The Advisory Group of the ITU Development Sector (TDAG - ITU-D) met on 18-20 April in Geneva, for its first meeting since the last World Telecommunications Development Conference (WTDC-06), held in March 2006 in Doha, Qatar.
The new director of the Telecommunications Development Bureau, Sami Al-Basheer of Saudi Arabia, reminded TDAG of the tasks facing ITU-D, namely implementation of the Doha Action Plan, the Programmes and the Regional Initiatives approved at WTDC-06.
Besides examining results of that Conference, and of the Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-06), and their impact on the work of ITU-D, TDAG also debated the consequences for ITU-D of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), namely the Union's role as a facilitator of the two WSIS action lines - ''WSIS Action Line C2: Information and Communication Infrastructure'' and ''WSIS Action Line C5: Building Confidence and Security in the Use of ICT''.
TDAG also discussed the ITU financial plan for the 2008-2011 period (not approved in Antalya due to the Union's 39 million Swiss franc (23.6 million euro) deficit), revised implementation of the 2006 Operational Plan, whose 87 percent execution rate was generically deemed reasonable, the work to be carried out by Study Groups (SGs) 1 and 2, and the report from the Private Sector working group (WG PS), which met on the two days before TDAG.
The Africa Region initiatives stood out among the regional initiatives, especially the creation of an Excellence Centre for the Portuguese and Spanish-speaking African countries, which Portugal intends to support financially. Direct connection to the ITU's headquarters services and to the BDT director were also enhanced. The regional office heads now report to the vice-director.
As for the development of future work, TDAG agreed to set up two working groups, one on human resources and another to study preparation of a statistical index on the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
Regarding the new BDT structure, a decision of the new ITU leadership (elected at PP-06) which was presented to and discussed by TDAG, the following stand out:
- As for new services, a Meetings Organisation and Support Unit was set up to support all events of BDT - SG, TDAG, the Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR), WTDC and WTDC regional preparatory meetings, etc.;
- Three other groups were also created: the Regulatory and Market Environment Unit (to analyse regulatory reform questions and economic and financial issues); the Projects and Initiatives Department (set up to meet the need to improve the ability to carry out projects, especially the 25 new regional initiatives approved in March 2006 in Doha); and the Project Office (to support all project managers, both at headquarters and in the field, namely in project identification, resource mobilisation, project planning, implementation and evaluation);
- In terms of reorganising services, the Partnership and Promotion Unit will henceforth be a part of the Communication area, besides the Connect the World initiative; the Special Initiatives Unit (which covers issues involving youth, gender, indigenous peoples, the disabled and populations from remote and needy regions) will also organise the Youth Forum, under the ITU Telecom conferences; and the Policies and Strategies Department will include the former Human Capacity Building. Plans also call for strengthening the Market Information and Statistics Unit in its mission as a 'global supplier' of reliable and up-to-date sector statistics;
- The figure of Dedicated Counsellor will be created for each Study Group (SG 1 and 2) - the Policies and Strategies Department is included in the first, while SG 2 will include the Projects and Initiatives Department - and all the service heads and the vice-director report to the director.
Lastly, regarding the GSR, most of the Administrations praised the good organisation and success of the initiative held in February 2007 in Dubai. One of the GSR's most relevant results was the approval of guidelines and best practices for the migration of next generation networks (NGNs).
