 Welcome to the World Radio Communication Conference WRC 2023 here in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. I've got the great pleasure of being joined today in the studio by John Omo, who is the Secretary-General of the African Telecommunication Union. John, welcome to the studio. Thank you. Thank you very much for the welcome. Good to see you. Good to see you too. It's been a little while, but we obviously catch up with each other regularly. I just wanted to speak to you with regards to WRC, obviously you're here representing the Africa region. I just wanted to ask you about WRC. Why is WRC particularly important as a conference? Thank you very much for the question. One is essentially that WRC is the perfect opportunity. In fact, the only opportunity worldwide where the world comes and talks about what radio resources should be allocated for what sort of services globally. And then based on that, we membership then commit themselves to the use of those resources, the allocation of those resources, the assignment of those radio resources for services that have been agreed worldwide for those resources. That's one. Secondly, it's important in terms of a pointer to technology companies. Much of this industry is driven by the private sector. And so once the membership commits themselves to the application or the use of radio resources for those services that are agreed, it gives a pointer to communications companies, the private sector, research organizations, universities in terms of the direction in which investment decisions should be made in terms of either research in terms of application of their organizations resources for purposes of ensuring that the resources that are located for whatever services are agreed on are channeled appropriately. Now, Africa is a very large region. It has all sorts of challenges and opportunities. Perhaps you could share with us what you think the principal ones are at this moment. I think the greatest challenge for Africa currently is still the issue of connectivity. Quite a number of our population is still off the communications grid, be it Wi-Fi, be it satellite, be it IMT. And so we come here with the attitude that Africa is still good for business in terms of connectivity. The challenges that other regions do face, of course, are also important. But for us, connectivity is the key challenge. So for as long as we, if we can get at this conference, negotiate and obtain resources that would facilitate connectivity in Africa, then for that long we will have sorted one of the key challenges that we have. Now, it also comes with the nature of the continent in terms of a third of the continent. It's a desert and rural-based population is quite large as compared to other regions of this globe. And so it comes with the connectivity challenge of connecting villages that are far apart, towns that are far apart. And so a mix of various technologies is important to Africa in terms of connecting either at the level of backhaul, the level of fiber or at the level of satellites in reaching these far-flung communities that live in the continent. And are things speeding up there? Are things improving, do you think? Yes, we have seen not just at the level of infrastructure but at the level of applications in Africa that things are really heating up. Africa has the largest number of youthful population worldwide, very agile in terms of their quest for knowledge, their quest for opportunities that can improve that lot. And so we're seeing a lot of interesting applications from young people from our universities in terms of meeting the particular challenges that the continent faces, one of which of course is a well-known MPAS and we are seeing quite a number of opportunities in the radio sector using radio resources for radio-based apps in terms of the challenges that the continent faces. And eHealth as well, I would imagine. EHealth, eEducation, eAgriculture, name it. Fabulous. Now what are some of the key outcomes you think will be of most interest to the Africa region from WRC? One of which I've already mentioned, the fact that not a single technology will unlock the connectivity challenges in Africa. And so we come here with an open mind where we want to see a mix of various technologies, be it IMT, be it satellite, be it fiber, be it services such as Wi-Fi, an interplay of these various technologies to solve the challenge of connectivity in Africa. We do see the need of course that 6G, 5G and then eventually 6G is increasingly becoming relevant and so we need more resources for IMT. And so the opportunity to still squeeze certain of the resources that are available for IMT would be an opportunity that Africa is looking forward to. But that is not to say that other technologies are less important. We do see the need to increasingly protect resources that have been traditionally assigned or allocated to the satellite community so that the rural population that we have in Africa in terms of our education challenges, our health challenges, our agricultural challenges can be met by the satellite, not just from B to C but B, B to B to C. And also increasingly we are seeing satellite technologies innovating so that the B to C part of satellites being able to reach the consumers directly is important to us. The other one is of course the decision that was made in WRC-19 in terms of Resolution 599 where countries in Africa that had lost certain of their satellite resources, especially for broadcasting, were granted a waiver to reclaim these slots and quite a number of African countries, save for two, have had the opportunity to reclaim them. And we still see ourselves working with the international community, with the International Telecommunications Union to assist those of countries that have not claimed these resources to do so for purposes of facilitating satellite broadcasting in Africa. And lastly of course is the fact that we have one country in Africa that was born when the satellite resources had been planned globally and we do see the need to ensure that that country which is South Sudan is given the opportunity to also be catered for in the planning for satellite services. So an outcome that guarantees a mix of technologies between satellite, between Wi-Fi, between IMT, between of course recognising the importance of fibre for connectivity is an outcome that Africa would welcome out of this conference. Finally, as Secretary-General of the African Telecommunications Union, do you have a message for participants here at the WRC as well as our viewers and listeners around the world? Thank you very much. I think radio communication is the lifeblood of communications, radio resources. And so once we, this community globally would have agreed on the need to assign radio resources or allocate radio resources for various services, I think back in our countries, in our companies, we need to ensure that we design our systems, we assign radio spectrum for services only that have been agreed in this community because short of that then you start causing interference. The other one is of course this negotiation process and sometimes everyone comes out unhappy but that is the reason we negotiate, otherwise we would not come here to negotiate. And so I feel that let's give it our best in terms of profiting our positions but also recognise the fact that we've come to negotiate and that is the spirit that we should have, that each of us will come out having gotten out, having gotten something but not everything that they came with from their respective organisations or countries. Fair enough. Well John Irma, thank you for joining me in the studio and look forward to catching up with you again very soon. My pleasure as usual. Thank you very much. Thank you. And if you've enjoyed this interview which I'm sure you will have then please check out our other interviews on our YouTube channel as well as podcasts on SoundCloud, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts from and check out our website at www.itu.int for further information. 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