The United Arab Emirates, represented by the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA), participated in the 2022 session of the ITU Council, at the ITU headquarters in Geneva.
H.E. Eng. Majed Sultan al-Mesmar, director general of TDRA headed the TDRA’s delegation, while the council’s meeting was chaired by Eng. Saif bin Ghelaita executive director of the technology development affairs department at TDRA. Bin Ghelaita won the presidency of the Council in the elections during the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, held in Dubai in 2018.
The ITU Council acts as the Union’s governing body in the interval between Plenipotentiary Conferences. Its role is to consider broad telecommunication policy issues to ensure that the Union's activities, policies and strategies fully respond to today's dynamic, rapidly changing telecommunications environment.
The significance of this session comes from it being the first to be held in person, after two years of virtual consultative meetings chaired by the UAE. Participants discussed issues related to the functioning of the ITU Council and topics related to the budget, human resources and action teams, where the results of discussions have been incorporated in the reports submitted to the presidency of the Council by the team leaders.
The UAE delegation expressed their wish to be re-nominated for membership in the ITU Council at its forthcoming session in 2023-2026.
In that context, H.E. Eng. Majed Sultan al-Mesmar said, “The UAE has officially joined the ITU in 1972, only a few months after its founding. Such early joining was a realistic translation of the wise leaders’ vision of the importance of the UAE as an active member of key and leading global platforms, at the forefront of which is the ITU, for the UAE to affirm its humanitarian mission and its quest to help the people of the world achieve Sustainable Development Goals. My country has not wavered for once in its noble mission... and to that end has put words into action.”