Source: ITU

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in cooperation with the Ministry of Youth and ICT of Rwanda, will hold the Regional Preparatory Meeting for the African region (RPM-AFR) for the World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-17), on December 6 to 8, preceded by the Regional Development Forum for Africa (RDF-AFR) on December 5 in Kigali, Rwanda.

The Regional Preparatory Meeting aims at engaging the membership in the preparations of the WTDC-17 in order to achieve regional coordination before the conference itself. It also seeks to identify issues at the regional level that need to be addressed to foster the development of telecommunications and ICTs, taking into account the most pressing needs faced by the Member States and Sector Members of the region.

Regional Development Forums provide an opportunity for high-level dialogue, cooperation and partnerships among telecommunication and ICT policy-makers, regulators, industry, academia, regional and international development agencies and organizations on specific regional telecommunication and ICT issues.

Outcomes of RPMs will be consolidated at the inter-regional coordination meeting and discussed at the Telecommunication Development Advisory Group (TDAG) 2017  scheduled to be held in May. The outcomes of TDAG will be submitted to WTDC-17 as draft documents for consideration.

Based in Geneva, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is the leading United Nations agency for information and communication technologies with 191 member states and more than 700 sector members and associates. ITU role is to enable the global growth and sustained development of ICT. In addition, ITU organizes international telecom events like WSIS and Telecom Africa.