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The Government of India successfully hosted World
Telecommunication Development Conference 2010
(WTDC-10) in Hyderabad from 24 May to 4 June.
WTDC-10 adopted the Hyderabad Declaration and
the Hyderabad Action Plan, which constitute a true
road map for ICT development for the next four years
(see report on pages 18–27). On 29 May 2010, it
was a great honour meeting India’s Prime Minister Dr
Manmohan Singh in his office in New Delhi.
Just before WTDC-10, I was delighted to sign on
10 May a provisional cooperation agreement with the
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
I look forward to a fruitful collaboration with CERN in
fields which are in line with our respective mandates,
and hope that we can soon start preparing joint studies
and publications on subjects of common interest.
This kind of joint cooperation agreement between
well-established international organizations can only
be of mutual benefit.
Towards the end of June 2010, ITU held a series
of productive meetings and a very useful and informative
roundtable event in Barbados dedicated
to the reconstruction of Haiti’s telecommunication
sector. It was widely agreed that now was the time
to build not just replacement networks for Haiti, but
21st century infrastructure that would pave the way
towards full inclusion in the knowledge society. With
participation from the public and private sectors, as
well as banks and regulatory authorities, we looked
at ways of partnering together to create increased
value as well as at co-financing arrangements and
new investment opportunities, in-kind contributions
and ways of advancing reforms in Haiti’s ICT sector
(see ITU leads effort to rebuild Haiti’s telecommunication infrastructure).
On 11 July 2010, ITU and the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) co-hosted the first meeting of the
Broadband Commission for Digital Development at
ITU headquarters. The meeting was co-chaired by
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Carlos Slim
Helú, Honorary Lifetime Chairman of Grupo Carso,
and over 30 commissioners were present, including
heads of United Nations agencies and other international
organizations, as well as leading lights
from the private sector. There was strong agreement
at the meeting that broadband networks will be a
transformational force for the 21st century, and that
they will help accelerate progress towards meeting
the Millennium Development Goals (see Broadband). Ubiquitous connectivity to broadband networks
will be vital to the ongoing development of
every nation in the world.
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