjected by the IAC to a reasonable number of changes. Also standing out is the report from the ad hoc working group on amending the rules of procedure (RoP) of the Assembly of Parties and a report indicating the current situation of the LCO programme – to that end, note the excellent relations maintained by the current DG and Intelsat, a circumstance underscored by various countries.
At the DG’s invitation, the operator Intelsat gave a presentation on the company’s financial and operational situation, stressing the good results attained in 2009, which witnessed a reduction of the enormous debt of nearly 16 billion dollars, an amount ten times more than the operating margin. Its satellite fleet has an average lifetime of 8.3 years and the company has launched three satellites since November last year. Note also that on 14 December 2009 Intelsat received the green light from the US regulator (FCC) to transfer its legal headquarters from Bermuda to Luxembourg for tax reasons.
The DG also informed the IAC about the invitation from the ITU secretary general to the heads of ITSO, IMSO and EUTELSAT IGO asking them to take part in the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, chaired by Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
The meeting was attended by representatives of 17 Parties which are members of the IAC: Argentina, Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso (vice-chair), China, El Salvador, France, Germany, India, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Poland, Spain, USA (chair), United Kingdom and Zambia. Five other Parties also participated as observers: Cameroon, Canada, Dominican Republic, the Netherlands and Portugal.
The new Technical Affairs Director, Patrick Masambu of Uganda, who had been in office for nearly three weeks, was presented to the Committee.
The next IAC will be held in the second half of 2010, in early November after the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference.
