BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, SEPTEMBER 10TH 2014 (CUOPM) – St. Kitts and Nevis’ Minister of Information Technology and Telecommunications, the Hon. Glenn Phillip is getting ready to host a high-level group of Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) members in St. Kitts.
During the September 22 to 26 period, dubbed ICT Week, St. Kitts and Nevis and the CTU will host 17th General Conference of Ministers with responsibility for ICT in the CTU member states and the 29th Meeting of the CTU’s Executive Council, a body made up of permanent secretaries from ministries in the region that deal with technology. The Council has oversight responsibility for the work of the CTU Secretariat.
A main talking point at the meetings will be the challenge of regulating over-the-top (OTT) Internet-based services. In one important forum, a discussion on OTT services will bring Minister Phillip and his colleagues from different Caribbean nations up-to-date on the issues surrounding this type of service.
The need for stronger, more coordinated regional Internet governance practices was first highlighted in July after mobile phone users in Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago were affected by a move by two major Caribbean mobile providers to block access to OTT telephony services -- including several popular Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications.
The week will also include a two-day workshop on cyber security, which will focus on how Caribbean countries can create computer security incident response teams (CSIRT) to respond to the threat of digital breaches. The workshop is being facilitated by the Organisation of American States (OAS), with the financial support of the Government of Canada.
Another workshop will target senior public officers with responsibility for national information and communications technology (ICT) policy. Participants will learn how to find and deal with gaps in their policy frameworks or in some cases how to go about developing such policies.
The training will be led by two experts from Ernst and Young Caribbean, based in Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Arnold Niranjan and Devindra Ramnarine.
At this year’s meeting, Bernadette Lewis, secretary general of the CTU, will present to the meeting her report on the CTU's performance and its progress on ongoing projects. Lewis has the tough but necessary task of steering the CTU’s efforts in creating a harmonised approach to Caribbean telecommunications development, a major issue facing the region’s technology and telecommunications sectors.
In her presentation, she will update members on how the work of the CTU has advanced since the previous council meeting, held in Suriname on April 8 to 9.
The CTU’s efforts in Caribbean Internet governance have been longstanding. Established in 1989 by Caribbean Community (CARICOM) heads of government in Nassau, the CTU in 2005, under Lewis, initiated the Caribbean Internet Governance Forum (CIGF), the world’s first regional multi-stakeholder Internet governance forum, established as a result of the World Summit of the Information Society (Geneva 2003 to Tunis 2005). Regional forums of this kind now take place in all other parts of the world.
The ICT Week comes on the heels of a symbolic return to The Bahamas, where delegates participated in the tenth CIGF from August 6 to 8.
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