– 118 – (4 – General Secretariat) • The dates and topics of the workshops will be communicated to the membership of the Union well in advance to allow time for the submission of contributions and adequate preparation. • Those who participate should preferably be experts in the subject under discussion and would participate in a personal capacity. • Upon invitation, workshops may be held outside the headquarters of the Union. C Finance and resources • The meetings should be conducted in an efficient and cost effective manner, within the budget allocated by the Council. • The expenditures incurred in organizing the Workshops, including any voluntary contributions, shall be presented in the accounts of the Union and will be subject to the Financial Regulations of the Union. D Input and output documents • Input documents shall include a background paper on the topic and a draft agenda. Where feasible, inputs should also include country case studies and presentations from participants. • Any Member State or Sector Member may make an input to a Workshop. • The participants shall determine the outputs of the workshop but they should, in no event, be considered as prescriptive regulatory outcomes or outputs with binding force. E Information dissemination, technology transfer and education • One of the objectives of the workshops should be to generate high quality, researched information that can be useful particularly for policy-makers and regulatory agencies, especially in developing countries. • Each workshop should be accompanied by a website that would be used to inform the membership about the meeting and disseminate all the documentation from the meeting. Information generated could also be disseminated via the ITU News and other Union publications, and in other appropriate formats. • As appropriate, the material developed shall be disseminated and may be used to assist with training programmes and in technology transfer and know-how. F Cooperation with the Sectors • Although the strategic planning workshops will be organized by the SPU, the Sectors will be invited to nominate focal points for cooperation and to assist in the planning and running of Workshops. • The input documents, including case studies, and outputs shall be channelled to the appropriate Sectors. G Reporting • The Secretary-General shall report to Council each year on the activities carried out under the New Initiatives Programme and the Council shall decide on the appropriate follow-up. • Where follow-up requires inter-sectoral work, or cannot be fitted in to the work of a Sector, this should be coordinated by the Secretary-General, in cooperation with the Directors of the Bureaux. Ref.: Documents C2000/90 and C2000/98.