Summary

  • Asia-Pacific administrations have proposed a new ITU resolution requiring annual Council reports to identify priority activities, preliminary financial and staffing costs, and significant partnerships with their arrangements, opportunities and risks.
  • The draft also asks for a running account of MoUs in force since the 2022 plenipotentiary conference: outcomes, resources spent and next steps. It asks the Council to consider criteria for deciding which commitments are significant.

A memorandum of understanding can fit on a few pages. The staff time it eats rarely does. In addendum 25 to contribution 79, Asia-Pacific Telecommunity administrations put that mismatch on the agenda for the November ITU plenipotentiary conference. The ITU register shows the English original was posted on 24 October.

The proposed resolution asks the Secretary-General and the three Bureau directors to itemise planned priority activities and their preliminary costs in the annual reports to Council. The estimate would cover both money and people, internal and external. For partnerships with significant financial or strategic implications, the report would give the financial and personnel arrangements, opportunities, risks and an analysis of how the activity fits the Union's mandate and strategic plan. The document's own rationale is unusually candid: temporary, unplanned partnerships may draw regular budget and staff away from established work.

There is a second ledger. The draft would require a Council report listing every MoU that entered into force since PP-22, what each achieved, what resources it consumed and what comes next, updated annually. A separate clause would send proposals for new reserves or funds to Council for review, with their purpose and necessity stated. Existing financial rules would still govern voluntary contributions, trust funds and project funding. The Council would continue to oversee significant partnerships and consider a test for what “significant” means.

This is a proposal, with its thresholds still unwritten. The 2022 Final Acts already put the Union's budget in a Council and conference framework. The Asia-Pacific text targets the small commitments that can add up between big votes. A Council report that names the partner but omits the staff hours would leave the most interesting column blank.

Official sources