Explaining the membership diversification strategy of the CTO, Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, the organisation’s Ghanaian CEO said: 'Many telecom operators and ICT companies have shown interest in the past in having closer collaborative relationships with the CTO, or even in becoming members. They recognize the institution’s effectiveness in offering training, consultancy and technical assistance in various regions of the world, and the respect the organisation has attained in the field, especially in respects of its neutrality, impartiality, effectiveness and rather unique products and services.' The CTO is an inter-governmental treaty organisation, based in London, currently owned by some 35 full member countries which make a financial contribution to its core costs.

According to the CEO, it was the recent changes in the CTO’s Constitution, partly in response to the convergence of communication technologies, that has now opened up 'a new vista of opportunities' for the CTO to cooperate in more creative ways not just with telecommunications companies, but with companies in the broader ICT fields of broadcasting, the Internet and information technology. The CTO, he says, is seeking collaborations with other bilateral and multilateral development finance institutions, commercial and investment banks, academic and research entities and non-governmental organisations. These partnerships are welcome not just in the nations of the Commonwealth but from entities in countries that have made great strides in ICT, such as the USA, Japan, the Nordic region, China, France and the Netherlands.

Says Dr. Spio-Garbrah: 'We were limited in the range of partnerships and relationships we could develop in the past. That is no longer the case. We are now wide open to discussing with ICT operators, manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, financiers, consultants and others many things we can do to help them achieve their international corporate objectives.'

The CTO collaborates actively with other international bodies such as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the World Bank, other UN agencies, as well as with the Commonwealth Secretariat, with which it is legally unrelated. Over the years, it has enjoyed greatly valued support from a number of public and private sector organisations, including British Telecom, IBM, Ericsson, Cable and Wireless, Microsoft, Alcatel, 3M, Unisys, INTELSAT and INMARSAT, and many others. In recent years, The CTO has received major funding for its ICT research and policy development programmes from the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK.

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For further information about the CTO and about membership and partnership opportunities, please contact:

• Tim Eyre, Director, Business Development. Tel: +44 (0)207 976 2430, Fax +44 (0)207 930 0995 or email: t.eyre@cto.int