The Regional Preparatory Meeting for World Telecommunication Development Conference 2017 (WTDC-17) for the CIS countries and Georgia will take place from 9 to 11 November, 2016 in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic.

This event will be preceded by the ITU Regional Development Forum for the CIS and Georgia under the topic “ICT for Sustainable Development” on November 8, 2016. The following questions are going to be considered:

• the review of the implementation of regional initiatives for the CIS and Georgia, adopted by WTDC-14;
• opportunities for the cooperation and resources mobilization in the CIS region and Georgia;
• perspective areas of ICT development programs after 2017 in the context of UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Regional Development Forums provide an opportunity for high-level dialogue, cooperation and partnerships among telecommunication and ICT policy-makers, regulators, industry, academia, regional and international development agencies and organizations on specific regional telecommunication and ICT issues. 

In line with Resolution 31 (rev. Hyderabad, 2010), the Regional Preparatory Meeting (RPM) aims at engaging the membership in the preparations of the WTDC-17 in order to achieve regional coordination before the conference itself. It also seeks to identify issues at the regional level that need to be addressed to foster the development of telecommunications and ICTs. The questions to discuss at RPM will be the following:

• report on the implementation of the Dubai Action Plan (WTDC-14) and contribution to the implementation of the WSIS Plan of Action and the Sustainable Development Goals
• report on the implementation of outcomes of other ITU Conferences, Assemblies and meetings related to ITU Development Sector (ITU-D) work: Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-14), Radiocommunication Assembly (RA-15)/World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15), and World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-16)
• preparations for WTDC-17:
  • preliminary draft ITU-D contribution to the ITU Strategic Plan for 2020-2023
  • preliminary draft ITU-D Action Plan 2018-2021 (including Study Group Questions)
  • preliminary draft WTDC-17 Declaration
  • rules of procedure of ITU-D (WTDC Resolution 1)
  • streamlining WTDC resolutions
• priority setting for Regional Initiatives, related projects and financing mechanisms

In addition, the following regional initiatives of the RCC member countries will be put into further consideration by the RPM:

• “good health and well-being” (based on the contributions of the Communications Administrations (CA) of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Uzbekistan and Ukraine);
• “high quality education and gender equality” (based on the contributions of the CA of Ukraine and the Republic of Uzbekistan);
• “clean water, sanitation and climate change control” (based on the contribution of the CA of the Kyrgyz Republic);
• industrialization, innovation, infrastructure and partnership for Sustainable Development (based on the contribution of the CA of the Russian Federation)
• “sustainable cities and municipalities” (based on the contributions of the CA of Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova).