Accra will from Sunday host the first African Preparatory Meeting for the 2028 World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-28), bringing together delegates from across the continent to begin shaping a unified African position on global digital standards.
The week-long meeting, organised by the National Communications Authority (NCA) and the African Telecommunications Union (ATU), runs from April 13 to 17, 2026, at the Palms Airport City Hotel in Accra. It operates under the theme “Strengthening Africa’s Common Position for WTSA-28.”
The WTSA is the principal gathering of the International Telecommunication Union’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T), held every four years to elect new sector leadership and define the global technical standards agenda for the cycle ahead. African nations, like other regional blocs, typically coordinate ahead of the assembly to arrive with a common front capable of influencing outcomes.
The ATU described Accra’s selection as deliberate, citing the city’s standing as a digital hub for West Africa and an appropriate backdrop for a meeting with continental significance.
Running alongside the preparatory meeting are two high-level workshops and sessions of two ITU-T regional working groups, specifically the ITU-T Study Group 2 Regional Group for Africa (SG2RG-AFR) and the ITU-T Study Group 3 Regional Group for Africa (SG3RG-AFR), consolidating several parallel workstreams into a single week of engagement.
One workshop will address the regulation of Over-the-Top (OTT) services, with delegates expected to deliberate on economic and regulatory frameworks governing platforms such as messaging and streaming apps, including the ongoing debate over whether technology companies should contribute to the cost of network infrastructure they rely on. A second workshop will focus on establishing a Common Emergency Number (CEN) across Africa, with the goal of harmonising emergency communications so that citizens across the continent can reach life-saving services through a single standardised number.
Priority technical areas on the broader WTSA-28 agenda include artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and the resilience of subsea cable infrastructure. The deliberations in Accra will feed into Africa’s Common Positions (ACPs), the formal input through which the continent seeks to shape global ICT standards in ways that reflect African development needs.
