9th March, 2016 The Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Mr. Houlin Zhao is scheduled to arrive in Tonga on Thursday 10th of March.
He is visiting Tonga on his capacity as the Secretary General of ITU under the Secretary General of the UN. This visit provides a timely opportunity for the Tongan Government to showcase the range of assistances that Tonga has benefitted from being a member of ITU.
The visit also provides the opportune moment for the Government to have an audience with the SG on a national level. Hence, sets the tune to further enhance the cooperation and coordination between Tonga and ITU.
Tonga like many other member nations is a beneficiary of the work that ITU is doing globally. The benefits vary in range but for Tonga this has come in the form of capacity building, donation of Disaster Equipment’s and the enhancement of Tonga’s early warning systems.
Recently ITU contributed IT equipment’s (vsats, laptops, PCs, etc) for the Project Development of Satellite Communications Capacity & Emergency Communications Solutions for Small Island Developing States of the Pacific. For Tonga, the aforementioned equipment’s were directed to be used on the two remote islands of the Niua’s.
Mr. Zhao will also launch the new government portal tomorrow at the MEIDECC Conference Room. The new focus of this site will be based on the services offered by the government to its people, directing the public to information and events of various ministries. There is also a possibility that the new portal will attract foreign investors in order to further developments in Tonga.
The ITU coordinates the shared global use of the radio spectrum, promoting international cooperation in assigning satellite orbits, works to improve telecommunication infrastructure in the developing world, thus providing a seamless global communications system that is robust, reliable and adaptable to the evolving needs of the word regarding Information and Communications.
ITU has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland with the Secretary-General as the highest position that oversees the overall administration. Mr. Houlin Zhao is a decorated veteran in the world of Information and Telecommunication. His accolades unsurprisingly projected him to become SG. He was elected ITU Secretary-General at the 19th Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan, Korea, in October 2014 and formally took up the post on the 1st of January, 2015. He is scheduled to depart Tonga on Friday the 11th of March 2016.
ENDS
Issued from the Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change, Communication