July 8, 2008 -- The findings and recommendations from a Special report recently released by Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) could serve as a clear-cut blueprint to help the Caribbean region promote and strengthen ICT developmental partnerships between public and private sector organisation, as well as the communities they serve.

The report, the Commonwealth African Rural Connectivity Report,  launched last month at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, following nine months of intensive research involving ICT stakeholders in eighteen African countries, reveals, among other things, that advancements in ICT development is achievable through partnerships between development partners, communities, funding agencies, private sector companies, and led by policy-makers and regulators.

At the upcoming 24th annual Telecommunications Conference and Trade Exhibition on connecting the Caribbean in Bahamas, organized by the Caribbean Association of National Telecommunications Organisations (CANTO) and co-hosted by the Bahamas Telecommunications Company, the CEO of CTO, Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, is expected to emphasise the need for stronger Public Private Peoples Partnerships (PPPPs) and reaffirm the CTO's commitment to helping foster those bonds to enhance both social and economic developments on the island states.

Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah will be addressing a high-level delegation of Ministers, Regulators, Operators and Industry Experts to generate dialogue among key stakeholders in ensuring that the "Peoples" element plays a key role in discussions on ICT matters in the Caribbean region.

In a brief statement in London, Dr. Spio-Garbrah noted that, besides the PPPP concept, Caribbean countries have longed to jointly own common telecommunications infrastructure to link all the islands in the region, in a bid to provide more affordable broadband access and also to promote regional and international interactions with the United States and Europe.

However, until now, governments in the region have had difficulty in establishing a home-grown regional broadband infrastructure, and have been at the mercy of privately-owned satellite and fibre-cable companies. He stated that under an initiative  of the NEPAD e-Africa Commission and funded by the World Bank the CTO assisted 22 Eastern and Southern African countries to design a policy and regulatory framework to enable those countries to jointly own one fiber optic cable.

Dr. Spio-Garbrah said through its research, consultancy and advisory services, the CTO is positioned to help enhance such joint infrastructure ownership initiatives by offering the necessary policy and regulatory guidelines to Caribbean countries through partnerships with other stakeholders from the public and private sectors.

The theme of this year's event is "CANTO- Caribbean Unity through Connectivity" and will focus on Connecting the Caribbean (CTC) Initiative of CANTO. CANTO 2008 will bring together experts and policy makers from around the globe to discuss issues impacting telecom operations in the region, among them harmonization of regulatory policies, infrastructure sharing, ICT services, mobile content and IPTV. The CTO also attends as an exhibitor.

About the CTO:
The Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) is a London-based  international development partnership between Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth governments, business and civil society organisations. It provides the international community with effective means to help bridge the digital divide and achieve social and economic development, by delivering to developing countries unique knowledge-sharing programmes in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the increasingly converging areas of telecommunications, IT, broadcasting and the Internet.