ITU Council meets for several days each year between four-yearly Plenipotentiary Conferences. As ITU’s annual governing body, Council is concerned with implementing the major strategic decisions taken by each Plenipotentiary Conference, as well as with general management matters.

Council representation is limited to 25% of the total number of ITU Member States. Council Member States, currently numbering 46, are elected to serve a four-year term.

In 1999, Council was led for the first time by two women – Chairperson Lyndall Shope-Mafole of South Africa, and Vice-chairperson Josefina Lichauco, Undersecretary of Communications for the Philippines.

The major decisions of the 1999 Council session focused on three main areas: the strengthening of the Union’s policy-making role, the ongoing process of ITU reform, and new cost-recovery strategies designed to help fund the Union’s growing areas of responsibility while minimizing the financial impact on Members.

An Era of change

The 1999 Council session endorsed a number of important new initiatives by the Secretary-General aimed at increasing the Union’s involvement in policy-making activities. As a first step towards this enhanced role, ITU will establish an annual strategic planning workshop which will focus on areas of interest to the regulatory community, national and regional policy-makers and the broader telecommunications industry.

The meeting also agreed on the composition of a 20-member group of experts which will assist the Secretary-General in preparing a study to determine whether the needs of Members are adequately reflected in the current International Telecommunication Regulations, last updated in 1988, in view of the dramatic changes which have reshaped the telecommunications environment over the last 10 years.

In the area of ITU reform, Council moved to set up a special Working Group on ITU Reform open to both Member States and Sector Members. This Group is now working with a 15-member Reform Bureau to define ways of improving the structure, functioning and management of the Union, in order to ensure that the organization acts quickly to meet future challenges and remains responsive to the needs of its members.

Council decisions on new working methods included the endorsement of a schedule of charges for the processing of satellite filings, which will see ITU recover the costs involved in the processing of complex satellite network submissions. The decision to implement a user-pays framework for satellite network filings was adopted by the Minneapolis Plenipotentiary Conference in 1998.

Council’s decisions on ITU’s role in Internet infrastructure name and address resource management included the endorsement that the Union be responsible for management of the .int top level domain, intended primarily for use by intergovernmental organizations. Council also agreed to ITU’s participation in ICANN’s Protocol Supporting Organization (PSO).

Council approval of measures to strengthen ITU’s regional presence will see regional offices adopt a broader role in promoting ITU perspectives on telecommunication development to national and regional policy-makers and regulators. A new strategy for providing assistance to Least Developed Countries was also endorsed.

Through these and other decisions adopted by 1999 Council, ITU is working to reposition itself to take advantage of its strengths in the regulatory and policy arenas, while at the same time striving to improve future delivery of core products like ITU Recommendations and streamlining management of scarce resources such as spectrum and orbits.