ITU Council Working Group meetings on preparation for the annual 2008 Session of ITU Council scheduled for November 2008 took place in Geneva (Switzerland) on Sept. 28 – Oct. 2, 2008. In particular, meetings of the Council Working Group on an ITU Study on the participation of its stakeholders in the activities of ITU, Tripartite Group on HRM, and FINREG Group on the financial regulations and related financial management issues were held (Oct. 1-2).

The representatives of 15 countries, including Russia, took part in the session of the Council WG on WSIS on Sept. 29-30, 2008. The general opinion reflected in the adopted documents is that: a) ITU has and must have the status of Inter-Governmental organization in future; b) there are no restrictions on participating in ITU activities for anyone who shares the provisions of basic documents and is ready to pay voluntary membership fee; c) membership of information society representatives in ITU does not provide any specific “added value” for ITU activity; d) expansion of membership in ITU can erode its functions and hinder control by imposing additional financial loading upon ITU member-states that meet their financial obligations.

In pursuance of Council Resolution 1243the FINREG Group examined a number of documents at its meeting on October 1-2, 2008. The documents included:

 status of IPSAS (International Public Sector Accounting Standards) implementation in ITU. The Standards have been adopted by the UN and are to come into force in January 2010;

progress made in working out a system of key performance indicators (KPI) in order to increase co-ordination of strategic and operational plans of ITU and Sectors;

presentation of Russia’s contribution which gives a mechanism for coordination of goals, plans and performance at all levels and for all sectors and ITU as a whole.

In addition, the Group examined the following issues: ITU revenues and expenses, audit of ITU financial activity, access of ITU members to reports and implementation of auditors’ recommendations, improvement of corporate governance process in the ITU General Secretariat and Sector Bureaus, etc.