INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION
Council Working Group for the Elaboration of the
Draft Strategic Plan and the Draft Financial Plan,
2008-2011
Document: WG-SP-FP/11
31 January 2006
English
Geneva, 30 – 31 January, 2006
Chairman of the Working Group
REPORT OF THE SECOND MEETING OF THE COUNCIL WORKING GROUP FOR
THE ELABORATION OF THE DRAFT STRATEGIC PLAN 2008-2011
Background
In line with the ITU Constitution (No. 62A), the 2005 session of the ITU Council initiated the process
for the preparation of a new draft strategic plan for 2008-2011. To this effect, it adopted Decision 527,
which foresees the establishment of a working group on the elaboration of the draft strategic and
financial plans.
This working group held its first meeting on 27-28 October 2005, and its second meeting on 30-31
January 2006. The present document covers the second meeting, and in particular the outcome of the
first day and a half of discussions on the strategic plan, which was open to all ITU Member States and
Sector Members. The discussion of the draft financial plan of the Union, open to ITU Member States
only, is reflected in a separate document (WP-SP-FP-06/XX).
Outcome of the Meeting
In her opening remarks, the Chairman outlined the objective of the meeting, which was to produce a
draft strategic plan to be posted on the ITU website on 1st February 2006 as stated in Decision 527.
This document is open for comments from the membership until 24 February 2006. All inputs and
comments will be consolidated in the final report to be sent to Council.
The Chairman indicated that the World Telecommunication Development Conference in Doha (7-15
March 2006) would update the portion of the draft strategic plan related to ITU-D and that the results
of this exercise would be sent directly to Council. She emphasized that the elaboration of the strategic
plan was an on-going process and that the final decision on the Strategic Plan would be made by the
Plenipotentiary Conference.
The working group then turned its attention to contributions from Member States and to a working
document of the Chairman (WG-SP-FP-06/06). A contribution from France (WG-SP-FP-06/07),
focusing on the ITU-R portion of the draft strategic plan, was introduced by Canada, in the absence of
France and in the delegate’s capacity as Chairman of the Radiocommunication Advisory Group
(RAG). A second contribution (WG-SP-FP-06/05), amending Parts I and II (ITU-D) of the Strategic
Plan in force (Resolution 71), was presented by Syria, on behalf of 12 Arab States.
The Chairman then introduced the Chairman’s working document, which had been drafted in order to
help facilitate the discussions. This document was a preliminary draft of the strategic plan. It included
as far as possible the proposals from the Arab contribution, and in particular in Part I. Part I tried to
reflect in a concise way the evolution of the telecommunication environment and its implications for
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the ITU. Parts II and III incorporated the inputs from the three Sector Advisory Groups (TSAG,
TDAG, RAG) and from the Secretariat, as requested at the first meeting of the Working Group. Part
IV an entirely new section in this draft strategic plan, was an attempt to illustrate the linkages between
the objectives of the Sectors and the Secretariat, with the overall goals of the Union.
At the meeting, there was a call by membership for further explanations on the new concepts
appearing in the draft strategic plan, such as “goals”, “objectives” and “outputs”. It was therefore
decided to complement the draft strategic plan to be circulated to the membership from 1st February
with definitions of these concepts, either as an annex or in a separate document, as soon as possible.
All opportunities should also be used in the future to foster a better understanding of these concepts,
and more generally, of the linkages between the strategic, financial and operational planning. In this
context, the organization of an informal session during Council was mentioned as one possibility to
explore.
It was also noted that the definition of measurement indicators, i.e. key performance indicators (KPIs),
should be further elaborated, as a joint effort of the Secretariat of the ITU, the Sectors and the
membership.
The discussions at the meeting resulted in a working draft of the ITU Strategic Plan 2008-2011 (Doc
WG-SP-FP-06/10). This document, posted on the ITU Strategic Plan website at www.itu.int/stratplan/
is open for comments from the membership until 24 February 2006. All input and comments will be
consolidated in the final report to Council.
It should be noted that due to the numerous changes introduced at the meeting, both to the format and
content of the present Strategic Plan 2004-2007 (outlined in brief above), the working draft of the new
Strategic Plan does not refer back to the present Strategic Plan 2004-2007. For this reason, no revision
marks are visible. Moreover, specific square brackets appear in the document where no agreement
could be reached at the meeting.
Next steps
No meeting of the working group is planned before Council. The report to Council will be finalized in
early March and posted on the website. An additional meeting might be necessary during Council to
consolidate the input from WTDC-06.
M.-O. Beau
Chairman
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