Ghana to support Africa’s position on ITR review

In December, players in the telecommunications industry will converge in Dubai to review the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITR). Charles Benoni Okine reports from the preceding meeting in Accra.

The Minister of Communications, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, has said the critical test of success of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) will be how contented the various countries will be after the adoption of a new set of regulations to guide the development of ICT in the coming years.

“For us in Africa, we have no illusions in the application of the Internet for education, governance, health, commerce and indeed, every aspect of our social development”, he said.

Against this background, he pledged the commitment of Ghana to join hands with countries that share this view and ensure that the Internet is fundamental to everyone’s success and governed by those that are well-suited to its continuing development.

Mr Iddrisu was speaking at the opening of the 3rd Africa Regional Preparatory Meeting for WCIT of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Accra last week.

The meeting, which was attended by telecoms regulators, ministers of communications and telecoms experts across the African continent, was aimed at reaching a common consensus for presentation at the upcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications in December 2012 (WCTI-12) in Dubai.

The ITU will be meeting to revise the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITR) which was promulgated as far back as 1988.

Africa has already held two preparatory meetings in Cairo, Egypt, and Durban, South Africa, and the Accra meeting is expected to finalise the position of Africa.

In the year it was promulgated, the ITRs were instrumental in enabling the development of today’s global information society.

Therefore, the new ITRs should have a positive impact on ensuring its further growth.

The Dubai conference which has been termed as the ‘turning point’ by some attendants at the meeting in Accra, will address many issues that were not on the table in 1988 which include the misuse of numbering, cyber fraud, high data volumes and falling unit prices which is putting pressure on infrastructure investment and high cost of Internet connectivity in many developing countries.

It is expected that the WCTI will address these challenges that will affect the development of a fully inclusive information society over the next decades; a society that ensure that all the world’s citizens have equitable, affordable and secure access to voice, video and data.

Mr Iddrisu said Ghana also noted that there are some provisions in the ITRs that continue to be functional and relevant and would have be maintained and defended at the Dubai conference.

“I will encourage our negotiators to identify these and be courageous enough to propose ‘no change to the review of the specific acts in the ITRs”, he said.

To him, Africa needs to be mindful of the importance of the Internet and adopt a pragmatic approach, discussing the potential and unintended effects with the objective to build a network that is growing quickly.

“I also hasten to caution that if the review of the ITRs is not conducted properly, then we would be contributing to the irrelevance of the ITU as the world’s lead agency in setting the agenda for ICT development”, he said.

The Communications Minister, therefore, called on members on the continent to reach out for collaboration with the other ITU Regions to achieve what will be beneficial for the African continent.

“Our needs for connectivity, education and development of content are intrinsically unique and we need to build partnership with the private sector to realize the goals of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS).

Mr Iddrisu was highly optimistic that that the fears and pessimism being expressed in certain quarters over the outcome of the WCIT 2012 will diminish as the date for the conference gradually draws to near adding that; “we look forward to meetings such as this one in Accra to provide the necessary hope and confidence to revitalize global cooperation to promote ICT for development”.

In July this year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Council meeting reached an agreement to make public, the proposal submitted to its working group (TD64) and to allow all stakeholders to express their views and opinions on them and any other WCTI-related matters.

As a result, the website to allow for public comments is operational and has been collecting comments since mid-August of which many countries have already conducted public consultations.