Capacity building: A gateway for development

Event report

[Read more session reports and live updates from the WSIS Forum 2016.]

Ms Nadine Chorão (Executive Secretary of Arctel) began by speaking about the importance of cooperation between Portuguese-speaking countries and the importance of creating associations between them. Arctel is an ITU Center of Excellence in training for all sectors to enhance knowledge, combining theoretical and practical lessons.                        

Mr Cosmos Zavazav (Chief of Department, Project Support and Knowledge Management, ITU/BDT) emphasised the need to implement activities together with different centres. He underlined the relevance of the WSIS framework, stating that WSIS is about building a knowledge society related to ICTs. Consequently projects like Smart Ports, E-commerce, and the Sustainable village are considered a priority.

Ms Susana Almeida Lopes (Organizational Development Director of Vieira de Almeida e Associados and Member of the Board of VdAcademia) showcased one of the capacity building programmes available in this training centre. She shared some insights regarding the statistics of the regulatory management programme they developed and highlighted the importance of a multistakeholder approach that combines multiple areas of knowledge. Finally she stated the benefits of this type of programme, such as increasing networking, providing knowledge, ensuring informed policymakers, and connecting stakeholders.

Ms Margarida Couto (Partner at Vieira de Alemida & Associados, at the TMT area of practice – Telecoms, Media & Technology and President of VdAcademia) talked about the importance of regulation and of capacity building in all relevant areas of regulation. Telecom is a regulated sector and it is important to understand these regulations in order to be successful in strategy and risk management.  Couto also highlighted that operators and regulators need to learn the rules. Usually they are in opposite positions and take different views so there is a need to understand how to balance the relationship between them.

Mr Williams Cunha (Brand Manager Training Consultant at First Approach Consulting) takes a technical approach when spotting the challenges, developments, and markets. He highlighted that this analysis should be driven under the line of innovation and involve the customer to develop the industry.

Mr Ahmed Abdalla Abdelraheem (Sudatel Telecommunication Academy) posed a question to the panel, asking which strategies the ITU has to help communication between its various Centers of Excellence.

Zavazav answered by saying that the ITU is helping them become global by making a common platform available where the centres can share ideas.

by Adela Goberna