Thursday, 7 October Malawi weather information towards food farming as well as marketing information for farm produce. Mr Chairman let me report that in her annual budget starting from this financial year, Malawi has set aside 1.2 million United States Dollars for telecentre projects in ful-fillment facilities and services, as well as developing a national ICT for development policy which is near completion. Mr Chairman, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, you know that Malawi has been a totally landlocked country which among other things has resulted in ICT terminals and services to be unaffordable to an average Malawian. The construction of the Inland Port at Malawi’s most Southern District of Nsanje under the Shire-Zambezi Waterway Project, championed and courageously im-plemented of proposed ITU Connect-a-Post office, Connect-a- School and Connect-a-community Projects. Malawi be-lieves in seeking for assistance after displaying her own efforts towards the required assistance. Lastly Mr Chairman, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen as we thank the outgoing ITU Management team for the tremendous work done during their term of office and as we welcome the new management team whom Malawi will render her total support, we would like to announce that Ngwazi Professor Bingu wa Mutharika President of the Republic of Malawi and the Chairman of the African Union has recently been elected alongside other Heads of States to be a special envoy for Championing ICT Development Projects in the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO). Mr Chairman, Your Excellencies Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen it is for this good reason that Malawi asks all ITU Member States to VOTE MALAWI into the ITU Council so that Malawi alongside other council members plays the much needed role that of harmonizing ITU and CTO ef-forts by the Ngwazi Professor Bingu wa Mutharika President of the Republic of Malawi and Chairman of the African Union will go a long way in improving the current ICT penetration figure currently at 18.3 to a higher figure within a very short time. MR Chairman, this is so because apart from reduced landing costs for ICT Terminals at the Nsanje port the connectivity to the submarine Optic Fibre cable from Mozambique will also be extended to Malawi through the navigatable Shire-Zambezi Waterway route resulting into more secured and affordable ICT Services, especially Broadband Services. Mr Chairman, talking about Broadband Services, Malawi would like to wholeheartedly thank the World Bank and the ITU for supporting Malawi with the Regional Communications Infrastructure Project (RCIP) and estab-lishment of thirteen telecentres respectively. aimed at development of ICT services in Africa. The RCIP project will enable Northern Part of Malawi to connect her backbone Fibre Cable to the Republic of Tanzania through Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation Limited to further offer affordable broad-band In Conclusion Malawi would like to join the Secretary General of ITU Dr Hamadoun Toure in urging all ITU Member States to pay their contributions in time so that the developing countries like Malawi may indeed move into information society by 2015. Thank you for your attention, God Bless service, in a redundant arrangement to the one connected through Mozambique. The Telecentre Projects will go a long way in supporting the declaration made by our President and the Chairman of the African Union that in five years time no African child will go hungry because telecentres facilitate timely 189