Geneva hosted last 4 April a meeting between Portugal and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) with the aim of starting application of the co-operation projects envisaged in the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Portuguese government and the ITU on 8 December 2007. This meeting specifically focused on the creation of a Centre for Excellence in Africa for Portuguese-speaking countries, a project the ITU intends to implement in June of this year.
The centre's main goal is to offer training programmes in high priority areas such as regulation and telecommunications policies, new services and technologies, business management, universal service and development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in rural areas.
The ITU gave a presentation on various stages and components of the project, namely the expected budget, drawn up based on the capital currently available for that purpose. Regarding Portugal's contribution, it was indicated that same would be monetary and also oriented for other necessities such as the provision of experts and content production.
As for location, agreement was reached that the centre would not be situated in just one country - the creation of a regional network with various poles was preferred, each one specialising in specific issues.
The discussion also referred to the meeting scheduled for 17-18 April in Maputo with the aim of promoting information sharing between the ITU and the countries benefitting from this project, allowing them to take part in and influence the structure and actions to be carried out in the Centre for Excellence.
Regarding the other projects envisaged in the Memorandum, various possibilities were mentioned vis-à-vis the holding of an ITU event in Portugal. The one that met the most favourable response concerned organisation of the World Telecommunication Policy Forum (WTPF), a meeting of great political significance - the next such forum (March 2009) will focus on Convergence.
The outlines of another envisaged initiative were also covered, the award of an annual prize in the communications and information society area jointly by Portugal and the ITU.
