|
Issue
14
To read our previous
editions, please click here
In this Edition:
1.
Ubiquitous Technology Spearheads Disaster Relief
2. ITU Mobilizes to Aid Tsunami Victims
3.
Seventh Meeting of the WG/WSIS
4.
Taking Stock of Stocktaking
5. Related links
1. Ubiquitous
Technology Spearheads Disaster Relief
 The tragedy in the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004, reminds
us of the fragility of human existence. Despite all our advances, no
technology exists to prevent such submarine earthquakes or halt
the resulting tsunamis. However,
just visible amongst all the devastation and human suffering is the
faintest glimmer of a silver lining; despite our impotence in preventing
the catastrophe, no sooner had the ocean receded, than the new
telecommunication technologies sprang to the assistance of the survivors.
Although not always useable near the epicentres, mobile
phones (voice and SMS), made the coordination of the regional and global rescue
effort easier; particularly so, as the tragedy occurred
right in the middle of the Christmas holiday, when many people with the
appropriate skills were away from their offices and homes. Once again,
e-mail proved
invaluable in the coordination of the rescue effort and also enabled
survivors (and others in the region who were not affected) to contact
their families. Photographs posted on the Internet (some taken with camera
phones) enabled many of the survivors, especially the most seriously
injured adults, as well as young children separated
from their families, to be
identified and reunited with their loved ones. And, of course, the
aid agencies were able to use their websites and e-mail to secure funding for their humanitarian operations,
some of
which will have been made through electronic transfers. Terrible as the
disaster was,
had it not been for the mobile phone, the Internet and e-mail, the
rescue efforts would have been less efficient and its effects would certainly have been even more
tragic.
On 8 January 2005, the Tampere Convention
on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation
and Relief Operations entered into force. Under its provisions, victims of future disasters will benefit from faster and more effective rescue operations. Disaster relief workers rely heavily on
telecommunications to coordinate the complex logistics of rescue and
relief operations: until now, the
trans-border use of telecommunication equipment by humanitarian
organizations has often been hindered by regulatory barriers that make
it extremely difficult to import and rapidly deploy emergency
telecommunications equipment. "In emergency situations, telecommunications save lives," said Yoshio Utsumi, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union,
the United Nations specialized agency for telecommunications, which,
with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),
has played a leading role in drafting and promoting the Convention.
States party to the Tampere
Convention
are obliged to make the provision of telecommunication assistance following a disaster
quicker and easier
and the treaty also covers the installation and
operation of reliable, flexible telecommunication services. Regulatory
barriers that impede the use of telecommunication resources for
disasters are waived. These barriers include the licensing requirements
to use allocated frequencies, restrictions on the import of
telecommunication equipment and limitations on the movement of
humanitarian teams. "OCHA aims to ensure the best response to disasters
to prevent loss of life and help survivors. The Convention will make
that work easier," said Jan Egeland, Operational Coordinator of the
Tampere Convention. The Convention also describes the procedures for
requesting and providing telecommunication assistance and recognizes the
right of a state to direct, control and coordinate all assistance
provided within its territory
under the Convention. It defines specific
elements and aspects of telecommunication assistance,
such as the termination of the assistance and the settlement of disputes. It
requires states to make an inventory of their resources — both human and
material — available for disaster mitigation and relief, and to develop
a telecommunication action plan that identifies the steps needed to
deploy those resources.
In achieving the objectives of the Convention,
the Operational Coordinator will seek the cooperation of other
appropriate United Nations agencies, particularly the
International
Telecommunication Union.
The 17-article, legally binding,
international treaty was adopted
unanimously
on 18 June 1998, by the
delegates of the 75 countries attending the Intergovernmental Conference
on Emergency Telecommunications (ICET-98), hosted by the Finnish town of Tampere, about 200 km north of Helsinki. The
Convention
was opened for
accession and required 30 ratifications before coming into effect.
2. ITU Mobilizes to Aid Tsunami Victims
As the enormous scale of
the disaster became clear, ITU set up a
Tsunami Emergency Team and prepared 15 Inmarsat satellite terminals for
possible deployment to the affected countries, including seven to
Indonesia, whose Government had also requested ITU assistance in
developing a telecommunication restructuring plan for the Aceh area,
its most affected region. ITU reported that the cable network in Banda Aceh had been destroyed, however GSM service
was still available. ITU's
Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT)
drew up a deployment plan for the Inmarsat terminals and
took the
necessary steps to get the terminals out to the area and set up.
By a fortunate coincidence, ITU had recently published its ‘Handbook on Emergency
Telecommunications’ and immediately set about making copies
available to the appropriate Member States and UN
organizations, such as OCHA.
ITU Secretary-General,
Yoshio Utsumi, decided immediately that ITU should send several staff
from Geneva to supplement and support the ITU staff in the Bangkok and
Jakarta offices. Meanwhile, the ITU staff in the affected areas carried
out a swift preliminary assessment of the situation and then began to
identify the immediate, medium and long-term needs for telecom
infrastructure and support in the region.
ITU,
led by Cosmas
Zavazava, presented a thematic session at
the UN World Disaster Reduction Conference
in Kobe, Japan in mid-January 2005, with
our partner Inmarsat. The session highlighted the role of emergency
telecommunications in disaster response, prevention and relief, using a
case study approach. The ITU-Inmarsat partnership was announced and
the use of the satellite terminals was demonstrated. The session
explored the potential of multi-purpose community telecentres
for the dissemination of disaster information and also promoted the
second phase of
the World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS) by focusing on the role of ICTs in disaster
situations, as outlined by the Declaration and Plan of Action.
