ITU's TELECOM exhibitions and forums have expanded over their 30-year history to become the largest specialized telecommunications events in the world. The events are run on a not-for-profit basis, with a substantial part of any surplus of income over expenses that may be generated turned into working capital for the TELECOM Surplus Fund Programme - a special development initiative launched in 1997. The Programme provides seed money to attract funds from the public and private sectors and recipient countries themselves for a wide range of national and regional development projects.

Funding requests are evaluated by the TELECOM Surplus Fund Programme Steering Committee. In addition to resource allocation, the Steering Committee is also responsible for the monitoring of the project execution.

In general, successful proposals must meet the following criteria:

• Potential to attract additional funding and participation of new partners

• Potential long-term sustainable impact

• Facilitation of cross-national cooperation

• Synergy with other ITU projects

• Potential for self-sufficiency in the short-to medium-term

Projects funded through the Programme are broadly grouped into four key areas: Human Resource Development, Infrastructure Development, Assistance to Countries in Special Needs, and Application of New Technologies.

Centres of Excellence

The TELECOM Surplus Programme continues to represent an important source of funding for ITU Centres of Excellence or CoEs (see box). Launched in 1997, the six Centres span the globe and offer nearly one hundred training opportunities per year, with a special focus on executive staff from Governments, Regulators and Operators. Training covers many areas, ranging from regulatory issues, business management and new information and communication technologies (ICT) to spectrum management, rural connectivity and sector development strategies.

Although each Centre tailors its programmes and courses to suit the region's needs - bearing in mind the availability of facilities and support in member countries and contributions from various partnerships - training resources are shared between the CoEs. One objective is to gradually build a global network of interconnected regional hubs.

The year 2003 marks an important milestone in the development of this worldwide network. Never before has there been such a high degree of synergy between the various Centres with an increasing number of cross-regional activities nor has their longer-term sustainability been better secured through their growing financial self-reliance.

Internet Training Centres

Other important human resource-related activities funded by the TELECOM Surplus Programme include the Internet Training Centre Initiative, which aims to strengthen Internet and "new economy" skills in developing countries. Through a unique partnership with key ICT market leaders, of which Cisco Systems is a key partner, ITU works to provide students and telecom/IT professionals in developing countries with access to affordable and relevant training in Internet technology skills in a mentored environment, while fostering a real and sustainable transfer of knowledge.

The objectives of the Internet Training Centres are:

1. to prepare developing nations,and in particular least developed countries (LDCs),to fully participate in a networked economy

2. to train a minimum of 50 students per year in each Internet training centre through a "train-the-trainers" approach

3. to promote gender-focused training centres by proactively encouraging greater participation of women in information technology and the Internet economy through an enrolment target of 30% of female students

4. to help operators to train or retrain their staff on IP technologies, three to four places a year being earmarked for telecommunication professionals

5. to promote the creation, by the selected learning institution, of other Internet training centres at local level to to create a multiplier effect on skill-building in IP technologies in the country

Since the Initiative's launch in June 2001, a total of 53 Internet training centres have been set up in 44 developing countries of which 17 are classified as least developed nations. Under the initiative, a total of 216 instructors in IP technologies have been trained (of which 38 are female instructors), 2 700 students enrolled (of which 28.3% are female students) and 523 graduates in IP Networking in Africa, the Arab States, Asia-Pacific, Latin-America, Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

This component of the TELECOM Surplus Programme seeks to enlist the commitment and cooperation of national governments, regional and international organizations and the private sector to modernize, expand and enhance networks where the impact will be the greatest. For example, three projects - AFRITEL, INTELCON II and INDAFTEL - were implemented to support African countries in their efforts to modernize Africa's existing continental network (PANAFTEL) and enhance local and regional manufacturing capability.

AFRITEL and INTELCON II were aimed at upgrading and establishing new inter-country communication links throughout Africa, enabling an estimated USD 500 million in annual traffic revenues to remain within the continent. ITU assisted in feasibility studies used by African countries to source funding for implementation of those inter -country links.

INDAFTEL, meanwhile, aimed to improve telecommunication industrialization in Africa by accelerating the growth of the local telecoms industry.

Following the adoption of the NEPAD by the Heads of State in July 2002,all three projects were consolidated into a global assistance project launched in December 2003 and aimed at supporting NEPAD's goals.

