Baku, October 4, AZERTAC

The next Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is being held in Bucharest, Romania, from September 26 to October 14.

It should be noted that the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, which takes place every four years, elects the secretary general, deputy secretary general of the organization, directors of the bureau, including members of the ITU Radio Regulations Board and the Council, the governing body of ITU.

In these elections, Azerbaijan was nominated to the ITU Council for 2023-2026, and ministry’s representative Sahiba Abdullayeva was nominated to the organization’s Radio Regulations Board.

On 3 October 2022, Azerbaijan was re-elected to the ITU Council receiving the votes of 154 countries. The election of Azerbaijan to the Council for the third consecutive time is a great achievement. It is worth reminding that Azerbaijan was elected to the Council by 119 votes in 2018.

In addition, in the elections to the ITU Radio Regulations Board Azerbaijan’s candidate Sahiba Abdullayeva, with 114 votes, became the representative of the country re-elected to the Radio Regulations Board with the most votes for the Eastern Europe and North Asia regions. Sahiba Abdullayeva, the employee of the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport, who was elected to the Radio Regulations Board, is a qualified engineer in the field of radio communications.

Azerbaijan, being a member of the ITU since 1992, was elected to the Council in 2014 and 2018 and during this period actively participated in its activities.

On September 27, Minister of Digital Development and Transport of the Republic of Azerbaijan Rashad Nabiyev addressed the Plenipotentiary Conference and provided information on the projects implemented in Azerbaijan within the framework of digital transformation.

During the conference, the Azerbaijani delegation carried out advocacy work to establish close ties with representatives of several countries, identify new areas of cooperation, and the contribution that the country would make to the organization if elected.

During the current year, the Azerbaijani delegation regularly participated in meetings of relevant regional organizations (Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communications (RCC), European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT), Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT), Inter-American Telecommunications Commission (CITEL), African Telecommunications Union (ATU) and carried out the country’s electoral campaign.

The Azerbaijani delegation also actively participated in the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA), Council meetings, World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also played an important role in Azerbaijan’s achievement of high results at this conference, along with the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport. Re-election of Azerbaijan to this prestigious international organization and receiving votes of more countries once again shows the further increase of the country’s authority in the international arena, as well as creates a basis for the large-scale work carried out in the field of telecommunications of the republic to be consistent and successful.

Azerbaijan’s direct participation in the governance of the organization as a member of the Council is of particular importance in safeguarding the country’s interests as well as supporting sectoral activities. The representation of the country in both ITU bodies is also of particular importance to prevent illegal TV & radio broadcasting and use of frequencies in the liberated territories of Azerbaijan and to keep this topic on the ITU agenda on a regular basis.