decision 496

(approved at the eleventh Plenary Meeting)

Guidelines for Strategic Planning Workshops

The Council,

considering

a)          the need to ensure the continuing relevance and leadership of the Union in a rapidly changing telecommunications environment and in an era of volatile technological change;

b)          that to respond to the changing telecommunications environment requires that the Union should be able to initiate new activities, and study new issues, in a timely and flexible manner;

c)          that, in approving the budget for the 2000-2001 biennium (Resolution 1133), Council provided funding for a "New Initiatives Programme";

d)          that, on the initiative of the Secretary-General, two initial Strategic Planning Workshops were held in Geneva, on Electronic Signatures and Certification Authorities (9-10 December 1999) and on IP Telephony (14-16 June 2000);

e)          that the results of these two workshops were discussed by Council and were considered important and useful to the membership,

decides, with respect to the first two workshops

to instruct the Secretary-General to undertake further studies with a view to identifying the role that ITU can play in e-commerce, authentication and IP Telephony, as well as their legal implications for Member States, and in particular in developing countries,

decides, with respect to future workshops

1           to endorse the continuation of the New Initiatives Programme and the holding of additional workshops within the budget levels approved by Council for the 2000-2001 biennium;

2           to apply the following guidelines for the organization of future strategic planning workshops:

A        Objectives

•            The main purpose of the workshops is to advise the Secretary-General, in an informal manner on new topics of a regulatory, policy or other nature of high-current interest which cut across the work of the Sectors, with a view to possible inclusion of these topics in the regular work programme of the Union, and for reporting to the Council.

B        Selection of topics, participants and locations

•            The topics should be selected by the Secretary-General for their high-current interest to Member States and Sector Members.

•            The Secretary-General shall select, and issue invitations to, relevant experts, after consultation with Directors of the Bureaux and taking into account proposals from the membership.

•            In order to stimulate discussion, the target number of experts should be limited, while respecting the need for geographical balance among the Member States of the Union.

•            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.

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