Summary

  • RCC member states propose adding regional standardization competence centres to ITU Resolution 123, with training, research support and assistance developing contributions.
  • The adopted 2022 resolution already backs regional participation and training. The proposed centre would put contribution drafting into a named regional support function.

A delegate can get a fellowship, attend a workshop and still arrive at a standards meeting without a draft to put on the table. The RCC’s proposed revision to ITU Resolution 123 goes after that last, awkward step: it asks the Union’s leadership to foster regional competence centres that would help prepare contributions, alongside training and research support.

The ITU register lists the Russian-language amendment as addendum 6 to contribution 94, posted on 23 October. In the tracked text, a new instruction 13 would tell the Secretary-General and the directors of all three Bureaux to facilitate centres for standardization. The wording names three services: training, support for research and assistance in developing contributions. A contribution is where a participant’s technical need can enter a study group’s work before a recommendation is settled.

This is an extension of an existing project, not the invention of regional participation. The 2022 Resolution 123 already describes shortages of skilled standards staff in developing countries, low participation in standards work and the cost of attending long meetings. It asks for regional study-group activity, training through ITU and academic channels, fellowships that prioritize people who submit contributions, and national standardization secretariats. It does not give a regional competence centre an explicit mandate to help someone develop the paper itself.

The proposed preamble gives the pen a sharper political meaning. It warns that weak participation in emerging-technology standards can deepen technological dependence and constrain digital sovereignty. It names AI-based network management, IMT-2020 and IMT-2030, the Internet of Things, big data and quantum technologies in telecom networks. Those examples make the contribution gap harder to dismiss as a travel problem: the work being specified now can shape the choices available later.

Doha will decide whether instruction 13 belongs in the resolution. If it survives, the useful measure will be less glamorous than a ribbon-cutting: can a participant point to research support, a draft contribution and a path into the relevant study group? A new room for meetings would be easy. A workshop that helps write the agenda would be the consequential part.

Official sources