As every year, ITU is organizing the Facilitation Meeting on WSIS Action Line C6, the Enabling Environment on 10 May, as part of the WSIS Forum 2010. This annual event will be marked by the mid-term review of the implementation process. On one hand, the event will look back at what has been done since the WSIS Tunis Summit in 2005 and on the other hand, it will draw up the path towards the target date of 2015, set for achieving the WSIS goals.

Since WSIS, ITU has been promoting broadband as the key to economic and social development, providing opportunities for developing and least-developed countries to leapfrog and join the digital world. Recently, ITU initiated a global campaign to recognize broadband as basic utility, as it has become as essential as electricity, water and roads. Moreover, as Dr Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary General has noted that: '' The year 2010 marks the beginning of what must become the decade of broadband''.

As the lead facilitator for Action Line C6, ITU advocates in favor of policy and regulatory incentives to enable broadband infrastructure deployment, new services and applications and content development. In the light of this, the theme for the 5th Facilitation meeting is: "Broadband policy at a crossroads: How to achieve enhanced collaboration among stakeholders".

The 2010 Action Line C6 meeting will involve regulators, policy-makers, industry and civil society to exchange experiences and best practices in shaping effective policies and creating an enabling environment for broadband, with a particular emphasis on developing and least-developed countries. The meeting will feature panelists representing multiple stakeholder groups and will be driven by stakeholders’ interventions. ITU will capitalize on this opportunity to capture positive synergies among stakeholders and build on the momentum of countries’ broadband initiatives in WSIS implementation.

Speakers and panelists:

• High-level speakers

  - Sami Al-Basheer Al-Morshid, Director, Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT), International Telecommunication Union (Opening remarks)

  - Dr. Mongi Hamdi, Head, Science, Technology and ICT Branch/DTL, UNCTAD; Head of the Secretariat of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (Key note)

• Panelists

  1. Fabio del Alisal Sánchez, Director International Department of CMT, Spain

  2. Dr. Krisnadi Iwan, Commissioner, Indonesian Telecommunication Regulatory Authority

  3. Pierre Lucante, Head of Sector Project, ICT for Development, GTZ, Germany

  4. Gabriel Solomon, Senior Vice-President, GSMA

  5. Rajesh Aggarwal, Chief, Business & Trade Policy, International Trade Center, Geneva

• Moderatorr

  - Mario Maniewicz, Chief, Policies & Strategies Department, BDT, ITU

Documents

• Report

*English & French interpretation will be made available.

• Proposed Roadmap for ITU in its role as lead facilitator and implementer for Action Line C6 in the implementation of WSIS up to 2015

English | français

For more information, please contact:
Youlia Lozanova (Youlia.Lozanova@itu.int)