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Council 2015 Highlights: Issue No. 1

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Issue No.1, 12 May 2015

Council 2015 gets down to business

ITU’s governing Council opened its annual session under the Chairmanship of Mr Wonki Min of the Republic of Korea. “This Council session is extremely meaningful for all of us because we are celebrating the 150th anniversary of ITU,” said Mr Min, in his opening address. “For a century and half, the Union has strived to enhance the lives of citizens around the world through the application of ICT – from telegraphy to more modern technologies, such as satellites, mobile phones and the Internet.”

The ITU Council is meeting from 12 to 22 May in its first ordinary session since the 19th Plenipotentiary Conference, held in Busan, Republic of Korea, from 20 October to 7 November 2014. Among other matters, ITU Council will examine in detail the implementation of the strategic plan and activities of the Union for 2014-2015 and the annual budget for 2016-2017.

Delegates from the 48 countries representing the ITU membership of 193 States were welcomed by the ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao, who welcomed the new Council Members in particular, including Pakistan, Uganda and Tanzania, who have returned to Council after an absence; and Azerbaijan and Lithuania, who are joining Council for the first time.

“I will continue working closely with the elected officials and the ITU staff to best serve the Union. We will continue to improve our efficiency, without sacrificing quality. Results-based focus, transparency and accountability will remain our guiding principles,” said Mr Zhao, in his State of the Union address to Council. “The work we do here at ITU can and should make each and every one of us proud to be part of this great Union – and I thank you for your support in this, our 150th anniversary year, as we embark with enthusiasm and vigour on the next 150 years of the Union’s history.”

Julie Zoller from the United States was welcomed as the Vice-Chair of Council 2015, after being elected at the extraordinary session of Council in Busan. Similarly, Marcin Krasuski from Poland was welcomed as the Chair of the Standing Committee on Administration and Management, and Vernita Harris from the United States as Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee.

The 2015 Council agenda covers strategic, operational and financial plans of the Union, a review of preparations for upcoming events, as well as other key topics such as Internet-related activities and public policy issues, cybersecurity and child online protection, accessibility for persons with disabilities, gender mainstreaming, and youth.

Secretary-General's State of the Union address

In his State of the Union address delivered at the opening of the Council session, ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao noted that the 2015 Council is the first since the 2014 Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-14), which successfully drafted the ITU Strategic Plan and Financial Plan for the Union for the next four years. He thanked Mr Min for having ably steered the Plenipotentiary Conference as its Chairman, and thanked Councillors for their support and good wishes for the 150th anniversary of the Union. Looking ahead, he outlined the challenges and a busy schedule for the year, including the WSIS Forum, 25-29 May to follow up on the World Summit on the Information Society; The Global Symposium of Regulators (GSR), 9-11 June in Libreville, Gabon; ITU Telecom World, 12-15 October in Budapest, Hungary; the Radiocommunication Assembly (RA-15), 26-30 October and World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15), 2-27 November in Geneva; and the World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium (WTIS-15), 30 November–2 December in Hiroshima, Japan.

Administrative matters

The rest of the inaugural plenary meeting was dedicated to administrative matters, including the organization of the work of Council 2015, and the presentation by the Deputy Secretary-General Malcolm Johnson of the report on the implementation of the strategic plan and activities of the Union for 2014-2015 (CV61, CV102) C15/35(Rev.1)

First Plenary Meeting – PP-14, WTISD, Languages & ITU Telecom

The Secretariat presented the Report on PP-14 (C15/4), which was well-received by Council members including UAE, which is hosting the next Plenipotentiary Conference in 2018, and Korea, which hosted PP-14 in Busan. A number of Councillors complimented both the Chair and the host country of PP-14, and some suggestions were made for ways in which the next plenipotentiary could be even better organized, including perhaps reducing its duration – with concrete proposals possibly being considered by the 2016 session of Council.

