Africa runs the risk of failing to contribute to global telecommunication standard development if the African Telecommunications Union (ATU) member states meeting in Cairo this week do not manage to formulate proposals in a third and final attempt to do so.

The continent's proposals for global standardisation policy in non-radio aspects of IMT-2020 (5G), the Internet of Things (IoT), and smart sustainable cities need to be prepared ahead of a meeting with other International Telecommunication Union (ITU) regions for the World Telecommunication Standardisation Assembly (WTSA-16) in Tunisia next month.

Abdoulkarim Soumaila, Secretary General of the ATU has made an impassioned plea for African member states to show commitment and reach consensus.

"Africa needs to intensify its preparations on issues of concern to the continent with regard to the WTSA-16 agenda and finalise its proposals for submission to the Assembly for consideration. As you may recall, the second preparatory meeting for WTSA-16 that took place in Maputo, Mozambique in April, 2016, the meeting was not able to finalise the formulation of the proposals to the Assembly in view of limited contributions that were received and therefore the need for the third meeting to prepare adequately and ensure that the proposals to the Assembly are concluded. It is therefore important that these issues and many others are followed through in order for the region to come up with strong African Common Proposals to the Assembly."

Soumaila says this week's meeting will also deliberate on the various candidatures to ITU-T Study Groups and the Telecommunication Standardisation Advisory Group following on the second preparatory meeting in Maputo earlier this year.

The majority of global regions have already concluded their preparatory meetings with Africa being one of two regions meeting for a final time this week.

Houlin Zhao, ITU Secretary-General has emphasised the importance of the need for ITU regions to be fully prepared for WTSA-16. "WTSA-16 taking place later this year in Tunisia will set the path of networks for telecommunications, ICTs and services of the future. The years approaching 2020 are expected to host significant structural transformations to the global economy, and the ICT industry will be central to many of these transformations."

Africa's 3rd preparatory meeting is hosted with the support of National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) of Egypt. African government's support for Africa's contribution to the international standardization effort saw Tunisia agree to become host of the all-important WTSA-16 conference in May 2016.

The global meeting will also review ITU's mechanisms for collaboration with other standards bodies, SMEs and open-source communities, and vertical sectors applying ICTs as enabling technologies.

Noomane Fehri, Minister for Communication Technologies and Digital Economy in Tunisia says the decision to host the WTSA-16 is in recognition of the fundamental importance of international cooperation to the development of the information society

"Tunisia has ambitious plans to position itself as a leader in ICT innovation focusing on e-education and e-governance as well as using technology to create equal opportunities for all. WTSA is an important conference in creating an equitable basis to advance ICT infrastructure worldwide."

The ITU has gone so far as to dedicate a budget to grant full fellowship to one participant per country with a GDP per capita of less than US$2,000 in order to encourage participation in preparatory meetings for WTSA-16.