The third meeting of the ITU Council working group (WG) on Human and Financial Resources was held last 24-25 February in Geneva, chaired by Bruce Gracie of Canada. The main goal was to prepare the Union’s 2016-2019 financial plan, which indicates the intention to keep the contribution unit at 318,000 Swiss francs.
On this agenda point the members expressed concern about the 60 million Swiss franc deficit set out in the financial plan and augmented requests to prioritise activities and find new ways to increase revenue and lower spending.
It was also noted that spending on long term financial commitments (pension fund, health insurance, etc) will keep rising in the next ten years, whereby it has become urgent to determine ways to limit those costs. The members acknowledged the need for the measure and were also apprehensive about plans to rebuild an ITU building which is now obsolete.
The WG also discussed the policy for accessing ITU documents, noting that it is one of the most closed organisations in the United Nations system. The members expressed a desire to have that ITU policy changed to allow more openness regarding access to the Union’s documents and publications. Some participants nevertheless called attention to the fact that the financial plan being prepared for 2016-2019 envisages revenue amounting to 68,000 Swiss francs from the sale of publications.
The WG also agreed on the need to revise the Union’s membership system. The aim is to find new ways to attract organisations to the Union’s work and also to revise the exemptions system. Regarding the latter point, the secretariat suggested more regular review of compliance with the reciprocity commitment, as well as the determination of tighter criteria for granting exemptions. This matter will be taken to the 2014 session of the ITU Council (Geneva, 6-15 May) for review and to the Plenipotentiary Conference (Busan, 20 October to 7 November 2014) for approval.
This WG will next meet in 2015.