The Secretariat presented the report on World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (Res 68) C15/17, which has been celebrated annually since 1969. The theme for each year is decided by Council, with the proposal for 2016 being 'ICT entrepreneurship for social impact'. A number of Councillors spoke in support of the concept, suggesting minor editorial changes, including modifying the theme to 'Telecommunications/ICT entrepreneurship for social impact'; Council approved the modification.

The reports and documents relating to the Council Working Group on Languages (Res 154) C15/12, C15/55, C15/86 were presented by the Vice-Chair Vladimir Minkin (on behalf of the Chair of CWG-LANG, Imad Hoballah), by the Russian Federation, and by the UAE, emphasizing the importance of ensuring that level zero and level one of the ITU website should be equally available in all six official languages, and requesting that more affordable and alternative translation methodologies be looked into and evaluated, including outsourced and / or remote translation / interpretation.

A number of Councillors took the floor in support of the documents presented, with strong support voiced for equal use of the six official languages, while noting the need to ensure continued quality even while reducing costs. It was suggested that one simple measure to reduce costs would be to reduce the lengths of resolutions and decisions. There was general agreement that the time has come to act.

Councillors discussed the request from ITU to Member States to leverage their native language skills to assist ITU with translation, and it was noted that Egypt had offered to trial translation of the webpages into Arabic; the Deputy Secretary-General, Malcolm Johnson, thanked Egypt for its efforts, expressing disappointment that other Member States had not yet responded to the request, and inviting them to do so.

Following the Chair's invitation to do so, Council noted document C15/12, adopted the recommendations therein, and approved the draft resolution included in annex; as well as abrogating Resolution 1238. Council also endorsed the Chair's proposal to include in the Summary Record of the Council the following instructions:

The Secretary-General and the Directors of the Bureaux to take urgent measures to ensure timely update of level 0 and level 1 ITU webpages simultaneously in the six official languages of the Union, as much as practically possible.
The Secretary-General and the Directors of the Bureaux to consider implementation of the best and most effective solutions economically to the provision of translation and simultaneous interpretation services at an appropriate cost, to make use of approved external sources to translate Union documents, to study the use of remote interpretation.
The Secretary-General to report to the 2016 meeting of the CWG-languages with the timeframe for implementation, indicators to measure quality and cost effectiveness of translation options (including equal treatment of languages), new cost-recovery and financing mechanisms, and measures to reduce the volume of documents to be translated.

The Secretariat presented the document on Sales of ITU Publications, relating to 'Free online access to ITU publications' (Res 66, Dec 12, D 571, D 574) C15/21. Sales amounted to CHF 19.8 million, which is above the budget and also the greatest sales figure ever achieved. Councillors congratulated the sales team for their efforts and endorsed the report.

The Secretariat presented the document on ITU Telecom events (Res 11, R 1292) C15/19(Rev.1), noting the success of ITU Telecom World 2014, with thanks to Qatar as the host and Ooredoo as the main sponsor, and thanks to the members that supported the event through their national pavilions. The 2014 event welcomed some 3,500 total participants, 205 speakers, 41 Ministers and 144 media from 18 countries. There were 169 show floor entities from 46 countries.

Looking to the future, ITU Telecom World 2015 is due to take place from 12-15 October in Budapest, Hungary. It will include key new features, debates and innovations, building on the outcomes drawn from 2014. The focus of the event will be expanded in order to engage more deeply with Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), exploring their crucial role within the global ICT ecosystem. Several Councillors expressed their general satisfaction with the evolution of the ITU Telecom event; clarifications were sought concerning the full scope of Res 11 (more information will be provided at a side event on 15 May), and the reduction of revenue from 2013 to 2014 due largely to the event being held in the same year as a Plenipotentiary Conference.

The Council Highlights are provided as a service to ITU Member State Administrations. They are not official documents, and do not provide a substitute for the Summary Record; we nonetheless hope that Member State Administrations will find them useful and informative.