XIII Regional ITU Symposium on Training and Human Resources for the Americas Region "Change and Retraining: A Challenge for Human Resources in Today’s Organizations”

The XIII Regional ITU Symposium on Training and Human Resources for the Americas Region took place in Santiago, Chile, on October 25-29, 2004. The principal topic discussed at the meeting, which was organized jointly by the ITU/BDT and Chile’s Undersecretariat for Telecommunications, was: “Change and Retraining: A Challenge for Human Resources in Today’s Organizations.”

The specific objectives of the Symposium, which was attended by 41 representatives from 14 Latin American countries, included:

• Giving participants an opportunity to describe the current state of human resource management in their organizations, highlighting achievements over the past three years;

• Introducing participants to the role of departments of human resources in the processes of change taking place in their organizations and the different ways in which those departments have adapted to these processes;

• Getting to know and sharing the experience acquired by participants with distance training methods, such as e-Learning;

• Informing participants of the role played by the ITU’s Centre of Excellence for the Americas Region and of the advantages of the project for their organizations and countries; and

• Getting to know the major and most important training needs of the organizations and countries represented at the Symposium.

The outcomes of the Symposium are of great importance because they induce those responsible for human resource management and development in the region's telecommunication entities to take a stand on how to confront the challenges posed for their organizations by changes in the converging telecommunication and information technology sector. The Symposium also served to show the usefulness of applying information and communication technologies to knowledge management and the quest for organizational excellence. Finally, the Symposium reached findings that deserve to be taken into account as regional priorities with regard to strengthening human capabilities in the run-up to the next World Telecommunication Development Conference of the BDT.

Full information on this Symposium, including its final report, list of participants, agenda, list of documents, conclusions, recommendations, and all presentations given during it on the web page of the human resources division of ITU/BDT at the following address: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/hrd/ .

Mario Maniewicz
Head
Human Resources Development Division
ITU/BDT