XXIX MEETING OF THE PERMANENT EXECUTIVE
COMMITTEE OF CITEL (COM/CITEL)
December 2 and 3, 2014
Bavaro, Dominican Republic
OEA/Ser.L/XVII.5
COM/CITEL/doc.1647/14
10 December 2014
Original: Spanish

Vicepresidente:
Amparo Arango (Dominican Republic)
H
Executive Secretary de la CITEL: Clovis Baptista (OEA)
Comisión para la redacción del Informe Final:
Lydia Rodríguez (Dominican Republic)
Rafael A. Sánchez (Dominican Republic)
Jonathan V. Siverling (United States of America)
Estados Miembros del COM/CITEL:
Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Estados Unidos, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru,
Uruguay
Estados Miembros de la OEA:
Bahamas, Haití, Trinidad and Tobago
Organizaciones Internacionales:
Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo
Banco Mundial.
Unión Internacional de Telecomunicaciones (UIT)
Miembros asociados
Internet Society
LACNIC
Tahoe Consulting, LLC

- 2 -
SECOND PLENARY SESSION
The session opened at 4:40 p.m., with a videoconference with the OAS Legal Advisor, Mr.
Rubén Farje, for clarification of matters that had arisen in the Ad hoc group to develop a list of attributes to be used in the process of selecting the Executive Secretary of CITEL.
The representative of the Chair of COM/CITEL, Ms. Amparo Arango, handed the leadership of the virtual conference to the Chair of the above-mentioned ad hoc group, Mr. Héctor Valdez.
The questions of the ad hoc group and Mr. Farje’s replies are indicated below.
Questions regarding the contract:

What type of contract does the current Executive Secretary of CITEL have and what are its characteristics (length, benefits, and possibility of extension)?
The current Executive Secretary has a Series A fixed-term contract. In 2012, by OAS
General Assembly resolution AG/RES. 2755 (XLII-O/12), it was resolved to reduce the trust positions from 8% to 4% of the posts funded by the Regular Fund. In consequence, the situation changed for different staff members not in advisory and trust position categories. Some of these positions were the Executive Secretaries of
CITEL, CICAD, and CICTE and staff members of other entities. However, the remuneration benefits that the Executive Secretary of CITEL was receiving did not change since he began to receive a supplementary payment to bring him up to his initial salary level.
On June 30, 2015, Mr. Baptista must retire because he will have reached the statutory mandatory age. On that date, the new OAS Secretary General will have been appointed, but it is not certain whether he will have assumed office. At that time, Ambassador Ramdin would be in charge, whose contract expires the second week of July 2015.
A possible extension is a political decision to be made by the next OAS Secretary
General, or, in the interim, the Acting Secretary General. The practice is that the most senior staff member remains in charge until the new Executive Secretary of
CITEL is appointed. It is not the purview of the current OAS Secretary General to decide this matter since his functions will cease on May 25, 2015.

What type of contract would the new Executive Secretary have? Series A or Series
B?
It will be a Series B Contract, in accordance with Article 22 of the General
Standards, i.e., a contract on the salary scale for staff members with dependents.
Article 20 of the General Standards indicates that Series B contracts are for up to four years, and may be renewed or extended.

- 3 -

Do procedures exist for drawing up a list of nominees for a position similar to that of the Executive Secretary of CITEL (taking into consideration that the contract of the current Executive Secretary of CITEL is fixed-term)?
The procedure most similar to that of CITEL is that of the Inter-American Institution of Children (IIN), which also submits a short list of three to the Secretary General for the election of the Director General of that Organization.
Questions regarding candidacies for Executive Secretary of CITEL:

