African Telecommunications Union AFRICA COMMON VIEWS ON WTDC

African Telecommunications Union AFRICA COMMON VIEWS ON WTDC REFORMS Ms. Meriem SLIMANI Standardization and Development Coordinator 1 st CEPT prep meeting for WTDC-21, 08 th September 2020

CONTEXT This presentation is a result of the consultations that were conducted by the BDT / TDAG in April 2020 to discuss the current format of the WTDC. In this perspective, the ATU had, , organized a regional consultation in April 2020 with the aim of formulating common African views and proposals on the WTDC reform process. Discussions focused on 4 key topics and the main results were as follows:

Topic 1: WTDC preparatory process • The importance of formal interregional meetings to reach early consensus on some WTDC agenda items and gain time for discussing critical development issues during the conference; • A clear structure and content of the WTDC are key for an effective preparation process and to clearly identify the ICT critical issues to be raised and discussed during the conference; • To identify and finalize Study Group questions during the preparation process to avoid long discussions and creation of several ad-hoc groups that disadvantage mainly the non English spoken countries during the Conference; • To promote remote participation and encourage participation of all in the preparation process including sister UN agencies working on the same development issues and SDGS as well.

Topic 2: Content and Structure of the Conference • The WTDC structure and content should be tailored to address the critical ICT development issues as appropriate(highlighting each regions priorities); • To link the content with the SDGs; • To reform the WTDC content with the objective to address emerging issues and drive maximum stakeholders; • Packing things we did not achieve ; • To improve time allocation and management (structure high level declarations, avoid several ad-hoc groups, …) for more efficiency and achieve the conference objectives within the timelines; • Study Group (SG) deliverables to be focused on critical identified issues in synergy with the R and T sectors; .

Topic 3: Stakeholder engagement How to engage more stakeholders • That should be linked to the content; • To think a multi-stakeholders model (identify projects, key role players etc. ), • The projects and strategies well identified should attract the right funders. • Include the other regional ICT stakeholders and agencies (AUC, UNECA, etc. ) including UN sister agencies to avoid competition and duplication on the same and improve coordination in the implementation process; • To strengthen the ITU role and position in leading ICT development. • Consider the promotion of the developing country academia and industry participation to increase regional stakeholder engagement.

Topic 4: Side events at the conference How to structure to benefit the Conference • These events should be useful activities, good stimulators and have experiences to share whose outputs are useful and appealing to the Member states; • To avoid programming side events that will disadvantage the core discussions of the conference; • Relevant topics to raise and address critical ICT development issues; • These events could be Youth summit, WSIS forum, etc with the objective to harmonize actions and address similar interests.

Other proposals • Budget is a major concern: the need to set prioritization rules to improve implementation; • ITU to allow specific timelines to address the huge lack of connectivity.

The ATU WTDC-21 preparatory process The 1 st ATU WTDC-21 preparatory online meeting • 5 th to 9 th October 2020 to be host by Sudan The 2 nd ATU WTDC-21 preparatory physical meeting • July 2020 (TBC)

THANK YOU m. slimani@atu-uat. org