The current phase of the project, valued at about USD 600 000 is expected to produce a bankable Project Document designed to help African countries to mobilize resources to achieve NEPAD's short -term and medium-term objectives. It is also expected to provide important input for the regional and national ICT development strategies for Africa.

On another front, USD 150 000 have also been allocated to a project aimed at developing national sector policy and regulatory frameworks and building local competence in the area of telecommunication policy, regulation and legislation in five least developed countries of the Pacific Island States. The objective is to empower them with the skills and knowledge needed for the effective governance of their telecommunications, while harmonizing national legislations throughout the sub-region. Other funding partners include the United Nations Development Programme, the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity and the Australian Government with in-kind contribution from the Pacific Islands States Forum Secretariat.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

In partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Telecommunication Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been developed and the Telecommunication Regulatory Agency (TRA) established. With funding from the TELECOM Surplus Programme, assistance was provided to TRA to purchase a Mobile Frequency Monitoring Unit for effective spectrum management.

Afghanistan

The TELECOM Surplus Fund Steering committee also approved an allocation of some USD 580 000 to provide emergency support to the Government of Afghanistan in its efforts to restore its heavily damaged telecommunication and broadcasting infrastructure. The flight of qualified telecommunication professionals during the 24 years of war has resulted in a severe shortage of skilled staff in the country. To help boost the ability of the Ministry of Communications to deal with governance issues on a day-to-day basis during the emergency phase and beyond, ITU will 1) help establish internal working procedures and practices for the effective functioning of the ministry, 2) assist in drafting a telecommunication sector policy and a Telecommunication Act, 3) propose a regulatory structure tailored to the specific needs of the country and 4) prepare a programme to develop competence within the Ministry of Communications in policy, regulation and legislation.

ITU will also establish an equipped and operational Frequency Management Unit within the Ministry of Communications to help Afghanistan better plan and manage its frequency spectrum, assess present and future spectrum requirements and work out a country-wide coverage map for MW, FM and TV broadcasting. It will also establish a computerized frequency management system and training for local staff in frequency spectrum planning and management activities.

Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia, Liberia and Sierra Leone

An allocation of over USD 750 000 has been made to provide assistance and support to Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia and Sierra Leone whose telecommunication facilities have been severely damaged by wars and conflicts, resulting in a major impediment to economic recovery and sustainable development. The allocation will be used to support the development of a modern regulatory framework, including competition policy, interconnection rates, technical plans for the reconstruction of the telecommunication network and the development of a national spectrum allocation plan. Support will also be given to help set up independent regulatory agencies responsible for sector oversight, planning and policy. The assistance foreseen for Liberia will be provided when peace and stability is restored.

In Burundi and Rwanda, a further allocation of USD 1 million per country has been made under the TELECOM Surplus Programme for the reconstruction of the two countries' telecommunication infrastructure.

The TELECOM Surplus Programme provides a vital source of seed funding for projects which are helping bring the benefits of advances in communications technology to those most in need.

Telemedicine

In many developing countries, most of the specialized medical staff of the nation is concentrated in the capital city. The acute lack of personnel in regional hospitals and health care centres in the rest of the country deprives many people of access to quality health care. In addition, the lack of rapid response time from diagnosis to therapy makes these countries particularly vulnerable when it comes to the outbreak of epidemics. With assistance from the TELECOM Surplus Programme, this reality may soon change in Mauritania and Guinea. The creation of telemedicine units in these countries is expected to extend access to high-quality health care from the national health centre or from hospitals located outside the country through tele-consultation. It will also improve medical capabilities of staff in towns and rural areas through tele-training of local medical staff and will enable the shared use of medical equipment among the many remote sites linked by the project.

Ten telemedicine projects have already been set up under the Programme to help extend vital medical services to remote and underprivileged areas in Bhutan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kenya, Malta, Mozambique, Myanmar, Senegal and Venezuela.

Tele-education and Telecentres

One of the objectives of long-distance learning projects is to tackle a phenomenon common in the developing world - schoolteachers who have been on the job for years, even decades, and whose skills have eroded because of a lack of training opportunity. Distance learning and the use of the Internet offer great opportunities to improve the quality of teaching, and therefore learning. Two such projects in India and Morocco focus on retraining primary schoolteachers in order to bring them up to date on new teaching practices and methodologies. The pilot projects will lead to the establishment, in the two countries, of fifteen to twenty learning centres in classrooms that can handle up to forty teacher-students. Each of these learning centres is being connected to the main training centre, where the studio facilities and instruction staff are based, using a conventional very small aperture terminal (VSAT) hookup.