May a candidacy be proposed by an individual or must candidacies be supported by each Member State?
The candidacy must be presented by the country. The General Standards were modified in
2012 and again modified at the special session of the OAS General Assembly in October
2014. Article 22 of the General Standards indicates:
“Article 22. Executive Secretaries and Directors of the Inter-American Juridical Committee, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Specialized Agencies, and Entities” a.
Secretaries, executive secretaries, and directors, as the case may be, of the
Inter-American Juridical Committee (CJI), the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR), the specialized organizations and other entities established pursuant to the last paragraph of Article 53 of the Charter will be recruited in accordance with their respective statutes. They will be contracted under Series B Contracts; however, any staff member who already has a continuing contract or is a member of the Career Service when appointed to one of these positions will retain his/her continuing contract or Career Service appointment, as the case may be. b. The periods of employment of the secretaries, executive secretaries and directors mentioned in the preceding subparagraph will not be taken into account in establishing eligibility for a continuing contract. c. Until the General Assembly approves any necessary modifications to the corresponding Statutes of the organs and entities referenced in this Article, for any organs or entities whose statutes do not provide for competitive selection of the corresponding
Secretary, Executive Secretary, or Director, as the case may be, those officials will be appointed by the Secretary General in consultation with the organ or entity concerned, and following a competition in accordance with Article 44 of the General Standards.”
In the case of CITEL, selection is not made through the Selection Committee of the General
Secretariat (Article 44 of the General Standards), but rather the short list of three goes directly to the Secretary General’s office, since a selection procedures exists in the instruments of the organization adopted by the OAS General Assembly.
The exclusion from the competition requirement is contained in Article 44 of the General
Standards, which indicates:

- 4 -
“j.
Exclusions from the Competition Requirement: The Competition requirement under this Article shall not apply to :
(…)
(ii) Positions identified in Article 22 of these General Standards that are exempted from the competition requirement;”
(…)”

Is the General Secretariat under any obligation to announce to the OAS staff members the opening of a vacancy, or even to make a public announcement?
The General Secretariat of the OAS is not under an obligation to announce the vacancy since the organization has a competitive process. The General Secretariat may provide support by disseminating the vacancy through the web page of the OAS.
Questions regarding voting:

Under Article 20 of the Statute of CITEL, on voting in COM/CITEL, is voting to select the short list of three to be proposed to the OAS Secretary General a question of procedure?
In the case of the IIN, the procedure has worked very well in selecting a short list of three.

What form of voting does the advisor suggest (secret ballot or open)?
The delegation of Colombia clarified that Article 20 of the Statute of CITEL contained a procedure for voting in COM/CITEL. The Statute also indicated that COM/CITEL will submit the short list to the Secretary General, so that it wished to know whether Article 20 had to be used if consensus was not reached regarding the election of the short list.
Mr. Farje indicated that in the procedure being used to select the Executive Secretary, it had been indicated that five votes would be required for inclusion on the short list. Quorum exists for COM/CITEL when seven members are present, and majority is four votes, so that he considered that a high qualified majority could be obtained.
The delegation of Canada requested clarification of the end date of the current Executive
Secretary’s contract. June 30, 2015 would be the retirement date, since that is the date on which he would reach 65 year of age. However, in the OAS register of staff members, the contract end date appears as December 31, 2014. Mr. Farje explained that that document had not been updated and that the Executive Secretary’s contract had been extended until June 30, 2015.
Lastly, Mr. Farje indicated that the Executive Secretary position is a post at the P-5 level and the requirements of the organization’s recruitment matrix for this level in the OAS and United
Nations classification systems had to be met.

