Kwame Baah-Acheamfuor sets high standard at ITU Plenipotentiary Conference

The Director for International Relations at the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation, Mr. Kwame Baah-Acheamfuor, who doubles as Ghana’s Focal Point at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has been recognised by the Union for his renowned experience and endearing leadership prowess exhibited as the Chairman of the Working Group of Plenary (WGPL) during the on-going ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-22) in Bucharest which is scheduled to end on the 15^th October, 2022.

The Working Group of Plenary (WGPL) was created by the PP- 22 Plenary to recommend appropriate actions in respective of submitted reports and proposals related to public policies, the Internet and other general matters. The Working Group’s mandate is also in consonance with the mandate of other ITU Committees which require amendments to their respective Constitutions, Conventions and General Rules.

Mr. Baah-Acheamfuor led the agreements to perennial controversial issues two days before the end of the conference which in the past usually delayed the closing of the conference by several hours on the penultimate day of the conference.

Under the leadership of Mr. Baah –Acheamfour, the Working Group of the Plenary negotiated eighty-nine (89) proposals from various countries which resulted in the approval of two (2) new Resolutions and update of twenty-one (21) Resolutions. There were no changes to the resolution OTTs and another resolution on ITU’s role with regard to international public policy issues relating to the risk of illicit use of information and communication technologies. The first new resolution agreed upon was on Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and telecommunications/ICTs and the other was the Role of telecommunications/ICTs in mitigating global pandemics.

Apart from being Ghana’s Focal Person to the ITU, he is also a Councillor to the ITU Council. For the first time in Ghana’s relations with the ITU, Ghana was re-elected to the ITU Council for the 2023 to 2026 term with 154 votes, the highest number of votes Ghana has obtained in the ITU Council Elections. In addition, Ghana’s Rev. Ing Edmund Yirenkyi-Fianko was also elected to the ITU Radio Regulations Board.

The Plenipotentiary Conference (PP) is ITU’s highest policy-making body which meets once every four years to set the Union’s general policies, adopt the four-year strategic and financial plans. It is also responsible for electing the senior management team of the organization, the Member States of the Council and the members of the Radio Regulations Board. This year’s conference dubbed PP-22 was held in Bucharest, Romania, from 26th September to 14th October, 2022. The ITU PP-22 Conference hosted nearly 4,000 delegates from 193 countries.