Opening Speech - 3rd APT Preparatory Meeting for PP-18

Opening Speech - 3rd APT Preparatory Meeting for PP-18

18 June 2018, Melbourne, Australia

Madam Chairman, Sulyna Abdullah,
Secretary-General, Areewan Haorangsi,
Secretary of the Department of Communications and the Arts, Mike Mrdak,
Vice-chairmen, honorable delegates, dear colleagues, dear friends,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Myself and my colleagues, Mr Ba Chief of Finance and Mr Koroivuki, Regional Director, are very pleased to be with you at this important meeting of the APT preparatory group for PP-18. Our thanks go to APT for its invitation and we hope to assist you in your preparations for the conference. I am pleased to see representatives from other regions also participating. This will help a better understanding of the different regional positions which is essential to achieve compromise and consensus at the conference. Of course, we will also have the informal inter-regional group meetings in Geneva on 13 July and in Saudi Arabia on 26-27 September to assist this.

I would like to commend APT for its progress in its preparations for PP-18 and congratulate Madam Chairman and the chairmen of the 3 working groups for the in-depth preparatory work. We are very pleased to note from the many input documents that the region is supporting the need for ITU to remain fit for purpose and to be an organization that can be trusted and delivers effective and efficient services for all its members.

With regard to the organization of the conference, I assure you that the Secretariat and the Host Country are working well together to ensure that the best conditions are provided for the conference.

We have prepared three power point presentations for this meeting relating to the preparatory process, the election process and the draft Financial Plan.

I will introduce these later but let me at this stage emphasize that the ITU management is strongly committed to transparency in the financial management of the Union. We are proud to have been certified IPSAS compliant for the ninth time by the External Auditor for the 2017 financial statements. The draft Financial Plan is balanced (Revenues=Expenses). There is no withdrawal from Reserve Account. The intention is to maintain the amount of the contributory unit at its current level of CHF 318,000.

Management is making every effort to improve staff engagement and performance through the introduction of modern processes and policies. Efforts are being made to streamline and digitize internal processes, automate them as far as possible, outsource certain services such as translation and printing, and introduce flexible working methods. Gender balance is a major goal and following the Council approval of the ITU Gender Equality and Mainstreaming Policy we have approved an Action Plan which is now under implementation. Staff well-being, welfare and security are of our highest concern, which is one reason we are implementing the new security arrangements at the Headquarters and in the regional offices. We are continuing efforts to improve intersectoral coordination and avoidance of duplication and have recently launched a new webpage specifically on this issue.

The new building project is gathering momentum. We are currently working closely with the architect to ensure the specified requirements can be met within the CHF150 Million project envelope agreed by Council. We are also looking closely at the options for temporary accommodation during the demolition and construction phase. We intend the new building to be an iconic, smart building and an inspiration to both delegates and staff. A new image of the ITU. With open space paperless working it will require a major change of culture in ITU. Let me thank the regional representative Mr Shirae for his membership of MSAG which meets again next week.

We look forward to the discussions during this meeting which I am sure will be a major contribution to the success of PP-18, setting ITU on a firm path to achieve its goals of growth, inclusiveness, sustainability, innovation and partnership. Partnership is essential if we are to achieve the goals and reach our objective of connecting the world, and we particularly value partnership with APT. Around 3.9 billion people are still not connected to the Internet and two out of every three of these unconnected people live in the Asia-Pacific region. In fact, more than half of the world’s total offline population comes from just five Asia-Pacific countries the majority from South Asia, where the share of the rural population is also the highest. Bringing connectivity to rural and remote isolated communities will be essential to achieving the SDGs, but only if this connectivity is affordable, with relevant content and in the local language. Not only will this bring benefits in terms of healthcare, education and access to the digital economy, but it will also help reduce or perhaps even reverse the trend towards urbanization.

APT and the ITU share these common goals and a common membership. This meeting is a good example of our excellent partnership and APT partners a number of ITU projects and activities in the region. So, on behalf of ITU we thank APT for this collaboration, as well as the countries in the region that are carrying out various regional initiatives projects, including of course the host country Australia.

Myself and my colleagues are here to help you in any way we can and we wish you a very successful meeting.

Thank you.