- 5 -
5. Reports of the Working Groups of COM/CITEL
5.1 Coordination Center for the Development of Human Resources
The delegate of Uruguay presented the outcomes of the work of the Coordination Center for the Development of Human Resources. First, he presented document COM/CITEL/doc.1644/14,
DRAFT RESOLUTION COM/CITEL RES. XXXX (XXIX-14), “APPROVAL OF THE
UNIVERSIDAD BLAS PASCAL AS A CITEL REGIONAL TRAINING CENTER,” which was adopted without amendment.
Subsequently, Annex 7 to document COM/CITEL/doc.1630/14 rev.1, DRAFT
RESOLUTION COM/CITEL RES. XXX (XXIX-14),
“CITEL
PROGRAM OF
TELECOMMUNICATION COURSES FOR 2015,” was presented. Annex 7 is available in Spanish and English. It was adopted without amendment.
The delegation of la Dominican Republic read out the following text:
“We will refer to the existing process for awarding OAS-CITEL scholarships in the telecommunications/ICT area to applicants for them, since, in analyzing the report of the
Coordination Center on human resources development, we note that in 2014 only 50% of the
Member States of CITEL benefited, and that most scholarships were awarded to three countries of the region.
We consider that this situation has arisen because, among other reasons, the existing procedure is very demanding in terms of the requirements that applicants must meet.
In that regard, we propose, for your consideration, that it be placed on the record of this meeting that the Secretariat should request the OAS possibly to study a new mechanism for awarding
OAS-CITEL scholarships that would facilitate greater participation by our technical personnel in telecommunications/ICT training programs.”
5.2 Working Group on the Strategic Plan of CITEL
The delegation of Argentina, in its capacity as Chair of the Working Group on the Strategic
Plan of CITEL, at this meeting reported that the following documents had been considered:
COM/CITEL/doc.1603/14, COM/CITEL/doc.1614/14, COM/CITEL/doc.1617/14 rev.1, and
COM/CITEL/doc.1634/14. The work plan contained in document COM/CITEL/doc.1617/14 rev.1,
“REPORT ON THE STRATEGIC PLAN OF CITEL FOR 2014-2018,” was submitted to the meeting for adoption and was adopted by the plenary without amendment.
5.3 Working Group to Prepare for the Meetings of the Council of the ITU
The delegation of Argentina, in its capacity as Chair of the Working Group, reported that the following documents had been considered: COM/CITEL/doc.1610/14, COM/CITEL/doc.1613/14 rev.2, and COM/CITEL/doc.1635/14. The following document was submitted to the meeting for adoption: COM/CITEL/doc.1613/14 rev.2, DRAFT RESOLUTION COM/CITEL/RES. XXX

- 6 -
(XXIX-14), “WORKING GROUP TO PREPARE FOR THE MEETINGS OF THE ITU
COUNCIL.” It was adopted without amendment.
6. Reports of the Groups established by the Sixth Regular Meeting of the Assembly of
CITEL:
6.1 Working Group to consider reforms to the Statute and Regulation of CITEL to include virtual attendance and increase participation at the meetings of CITEL .
The delegation of Peru, in its capacity as Chair of the Working Group, presented the following documents: COM/CITEL/doc.1625/14 and COM/CITEL/doc.1636/14 (cor.1 in English). It was decided that the WebEx platform would continue to be used and the matters contained in the report submitted by the delegation of Peru would be analyzed. It was also indicated that contacts with the ITU would continue so that it would inform us of its procedures. No comments were offered.

- 7 -
15. Other business
The delegation of Brazil presented document COM/CITEL/doc.1615/14, “DRAFT
REVISION OF RESOLUTION COM/CITEL RES. 226 (XXI-09), ‘GUIDELINES FOR THE
ADOPTION OF INTER-AMERICAN PROPOSALS,’” and it was decided that more time was needed for its analysis. It subsequently presented document COM/CITEL/doc.1650/14, a draft resolution for the “CREATION OF AN AD-HOC FOR DEVELOPMENT OF NEW PROCEDURES
FOR ELABORATION, DISCUSSION, ADOPTION AND PRESENTATION OF INTER-
AMERICAN PROPOSALS.” The delegation of Brazil indicated that the delegation that would preside over the group should be added. It was decided to indicate in resolves 1 that the group would be presided over by the delegation of Brazil and that it would be open to all Member States. The draft resolution was adopted with these modifications.
6.2 Ad hoc group to develop a list of attributes to be used in the process of selecting the Executive Secretary of CITEL.
The delegation of Mexico presented document COM/CITEL/doc.1604/14 rev.4, which included all agreements in this regard.
The delegation of Dominican Republic requested clarification of the length of the contract of the new Executive Secretary of CITEL. The Chair of the Group indicated that it would be up to four years, renewable. The delegation of Argentina requested that this contract duration be established in the corresponding annex of the document.
The delegation of Argentina also reminded the meeting of the remarks of the OAS Legal
Advisor that this was a post at the P-5 level in the United Nations classification system and that the
OAS requirements had to be met.
Bearing in mind the available time periods, the delegations of Dominican Republic and
Canada set December 10 as the new period for forwarding document COM/CITEL/doc.1604/14 rev.5 to the Member States. This fifth revision would be sent to the Executive Secretary of CITEL by the Chair of the Group in the next few minutes.
The delegations of Mexico, Argentina, Canada, United States of America and Colombia made clarifications regarding the contract length and salary of the new Executive Secretary of
CITEL. The clarification was made that the contract length would be up to four years and could be renewed at the discretion of the OAS Secretary General. It was also decided to indicate the P-5 salary range in the model vacancy announcement.
The document was adopted with the above-mentioned observations.
7. Approval of the annual report on the activities of CITEL.
The Executive Secretary presented the annual report on the activities of CITEL contained in document COM/CITEL/doc.1631/14 corr.1. He explained that this report had been prepared using the structure requested by the OAS.