The expectation is that once the projects are expanded to between 100 and 150 learning centres, the switch will be made to Internet Protocol-based VSAT networks because when this threshold is reached, the economies of scale make an IP-based system financially attractive. IP-based systems also enable the full range of Internet capabilities and allow the number of learning centres to grow rapidly.

In addition, the TELECOM Surplus Programme is helping to fund multipurpose community telecentres (MCTs). Set up in Benin, Honduras, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Viet Nam in collaboration with national and international partners, these MCTs are not only bringing telephone, fax and Internet access to rural areas, but are helping provide training in information technology and fostering access to information resources of special relevance to local communities.

Wireless IP

Building on the promise of wireless IP technology for fostering access to ICT, the TELECOM Surplus Programme has allocated resources to serve as seed capital to attract funding for the implementation of pilot projects in Bulgaria, Uganda and Yemen. While the benefits of wireless IP is fairly well-established in industrialized countries, its suitability for developing economies is yet to be firmly made. The aim of these pilot projects is to explore the technical, regulatory and socio-economic factors affecting the deployment of wireless IP in developing countries in order to facilite the introduction of such technologies to expand access to rural and remote areas. Such wireless IP-based networks also have the advantage of paving the way for the expansion of multimedia applications such as telemedicine and distance-learning and of providing affordable universal access, particularly to rural areas.

Environmental monitoring

Africa is a continent where the effects of environmental degradation are severely felt. Most African countries rely on their natural resources for survival. In a bid to work towards sustainable development, nine countries - Kenya, Gambia, Niger, Mauritania, Ghana, Guinea, Morocco, Uganda and Zambia - have committed to setting up environmental information systems and to sharing environmental data on deforestation, land degradation, loss of fertility or land tenure to enable improved planning and management of their environment.

To support this effort, ITU, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the European Commission will fund the creation of SISEI - the Environmental Information, Circulation and Monitoring System on the Internet. SISEI will enable countries and subregions to implement legal instruments relating to biodiversity, climate change, desertification and wetlands.

SISEI is a computerized system which will facilitate data collection, transmission and assessment of natural resources, will enable the sharing of the information through the interconnection of the various databases, will link national and local data and information centres with global information resources and will train the various stakeholders in the management of the environment and mitigation techniques against environmental degradation.

Electronic Commerce for Developing Countries (EC-DC)

Started in March 1998, this important initiative initially funded with seeds money from the TELECOM Surplus Fund Programme, has earned wide support from public and private sector companies, the media and the governments of several ITU Member States. It has since become one of the world's largest e-empowerement programmes.

Partnership agreements were established with WISEkey, World Trade Centre Geneva, FUNDANDINA of Venezuala and Goodwin Proctor LLP of the United States. The project also attracted the participation of a large number of industry partners, including MCI WorldCom, Baltimore Technologies, Network Communication Products, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Datamatics, Entegrity, Celo Communications, ValiCert, Rainbow Technologies and Vitress, who contributed their technologies and services to the project. This collaboration led to the launching of a certification authority and operational projects for digital certification and secure e-transactions in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. It also led to operational e-commerce infrastructure, operational training and development centres, e-commerce portals, harmonized legal environment for e-commerce and e-commerce technology policies and strategies for developing countries around the world.

Since the adoption, in 2002, of the Istanbul Action Plan by the World Telecommunication Development Conference, all e-commerce activities have been integrated under the E-Strategies Programme. This programme, now funded by ITU's regular development budget, focuses on six priority areas: e-applications (such as e-health, e-learning, e-government, e-agriculture, e-community, d-cinema and more), e-security, Multipurpose Community Telecentres (MCTs), the Internet, ICT awareness and e-legislation.

The ITU TELECOM AFRICA 2004, which takes place in Cairo, Egypt from 4 to 8 May 2004, will be a key meeting place for Africa's policy and decision makers, industry leaders and innovators to access, explore and build upon the region's untapped potential and shape its telecommunications industry of tomorrow.