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Forum on Implementation of decisions of the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-08) |
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Quito, Ecuador |
7 July 2009 |
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Mr. Chairman,
Dra. Zoila Ramos, Director CITIC - Ecuador
Ing. Fabian Jaramillo. Superintendente de Telecomunicaciones Ecuador
Ing. Jaime Guerrero. Presidente Conatel Ecuador
Distinguished delegates and invited guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen
Colleagues and friends,
It is a great pleasure to have such prominent persons with us for the
opening of this Forum, I wish to welcome you all – BIENVENIDOS !
It is the first time for me to be in Quito, one of the most beautiful
capitals in the world. The importance of the Old City prompted UNESCO
(United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) to declare
Quito a Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 1979. And now that I am here I can
see with my eyes how much that choice has been an excellent one.
My sincere thanks go to the Dr. Zoila Ramos and her staff of CITIC who have
worked very hard to make it happen.
The World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly in Johannesburg last
October was my first WTSA as Director and the first preceded by a Global
Standards Symposium, the first chaired by a woman, and the first in which
special accommodation was made for academia.
We held three very well attended side events on cybersecurity,
accessibility, and ICTs and climate change, and had an excellent
demonstration of technology including 3D TV.
WTSA-08 saw the highest level of participation ever with nearly 1000
participants from 99 countries in attendance.
We were honoured by the presence of 13 ministers or deputy ministers and
VIPs spanning the world and the entire telecommunication and ICT industry,
showing the growing interest in the work of the ITU-T Sector.
We adopted the first ever ITU Resolutions on ICTs and climate change,
accessibility to ICTs for persons with disabilities, conformance and
interoperability testing, and encouraging academic participation and sector
members from developing countries – amongst many other significant
Resolutions which we will review today and tomorrow.
In short we received a very strong message from our members that ITU is, and
will remain the world’s pre-eminent global telecommunication and ICT
standards body.
And we heard also, and very clearly, that ITU should continue on its mission
to connect the world, and that bridging the standardization gap, by
increasing developing country participation in our work, is an essential
prerequisite to achieve this goal.
And as I said, time flies. That is why we have developed a WTSA-08 Action
Plan which is on our website and which we will maintain from now until
WTSA-12. It will be presented to WTSA-12 to show what actions have been
taken to fulfill the decisions of WTSA-08.
We have done a lot already and you will hear what has been achieved since
WTSA-08 and how we are working to meet the demands of the Resolutions, and
how you our members can assist us in this.
The success of WTSA-08 was largely due to the extensive regional
preparations, and especially the very successful ITU Americas Region WTSA-08
Preparatory Meeting, held in Brasilia in May last year. Americas made a
significant contribution to the success of WTSA-08 especially for the
enhancement of activities to bridge the standardization gap.
I would like to thank all the members from this region that put forward
candidates for the leadership positions in our study groups, as well as the
individuals themselves. In fact the Americas region is now represented by 14
leadership positions.
I look forward to working closely with them to maintain and further improve
ITU-T’s position as a leader in efficient international standards making.
Time passes, el tiempo se va, and we will soon need to start thinking about
the next ITU PleniPotentiary Conference in 2010 where new challenges will be
faced and WTSA in 2012 which is likely to have associated with it a World
Conference on International Telecommunications to review the International
Telecommunications Regulations.
With your support, I hope I shall still be TSB Director to continue my
actions in favor of developing countries and able to collaborate closely
with you in your preparations for these important conferences.
I will not take more of your time. We have a very interesting programme to
look forward to and excellent speakers. I would like to thank the speakers
for their efforts to prepare their presentations and for coming here to
support our event.
I wish you all a productive, informative and enjoyable Forum.
Thank you for your attention.
Muchas Gracias
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