In the medium term, ITU has proposed developing, by
June 2005, an ITU ‘Ready-to-Use Emergency Response’ protocol –
including equipment and staff - for disasters of this nature. In
addition, ITU is considering assessing what activities its Sector
Members have undertaken to support the disaster relief and to compile an
inventory that might help with ITU’s future disaster response
strategies.
On 22 February 2005, during WSIS
PrepCom2, ITU and the
World Health Organization will hold two themed sessions on
ICTs and disaster relief; the first from 13.30 to 14.45 and the second
following the afternoon session (18.15 to 19.30). The first session will
cover "ICTs for health action in the Tsunami crisis," and the second
will cover "Telecommunications for disaster relief: Tampere Convention".
Both will take place in Salle XI of the Palais des Nations, in Geneva,
Switzerland.
3.
Seventh
Meeting of the WG-WSIS
The seventh
meeting of the WSIS Working Group (WG-WSIS) was held in Geneva on 13 and 14 December 2004,
under the chairmanship of Professor Vladimir Minkin (Russian
Federation), standing in for Chairman Yuri Grin, who was unavoidably
absent. Amongst the items on the agenda was a report from Charles Geiger,
the Executive Director of WSIS-ES, on the proposed structure for the
Tunis phase and the changes in the WSIS Bureau. Tim Kelly, the Head
of the WSIS content team, reported on the status of preparations for the Tunis
phase (including the decision of
PrepCom-1 and the work of the
Group of
Friends of the Chair). Markus Kummar, Executive Director of
the WGIG Secretariat, brought the Members up to date on the progress of the
Working Group on Internet
Governance. Pape Gorgui Touré, who had represented ITU
on the Task Force at its meeting of 29 November 2004, gave a briefing on the progress of
the Task Force on Financial Mechanisms
Given that
the papers represented somewhat differing views, as well as diverse
visions of what ITU should propose to WGIG and what the role of
governments ought to be, it was decided to establish an ad hoc group, to
be chaired by Willy Jensen (Norway). This group subsequently
reported that the WG-WSIS should present a report on Internet Governance
for review by the ITU Council. A first draft will be
circulated amongst WG-WSIS members by the end of January 2005 and
discussed further at the 8th Meeting of the WG-WSIS
PrepCom-3.
The Working
Group also reviewed two papers containing proposals on how ITU might
adapt itself to the information society; one, from the ITU
Secretary-General, focused on ITU’s strategic plan; the other, from
Brazil, focused on the need for ITU to remain multilateral, democratic
and transparent. The Russian Federation proposed that ITU’s area of
responsibility be studied and that consideration be given to
broadening it. Russia also raised the question of
amending the names of ITU and ITU-D, to include ICTs in them.
Box
2: Summary of the Decisions Taken by the WG-WSIS
1.
To encourage the ITU membership to continue submitting
contributions on WSIS-related activities to WSIS stocktaking;
2.
To ensure that ITU continues to contribute actively to the
preparations for the second phase, including thorough participation
in WSIS Thematic and Regional Meetings;
3.
To submit the Chairman’s report from the ITU Thematic Meeting
on Countering Spam to WSIS PrepCom-2;
4.
To invite Member States and Sector Members to take into
account the examination of options for a possible follow-up
mechanism for WSIS in their submissions to WSIS PrepCom-2;
5.
To invite the Secretariat to revise the report on proposals
for how ITU should adapt itself to the Information Society. This
would be made available for comments by 1 January 2005;
6.
Invite the Secretariat to prepare a report for Council
2005 on Internet governance, for circulation among WSIS members by
31 January 2005.
4.
Taking Stock of Stocktaking
A "stocktaking"is
being carried out, with the dual purpose of providing an inventory of
activities undertaken by governments and all stakeholders to implement
the Geneva decisions (WSIS Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action)
and taking stock of the progress made in achieving the Information
Society. A stocktaking questionnaire and database was launched by the
WSIS Executive Secretariat in October 2004, and by mid-January 2005,
some 1'200 activities had been submitted. The submissions cover all WSIS-related
activities, including project descriptions, supporting documentation and
URLs, which are searchable by keywords, such as WSIS action lines,
development goals contained in the
Millennium Declaration Goals (MDGs),
geographical coverage, etc. To visit the stocktaking website,
please click
here.
The WSIS stocktaking is a continuous process
and the database remains open for new submissions. Those received by 15
January 2005, were taken into account in the
preliminary report on stocktaking, to be presented at PrepCom-2
(February 2005). Activities submitted by 30 June 2005, will be reflected
in the stocktaking report to be presented at PrepCom-3 (September 2005).
In December 2004, a presentation was made to the 7th
Meeting of the Working Group on WSIS in Geneva regarding the launch of the WSIS
stocktaking questionnaire and searchable database. The
Preliminary Report on the WSIS Stocktaking was posted on the WSIS website
towards the end of January 2005 and a
preliminary analytical report on the stocktaking exercise will be made
to PrepCom-2. ITU Member States and Sector
Members are urged to continue submitting material for the stocktaking, together with
any comments they might have on the report.
5. Related
links
 Tampere
Convention Comes into Force (ITU Press Release)
Working
Group on Emergency Telecommunications
World
Dialogue on Regulation for Network Economies (Emergency Communication)
WSIS
Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action
ITU
Internet Report 2004 "The Portable Internet" (September 2004)
 
|
Thank you for reading the Strategy
and Policy
Unit Monthly News Flash. Should you have any comments, or
require further information, please do not hesitate to
contact: ITU Strategy and Policy Unit, International
Telecommunication Union, Place des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 20
(Switzerland). Fax: +41 22 730 6453. E-mail: spumail@itu.int.
We also invite you to visit our website: www.itu.int/spu/
|
|