- 8 -
The delegation of United States of America indicated that it did not have specific comments at the time, but asked if a period for issuing comments had been set.
The Executive Secretary of CITEL proposed distributing the report to receive comments from administrations.
The Executive Secretary of CITEL presented document COM/CITEL/doc.1640/14 corr. 1, a draft resolution to forward the annual report on the activities of CITEL to the OAS General
Assembly. In submitting the document, he proposed that it be distributed together with the annual report for the consideration of the administrations.
These proposals were adopted by the plenary and it was decided to request comments by
January 31, 2015. It was also decided to distribute last year’s annual report, which had been adopted by the OAS General Assembly.
9. Adoption of the Operations Plan for 2015 (activities, budget, and schedule of meetings for 2015).
The delegation of United States of America presented document COM/CITEL/doc.1645/14 rev.1, a draft resolution containing the Operations Plan for 2015.
The Executive Secretary referred to the document, specifically to the form of resource distribution and the schedule of meetings for 2015. He noted that an amount had been included for scholarships and an amount for participation by a Secretariat staff member in WRC-15.
The delegation of Canada point out that the numbers regarding staff salaries in the Spanish and English versions were inconsistent. The Executive Secretary indicated that the Spanish version contained the correct number.
The delegation of Argentina made the clarification that the next meeting of COMCITEL, in
March, would be a regular meeting, and would be the XXX.
The delegation of Colombia noted that the Seminar on IMT towards 2020 would be held as planned during the next meeting of PCC.II.
Document COM/CITEL/doc.1645/14 rev.1 was adopted with these observations.
The delegation of United States of America presented document COM/CITEL/doc.1649/14, prepared by the Dominican Republic, creating an Ad Hoc Group to Determine a New Methodology to Set the Value of the Contributory Unit Paid by the Associate Members of CITEL. The resolution was adopted, indicating that the report had to be submitted at the XXXI meeting of COM/CITEL.
14. Date, agenda, and site of the next meeting
The Executive Secretary of CITEL presented document COM/CITEL/doc.1641/14, DRAFT
RESOLUTION “DRAFT AGENDA, SITE AND DATE FOR THE XXX MEETING OF
COM/CITEL.”

- 9 -
The delegations of Argentina and Brazil indicated that a new item 3 should be added to the draft agenda, on the presentation of candidacies for Executive Secretary of CITEL.
The delegation of Dominican Republic indicated that prior to the selection of the short list of three candidates, an electoral committee had to be created, which was provided for in the selection procedures.
The draft resolution was adopted with these observations.
15. Other business
It was reported that the minutes of the first and second plenary session of this meeting of
COM/CITEL would be forwarded shortly to the Secretariat of CITEL.
6.2 Ad hoc group to develop a list of attributes to be used in the process of selecting the Executive Secretary of CITEL.
The Chair of the Group presented document COM/CITEL/doc.1604/14 rev.5, containing a draft resolution on this subject. The delegation of Argentina indicated that considering (a) was using an incorrect version of the CITEL Assembly resolution and that in the resolves section, the sentence should be reversed and indicate that the Executive Secretary was requested to forward the circular containing the criteria indicated in Annex 1.
The meeting adopted the document with these observations.
The delegation of Argentina congratulated the delegation of Mexico for its leadership of the working group that had worked on document COM/CITEL/doc.1604/14 rev.6.
CLOSING SESSION
The delegations of Argentina, Mexico, Canada, United States of America, Colombia, Peru,
El Salvador, Paraguay and Uruguay congratulated the administration of Dominican Republic on its excellent organization of this meeting.
Ms. Amparo Arango thanked all participants, the Executive Secretary, all technical staff, and the interpreters and translators for the work done.
The second plenary session of the XXIX Meeting of COM/CITEL was declared closed.
CITEL04883E04