MALTA

STATEMENT BY H.e. censu Galea
Minister for Competitiveness and Communications

Your Excellencies,

I am privileged and honoured to address this august assembly, here in Antalya, Turkey.

A Country which has become synonymous with global communications development, having played host for the ITU’s 2002 World Telecommunications Development Conference , the 2002 World Radio Communication Conference and Plenipotentiary Conference 2006.

Mr Chairman, please allow me to convey to all the distinguished participants the greetings and well wishes of the Government and the People of Malta.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The fast development of the Information and Communication Technologies during the last decades has led to the necessity of creating awareness of this reality within the global community, especially with those linked with this Industry, in order to reflect and debate on the manifold of new issues, coming forth from the overarching technological breakthroughs.

ICTs penetrate almost all domains of society and human behaviour, resulting in an all transformation of society with new concerns and challenges.

We all recall that at the start of this new millennium, our nations reaffirmed their commitment to build a more peaceful, prosperous and just world. Our leaders pledged to share a common responsibility to maintain human values, equality and the principles of justice worldwide.

In essence and conscious of the fact and that information is the very basis of democracy, we all subscribed to this common goal, which should open up new opportunities for increasing well-being, for improving quality of life, and for promoting sustainable development.

Against this backdrop, during the last four years we have witnessed, the efforts exerted by Governments and UN agencies, markedly the ITU and the Commonwealth, to mobilise the industry at large, the private sector, the civil society and other multi- stakeholders at an unprecedented number of global events. This, with a view to changing people’s lives in the process of creating a networked knowledge-based world society.

Undoubtedly, information technology has a critical role to play in development efforts around the world and it is the best medium to guarantee this change at national, regional and global levels.

It offers new ways to satisfy needs for access to education, health-care, markets and innovation; not as alternatives to traditional ways but as a complement which can allow skills and resources to be used much more efficiently and effectively when and where needed.

The emergence of information technologies and particularly of fast and cheap global communications - notably Mobile telephony, Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and Broadband - have considerably widened the scope of change.

The exponential growth of mobile telephony has helped facilitate vital governance, business and socioeconomic development and has provided market links for farmers and entrepreneurs; the Internet has become crucial for the development of the Educational and the health sectors. Computerisation has enhanced productivity and participation

The society of the future will as a result be fashioned by such developments. Even more so, when these now offer an opportunity to empower and integrate billions of people even in the poorest countries, thereby spreading prosperity and education more widely than ever before. To cite one example, Africa has seen huge mobile telephony growth at the same time as an increase in overall economic growth - now at 5 per cent annually.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We meet here today at such a crucial period in the evolution of the ITU. The mandate of the ITU has now assumed greater importance on the global agenda. The outcomes at the World Summit on the Information Society put the ITU in pole position to build the information society and to construct the bridges that will eventually address the digital divide. The ITU’s success at WSIS was the resultant effect of the positive response by all stakeholders and the pertinent synergy resulting from their combined efforts and shared visions thereby adopting the Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action as well as the Tunis commitment and agenda for the Information Society.

If the ITU wants to succeed in its daunting challenge of connecting the world by 2015 it must continue with this trend to maximise on all potential and effective resources. In this regard the Commonwealth is a shining example which constitutes a meaningful partner, more importantly after the Commonwealth Heads of Government convened at the Malta Summit.

Less than a year ago and just a week after WSIS in Tunis, the Commonwealth Heads of Government gave distinct recognition to ICTs, when they issued the Malta declaration entitled ‘Networking the Commonwealth for Development’, in which the report ‘Commonwealth Action Programme for the Digital Divide’ (CAPDD), now renamed ‘Commonwealth Connects’ was endorsed and recognised as the ‘roadmap’ to address the Commonwealth priorities.

This new mandate calls for the setting up of a Special Fund to assist projects falling into five focus areas. These include the development of policy and regulatory capacity, the modernisation of education and skills development, entrepreneurship for wealth creation and poverty reduction, the promotion of local access and connectivity and the strengthening of local and regional networks. The CAPDD started its journey in Nigeria in 2003 as a Pan-Commonwealth initiative to assist less developed countries to bridge the digital divide. Malta, India and Mozambique have already made significant contributions to the special fund and not less than 60 projects are being evaluated for the first round of funding.

It was in the light of these developments that on behalf of my Government, currently the Chair of CHOGM, and in conjunction with the Commonwealth/ITU Group and the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) then chaired also by Malta, I addressed the ITU World Telecommunications Development Conference 2006 in Doha, and tabled a resolution at the same Assembly.

This resolution specified the will of a substantial number of commonwealth countries, 53 of which are members of the ITU, and requested the ITU Secretary General to assume the onus to submit the Malta CHOGM declaration, which not only supported the Digital Solidarity Fund as endorsed by WSIS but reiterated their beliefs in the deliberations of WSIS and the ‘Commonwealth Action Programme for the Digital Divide’ to this ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, on the premise that the ITU will ensure harmonisation and coordination between the three sectors of the Union and the Commonwealth

I am confident that in the course of this Plenipotentiary Conference other distinguished Heads of delegations will be giving prominence to these developments.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The relationship between Malta and the ITU spans more than 40 years and the ITU has played a determining role in the development of Malta’s state of the art ICT infrastructure. At the ITU Plenipotentiary in Marrakech, the WSIS in Tunis and at the WTDC in Doha, Malta pledged its willingness to share knowledge on specific ICT projects and/or issues with other countries. The Commonwealth has taken advantage of this offer and through the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) utilised Malta’s Tsunami Relief Fund for the implementation of a Rural Telecoop project in Sri Lanka, which should address the perennial problem of rural access in that country, as it served to assist those families hit with the 2004 Tsunami tragedy.

The concept, executed in Sri Lanka, is expected to be scaled to become a Pan Commonwealth programme giving the Commonwealth and the CTO the recognition as the knowledge centres on rural communications.

My country’s size, topography and advanced infrastructure mean that we are an ideal incubator for new applications. Malta has long aspired to be a hub for Euro-Med activity and an ICT Centre of Excellence and we are exceptionally positioned to turn this vision into a reality.

When I addressed the ITU Minneapolis Plenipotentiary Conference in 1998 and in my formal statement to the ITU Marrakech Assembly in 2002, I underscored the importance of providing a pro-competitive and friendly regulatory framework encouraging competition with appropriate investments by all stakeholders in the market and for the further development of Malta’s ICT infrastructure. Malta’s communications regulatory framework has brought about an environment which is conducive to investment as it achieved and sustained competition with the provision of a host of services of a quality and price unthinkable just a few years back.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Malta has the ambition to become a leading world-wide user of ICTs technology in all levels of society. Recent developments give a strong signal that Malta is emerging into a centre of excellence in Information Technology.

At this conference we will elect the leadership at the helm of a 141 year old organisation, which has recently earned the distinction of one of the world’s 10 most enduring institutions. The future strategies and corresponding organisational changes will be defined to implement amongst other challenges, the action lines laid out in the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society.

Let me therefore renew Malta’s pledge to provide its full support in order to promote and strengthen the ITU’s pre-eminent role among the UN specialised agencies and other International Organisations as it consolidates its standing as the flag-bearer for shaping the landscape to secure harmonious development of ICT world wide for the benefit of mankind.

Thank you.