Egypt and the ITU

Egypt’s relationship with the ITU dates back to 1876 when Egypt became a founding member of the Union. Since 1973, Egypt has been carrying out the duties of membership of the ITU Council. Its consecutive election to the Council attests to the International Community’s acknowledgement of its pioneer role in safeguarding Africa’s interests within the Organization, and as a harbinger of development and reform both within the ITU’s framework and on the national level.

Egypt has actively participated in different programs of all three Sectors of the ITU and has worked hard to promote development projects related to the ITU goals, both nationally and regionally. This was heavily substantiated by its current membership in the Telecom Board and Vice-chairmanship of the Telecommunication Development Advisory Board.

Egypt is a founding member of the Partners to Connect the World Initiative. It chaired the council working group on international telecommunications Regulation

 (ITR ) established in 2002. It takes part in all of the regional and international preparatory meetings for the different plenipotentiary conferences. Egypt was chosen to act as coordinator for the Arab region and it moreover hosts the ITU Arab Regional Bureau in Cairo. It has been a popular venue for ITU workshops and regional conference preparatory meetings.

Egypt works closely with ITU 's Radio communications sector and has participated in both regional  Radio communications conference and the World Radio Communications conference. It has been a frequent participant in the world telecommunications Standardization Assemblies and has been an active member of SG-2. As vice-chair of SG-2, It initiated the first regional subgroup within the SG2, a subgroup for the Arab region established in implementation of resolution 54 ( WTSA. 2004 )

It also participated in the regional conference preceding the 2006 world telecommunication development conference held in Doha, Qatar. During the Doha conference, its role was chosen as a vice-chair for the plenary working group. In addition, Egypt currently holds the position of vice-chair of the telecommunication Development Advisory Board. It Egypt successfully hosted ITU telecom Africa in both 1994 and 2004 and participated in telecom world in Geneva in 2003 and Telecom Asia in 2004.