This two-day ITU Regional Seminar for the Africa Region on Conformance and Interoperability Testing Centre(s) will take place at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Accra, Ghana, from 4 to 6 July 2011 and will be hosted by the Ministry of Communications (MOC) of Ghana.

The Seminar will be followed by the Sixth ITU Symposium on ICTs, the Environment and Climate Change from 7 to 8 July 2011 and will also be hosted by the Ministry of Communications (MOC) of Ghana at the same venue. See details at: http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/worksem/climatechange/201107/index.html.

The Regional Seminar is intended to provide information on the following issues:

• Status of the needs of Developing Countries for building testing labs for conformance and interoperability testing;
• Existing testing labs and their areas of activities in the ICTs field;
• Assessment of the needs and the opportunities to establish type approval testing labs in the countries;
• Criteria and characteristics to establish accredited Bodies/Labs in the Regions for Type Approval/Homologation based on rules and recommendations, and also best practice;
• The ILAC, IAF and accreditation bodies, MRAs (Mutual Recognition Agreements) reference documents, framework and procedures for mutual recognition of conformity assessment of telecommunication equipment and systems;
• ITU testing approaches including ITU experience, conformance testing experience in different countries and technologies to be tested, application of Model networks for conformance testing, proposed methodologies of protocols, equipment and services for conformance testing, experience from international testing projects; steps to be undertaken to facilitate the creation of regional test labs and to create capacity building opportunities at a regional level.
• Establishment of further actions economical, technical and regional presence.

The event is intended for leading specialists in the field, from top policy-makers to engineers, designers, planners, government officials, regulators, standards experts and others.

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