During his Remarks at the Opening Ceremony of the World Telecommunication/Information and Communication Technology Policy Forum (WTPF) 2026, on September 2, 2026, Prime Minister Philip Davis said that the Forum produces Opinions that are not binding; but “they travel”.

“The Plenipotentiary Conference sits in Doha in November,” he said at the event, held at the Atlantis Resort Paradise Island.  “What is agreed in Nassau in September will be argued in Doha in November.  What is settled in Doha will govern the next four years.”

Also bringing remarks at the Opening Ceremony was Minister of Innovation and National Development the Hon. Sebastian Bastian.

Prime Minister Davis added: “Small Island Developing States have never yet arrived at a forum like this with a single position.  We have arrived with grievances, with delegations, with hope; never with a position.

“Let us change that here.”

He then suggested five points to consider.

The first point was Data, so that “the personal data of our citizens is a protected national interest, in our law and in our agreements”.

“That cross border transfer is negotiated, never assumed; that where our data creates value, a share of it returns as local processing, local skills and local revenue,” Prime Minister Davis stated.

The second point was Control, rather than ownership.

“A state does not need to own a cable to govern it,” he said.  “It needs enforceable landing rights, open access obligations, licence conditions with real conditions in them, and a regulator with the standing to hold a global company to its word.”

When Prime Minister Davis raised the third point of Resilience, he noted that it related to Telecommunications treated in law “as critical national infrastructure, with duties of redundancy and restoration written for what actually happens to an island”.

He referred to the Kingdom of Tonga, where, In January 2022, a volcanic eruption cut the single cable serving the nation, with the nearest repair vessel being some 2,900 miles away.

“Tonga waited five weeks,” Prime Minister Davis said.  “That number should shame this industry.”

“Let us seek a minimum redundancy standard and priority access to repair capacity together, through this Union, rather than one small government at a time,” he added.

The fourth point was Space.

“Orbital and spectrum resources are a shared inheritance, not a race that finishes before we have entered it,” Prime Minister Davis said.  “Satellites can close our distances faster than any cable we could finance, and I welcome them.”

“They can also place the connectivity of a sovereign state in the hands of one company that answers to no parliament in this room,” he added.  “Both of those things are true. Our policy has to be strong enough to hold both.”

The fifth point of Capability referred to people, regulators, engineers, teachers, and negotiators, Prime Minister Davis pointed out.

“Let us build one shared technical facility, so that the next time a standard is written, there is a delegate in the room who can read the annex,” he stated.

Prime Minister Davis added: “Five points.  One position.  Nassau to Doha – And if we cannot agree all five this week, then let us at least agree the mechanism: a caucus, with a chair, a secretariat, and a reporting date before November.

“I would rather leave this hall with a working process than a beautiful communique.”

He then said that he wanted to “finish at home”.

“Seven years ago this week, a Category 5 hurricane stopped over Abaco and Grand Bahama and stayed there,” Prime Minister Davis said.  “Sixty-seven people confirmed dead, 287 never found, $3.4 billion dollars in damage and losses – a quarter of everything this country produces in a year.”

He added: “I am not telling you that for sympathy.  Sympathy has never repaired a cable.  I am telling you because of what people needed in the hours after that storm – not a platform, not a device, a signal.  Somebody’s daughter needed to say I am alive.  Somebody’s mother needed to hear it.  In Tonga, for five weeks, an entire nation could not say it.”

Prime Minister Davis noted that that was what that Forum was finally about.

“Underneath the acronyms and the working groups and the draft Opinions, it is about whether a small country can be heard at the moment it most needs to be,” he said.

Earlier in his remarks, he spoke about the lighthouse at Hope Town, the Abacos.  He returned to speaking about it.

“In 1973, when we became independent, the keys passed from the Imperial Lighthouse Service to us,” Prime Minister Davis stated.  “Every other light in these islands was automated, or switched off – not that one.”

He added: “Bahamians kept it.  It is still wound by hand.  It still burns kerosene.  It is the last lighthouse of its kind anywhere on earth, and it is kept alive by a society of volunteers on a small cay in Abaco.  Dorian put it out.  Bahamians lit it again.”

Prime Minister Davis stated that he wanted those taking part in the Forum to understand “what the small islands are saying to you this week”.

“We are not asking to be protected,” he said.  “We are not asking to be prioritised.  We are asking to be present when the terms are set, and we are organising ourselves to make that unavoidable.”

Prime Minister Davis added: “And we are refusing the word inevitable – from this week forward.  We will not be priced by our size.  We will not be governed by our absence.  And we will not accept a discount on our sovereignty.

“The light is on our rock.  This time, we hold the keys.”

The post PM Davis speaks on behalf of Small Island Developing States at the Opening Ceremony of the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF) 2026 appeared first on ZNS BAHAMAS.