Istanbul Action Plan programmes

Programme 1 — Regulatory reform

The programme on regulatory reform seeks to assist regulators and policy-makers in developing and implementing policies, legislation and regulations that can help achieve sustainable development and expand access to, and use of, telecommunications including broadcasting, and information and communication technologies. In particular, the programme will focus on providing practical tools and resources for regulatory bodies to engage in reform more effectively to meet their national ICT development, access and use goals, creating safe investment opportunities and ensuring universal access to ICTs.

To this end, the programme has been designed to provide practical solutions to enable effective regulation, particularly in response to convergence trends whereby similar services can be delivered over different types of networks.

Programme 2 — Technologies and telecommunication network development

Under this programme, activities will focus on applied research and the transfer of technological knowledge to developing countries and economies in transition in the areas of planning, building, operating, upgrading, managing and maintaining telecommunication networks. The network planning activities in this programme will incorporate traffic and demand forecasting, network management, including spectrum management and radio monitoring, interconnectivity, interoperability and quality of service standards for wireline and wireless networks, terrestrial mobile communications and broadcasting.

Programme 3 — E-strategies and applications

This brand new programme aims to improve the quality of life of men and women particularly in low-income rural and under-served areas through community access. The goal is to ensure sustainability and affordability in the development of telecommunication networks and ICTs and to harness their potential so as to contribute to reducing the social divide. The integration of IP-based applications and value-added services in the development of all telecommunication networks will be given priority as will the promotion of e-government, e-commerce, e-agriculture, e-health, e-community, e-learning, e-cinema, teleworking and webcasting in developing countries.

Other priorities of the programme include the expansion of multipurpose platforms and multipurpose community telecentres, the enhancement of security and building confidence in the use of public networks for value-added applications and services. Special attention will be given to ICT-literacy and public awareness building.

Programme 4 — Economics and Finance, including cost and tariffs

In today’s competitive environment where the focus has shifted from State funding of infrastructure and services to private sector investment, developing countries in particular need new guidelines on economic analysis, financing policies and strategies that encourage lower costs for end users.

Under this programme, ITU will assist developing countries, especially LDCs, to develop and implement financing policies and strategies appropriate to their economic situation, including cost-orientated pricing, with a view to fostering equitable and affordable access to innovative and sustainable services. The focus will be on the introduction of new financing schemes for the development of their telecommunication/ICT networks and services, including broadcasting; universal access programmes through projects that are economically viable; the integration of policy and strategy changes in the trade environment of telecommunication/ICT services and, finally, the determination of cost of retail services and cost-based interconnection rates.

Programme 5 — Human capacity building

The lack of a strong base of competencies in all key areas of telecommunication and ICTs has been singled out as one of the key problems facing developing countries. This programme will, therefore, work towards strengthening the human, institutional and organizational capacity of developing countries through human resources management and development activities. It will, in particular, address the capacity development needs of policy-makers and regulators at government level, as well as senior executives and managers from among the operators and service providers. An appropriate mix of e-learning, information technologies and traditional training methods will be used to this end. These human capacity building measures are expected to facilitate a smooth transition to the new telecommunication and ICT environment.

Programme 6 — Special programme for least developed countries

The goal of this programme is to provide focused and differentiated assistance to the world’s least developed countries in all the development activities of ITU in order to fully meet the urban telecommunication needs of LDCs and provide access in rural areas. In concrete terms, the programme seeks to increase the average telephone density to 5 main lines per 100 inhabitants and Internet connections to 10 users per 100 inhabitants by the year 2010.

Whilst the old strategy of selecting a few countries to benefit from concentrated assistance on a yearly basis has improved the provision of assistance, it is time for a new strategy. For the next four years, a biennial approach will be used to direct assistance to twelve countries for a period of two years rather than to six countries per year to allow for a more sustained follow-up of actions taken, including possible evaluation, and a mustering of partnerships through partnership roundtables and other means of mobilizing resources. Given that half of the LDCs (20 countries) have now been covered under the old strategy, the new strategy will make it possible to deliver assistance to all the remaining countries during the next cycle and possibly to start a second round for the most needy ones.

Priority areas for this programme are: development of rural telecommunications to bring about easy access to telecommunication services in the rural areas where the majority of the population in LDCs lives; development of infrastructure and introduction of new technologies and services through which LDCs will receive assistance on technological choice; sector restructuring to bring about liberalization and competition and, possibly, privatization as applicable with the objective of inducing faster network growth and better management of the sector; human resources development/management; financing and partnerships, aimed at pooling resources and directing the aggregated resources to LDCs so as to avoid duplication of effort and wastage of resources. Bilateral initiatives between the programme and its constellation of contacts will also be promoted so as to attract financial inflows to LDCs.

Countries in special need

In parallel, ITU’s roster of countries emerging from war and civil strife and natural disasters was expanded from Burundi, Liberia, Rwanda and Somalia to include Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone. There was a consensus to create a specific budget for these countries to supplement financial support provided on an ad-hoc basis from the surplus funds generated at ITU TELECOM exhibitions. These countries will receive assistance, especially in restoring infrastructure that was destroyed and in putting in place new networks to jump-start their telecommunication sector.