The Minister of Communications, General (Ret) Siphiwe Nyanda, attended the International Telecommunications Union Conference taking place in the Guadalajara, Mexico from 4 to 22 October 2010.
The conference began with amongst others, the election of high ranking officials to the governance structures of the Union, namely Secretary-General, Directors of the three sectors, and Council members. The South African delegation under the leadership of the Minister of Communications, General Siphiwe Nyanda, made our country proud where he convinced the membership of the Union of South Africa’s contribution to Union’s work on the advancement of the development agenda through diffusion of Information and Communications Technologies.
In the luncheon hosted by Minister Nyanda, he shared with the delegates on South Africa’s commitment to bridging the digital divide and building an advanced information and knowledge economy. This event was also used as a platform to mobilize the support of African delegates who were nominated for the position of Secretary-General and Director for Radio-communications sector of the Union in mobilising the members of the Union to vote for South Africa and African delegates into the Council.
On 10 October 2010, South Africa was duly elected to the seat in the ITU Council under a tight contested voting process obtaining 105 votes of the 158 members. The Council is an important structure of the ITU that facilitates the implementation by member states of the provisions of the Constitution of the Union as well as the decisions of the plenipotentiary conference within its powers and processes administrative, and provides support and strategic direction of the Secretary General and his Directors of the three sectors, namely Telecommunications Development, Standardisation as well as Radio-communications sectors.
The appointment of South Africa to the ITU is a testimony that confirms Member States confidence in the country’s contribution to the body of knowledge in the three sectors of the union and in ICT matter in general. Africa took the centre stage having secured the position of the Secretary-General and Directorship of BDT. These are Top Executive positions of the ITU and such appointments should mark an opportunity that Africa should not miss which is that – “Africa should never be left behind in the current wave of the digital revolution”.
Being the only SADC member state appointed in the Council, this calls for further partnership, collaboration and teamwork with the Member States within the region using SADC as that enabling platform. The next 5 years is an important period for the country and the region, especially in the migration of the broadcasting systems from analogue to digital as well as other policy driven initiatives to roll-out broadband infrastructure including the adoption of LTE technologies and next-generation networks. As well as the development of local content remains high in the national ICT agenda.
The country will continue to use the capabilities of the ITU to building capacity in issues relating to standardisation, cyber-security, and radio frequency spectrum management and regulation.
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