21 June 2013
1.06.2013
Between 11 and 21 June 2013, Geneva hosted the ITU Council works, during which the Member States debated the strategic and financial plans for the Union for 2016-2019 as well as the budget for the next biennium, 2014-2015. The session was steered by Cătălin Marinescu, President of ANCOM, who acted as Chair of the ITU Council, on behalf of Romania.
The ITU Council comprises 48 countries representing the ITU Membership of 193 States, with some 500 delegates attending this year. The participants considered and approved the Union’s four-year rolling operational plans for (2014–2017), covering the three ITU pillars – the Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R), the Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) and the Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D) as well as the General Secretariat. For the 2016-2019 period, Council decided to establish a working group to elaborate the Strategic and Financial plans, which would be considered by the 2014 session of the Council and submitted to ITU’s Plenipotentiary Conference – its highest governing body –later in the year.
The ITU Council examined several issues where the Union’s contribution helps tackle global challenges, such as climate change by reducing the environmental footprint of ICTs; improving accessibility; and achieving better gender balance. The Council endorsed ITU’s Gender Equality and Mainstreaming policy and the process of reporting on its implementation of the UN System Wide Action Plan (SWAP) on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
”As I pointed out in the opening of the Council session, our motto throughout these works was cooperation and now, at the end, I can add efficiency. The ITU is prepared to continue fostering cooperation among the states so that the technological evolution will have a beneficial contribution to the welfare of people all over the world”, Cătălin Marinescu declared in the closure of the ITU session.
One of the most important issues on this year’s Council agenda was the Union’s draft budget for the period 2014-2015. The UIT budget, aiming at increasing efficiency and reducing expenses, is based on zero nominal growth applied since 2006 and fixed Member States’ contributory units at CHF 318,000. The total budget amounts to CHF 331.055 million for the 2014-2015 biennium. The budget will cover important ITU meetings – the World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-14) to be held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in early 2014, the Plenipotentiary Conference of all 193 Member States, as well as the Radiocommunication Assembly and the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2015.
Further details on this year’s ITU Council are available on the ITU website, here.