 We are here at the World Telecommunication Development Conference 2014 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and I am very pleased to be joined by Dr Bashir Gwando who is the chairman of the Commonwealth ITU group, the CIG. Dr Bashir, thank you very much for being with us today. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning to you. Good morning. I would like to start off by talking about the fact that you have been chairman for the 54 member Commonwealth ITU group, the CIG, since 2012. What are the key areas of focus and objectives of the CIG? CIG being the coordinating group for the Commonwealth when it comes to matters of ITU was set off in 2002 by the member states at the planned potential conference in 2002. Why did it come up is because the Commonwealth was not really coordinated at that time and we thought with 54 member countries to hand it is possible to coordinate, not only to coordinate when it comes to matters that affect us and also matters that, I mean basically affect us as Commonwealth and also how we can get the best benefit out for the Commonwealth countries that are not particularly able to attend some of the meetings. So we were, at that time, the idea was to have coordinated approach to filling candidates for potential conferences and then we went further to say let's continue to have common objectives for each of the world teleconferences such as WTSA, WTDC, WRC and others of them. And ever since we have had, so far we have had about three chairmen, Malcolm Jensen was one Bruce Gracie and I took over from Bruce Gracie. Now ever since then we have, what we have been doing is to set up objectives for the Commonwealth countries to achieve during conferences and we have been able to achieve a lot of things, I mean over the last decade. So for the Commonwealth it has been, it has a kind of unique kind of potential in that Commonwealth countries are distributed across four continents and we are in four different regional groups such as Africa, Africa Telecommunion, SeaTel, we are also in CEPT and we are also in APT. So each of those, we can sit down, take decisions and then take those decisions into those groups and permeate them and promote the interests of the Commonwealth. Briefly, how can CIG assist ITU member states to facilitate ITU's work at world conferences like this one and can you give me an example of how the CIGs support the telecom industry? Fantastic question. One, the question of how can CIG help to facilitate ITU's work for the member states. Like I said earlier, we are in four different continents and in each of those we are in, we are in the, I feel like, regional organizations. So we look at our own position and what we want to promote to support a member of the Commonwealth country or members of the Commonwealth countries. When we agree, then we go back into why we have membership in those groupings and then we promote those ideas. So when we do that, then what it does do, it harmonizes easily different groups. So it helps the work of ITU to progress. I can remember at the last conference, WRC, we took a decision at the Commonwealth for a location of 700 mega-spectrum, which was able to deliver and that of course started from us at the Commonwealth. Now we also were able to achieve something similar at the WTSA where we had Ghana, for example, we came up with the decision to one, support universities to come to be supported by the ITU, two, to promote issues of conformance, three, bridging the standardization gap. All these projects that are now key projects for discussion at the ITU actually emanate from the Commonwealth in the meeting that we initiated in Ghana, we proposed them and they have now become reality because as the Commonwealth members they were able to format all the different regional groups and promote some ideas. So we can help the coordination between different regional groups and we can also now help industry. For example, 700 mega allocation actually will help, if you like, help the telecom industry today. Second also, from the Commonwealth ITU group, we also discussed issues of new spectrum allocation on the agenda, I mean 8.2, which turned out to be 1.1 and the 700 mega has now turned out to be 1.2. All those emanated from the Commonwealth, and of course the Commonwealth is a very important, the Commonwealth ITU group, I mean, is very important and even our partner organization, the C2, the Chief Executive of the C2 at one time was one lecturer of the British Parliament and he mentioned CIG as the important component for international coordination. So we have been able to deliver to the benefits of our member states and indeed the telecom industry. Can you briefly describe the status of broadband development across the Commonwealth? Well, Commonwealth is composed of member states that are in the first world as well as up to the level of the third world. So it varies. If you're talking about members of the Commonwealth such as Canada, United Kingdom and Australia, of course in the first world, broadband development is basically where the standards are set literally. Now there are also countries down in the line that are actually struggling in terms of getting broadband access, such as island countries of the Caribbean, we have also countries in Africa that are well behind in the deployment of Commonwealth. So we have a lot to do as a Commonwealth member to be able to bridge that gap. But obviously you can find all mix in the Commonwealth from right to the bottom up to the top. There's a great focus here on sustainable development. What do you think should be the next focus for regulators? First what do I want members to achieve? What I think we should be focusing on is, I mean, one broadband. When we're talking about broadband, we look at the broadband access infrastructure services and applications. We look at when we're talking about infrastructure, we're talking about, for example, satellite or fiber from the sea to the main cities to the base stations and to switches. And then even more important is the last mile. You need to have the ubiquity to be able to have access to where you are and therefore you need spectrum. That's why at the Commonwealth ITU group meeting we propose spectrum allocation to the industries. That's why we are discussing the support 1.1, you know, item. And in those, we are looking at how we can promote broadband services. That is one. Second issue of disability, we need to support our disabled colleagues or, I mean, disability. We need to build high cities to support disability. All of us would be, if you're not disabled now, when you get old, you need that support. So it is important to have strategies to promote, I mean, I mean, high cities that will, if you like, harness the potentials of the disabled people. Then we also need to look at issues of sustainable development in terms of climate change, which actually emulates from Commonwealth ITU group meetings. It's important to support that. We need to bridge gaps. We need to support developing countries such as the islands I mentioned to you. We have many islands of the Caribbean that are not even able to come into the meetings here. We need to continue to bring up plans and programs that will support them to have, if you like, to be more competitive by providing them with ways and means to get broadband connectivity. That is from the regulatory frameworks up to the development of infrastructure. So these are some of the things I want to see coming out of this meeting. And I think, I mean, we are on the course of that, and we'll continue to promote that activity. Dr. Bashay Gwendo, thank you very much in deeping with us today. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate it. And thank you for watching.