Closing remarks - CTU's 21st General Conference of Ministers

Secretary General, Bernadette Lewis, 

Excellencies,​

Heads of regulatory agencies,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Congratulations to CTU for such a successful 21st General Conference of Ministers ! It is four years since I last participated in this event and it really has stepped up since then. And thanks to the government of St Kitts and Nevis for their excellent organisation and warm hospitality. The presentations have been excellent and it is very impressive the progress that ministers have reported on what their countries are doing to bring the benefits of the technology to all their citizens. It is also very pleasing that the need for close regional cooperation, coordination and collaboration has been well recognized. 

Thank you again for inviting ITU. I have found it extremely beneficial to be here and understand better the needs of the region. We in the ITU secretariat are very keen to further develop our partnerships with CTU and other organizations in the region. Please let us know if there is more we could do to help especially with the implementation of the Single ICT Space and the 21st Century Government. 

My colleague Cleveland Thomas works hard with you in the region and has a number of projects, forums and workshops planned as I mentioned at the opening but let me I remind you again of the Accessible Americas event from 28-30th November in Montego Bay, Jamaica​. The 50% special hotel rates ends this Friday at 12 midnight!

I note that there is strong interest in the region on some technology developments such as blockchain, mobile payments and TV white spaces. ITU does a lot of work in these areas and so I thought I would briefly bring this to your attention. 

As I mentioned at the opening ceremony, the core function of the ITU is to provide international interoperability and interconnection so that services and products can enter a global market, can be used worldwide, and everyone can benefit from the resulting economies of scale. This avoids countries getting tied into proprietary standards being dependent on a single provider.

Regarding Blockchain, which will clearly offer considerable benefits, at this time it still has some challenges that need to be addressed, in particular security, privacy and how it fits within the existing regulatory framework. We are yet to develop the necessary standards. There are lots of different solutions and currently no consensus on the algorithm and no standards for compliance. 

Digital finance—payments and financial services delivered via mobile phones and the Internet—could transform the lives and economic prospects of individuals, businesses, and governments across the developing world, boosting GDP and make the aspiration of financial inclusion a reality. 

ITU is collaborating with the World Bank and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructure supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop standards and best practices for mobile payments including standards to allow interoperability of mobile payments, so that people can move their financial transactions from one mobile operator to another.

ITU had a Focus Group on Digital Financial Services​​​, which completed its work in 2017 and published some 28 technical reports and 85 recommendations​ aimed at governments, policymakers and DFS providers on how to scale up usage of digital financial services. All are available on the ITU website. We now provide for remote participation in these studies so I encourage your participation.

For mobile payments ITU is collaborating with the World Bank and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructure supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop standards and best practices for mobile payments including standards to allow interoperability of mobile payments, so that people can move their financial transactions from one mobile operator to another.

Regarding TV White Spaces, ITU recently published a report called “Evolving spectrum management tools to support development needs​” which addresses a number of issues and that are raised by dynamic spectrum sharing, which includes TVWS. The report usefully reports on the experiences of countries having developed TVWS regulations which demonstrates the complexity required to protect incumbent services, the framework for selection and operation of databases and the enforcement issues. So I would encourage your spectrum experts to study this report carefully before taking any decisions on TVWS. It should also be noted that there is some uncertainty as to the future availability of the band for TVWS as it is a candidate for 5G.

I hope we see many of you at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference​ in Dubai next month. It is important that the Region is represented on the ITU Council and so I wish every success for the Commonwealth of the Bahamas candidature.

We look forward to continuing our close partnership with CTU to work for the good of the region.

Thank you very much for your attention.