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The youngest of ITU's three core Sectors, the Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D) has carved out a reputation as one of the most vocal advocates of technology's power to bring fast, dramatic benefits to the everyday lives of disadvantaged communities around the world.

Time was, ITU's public profile rested almost entirely on its technical mandate - standards development, global spectrum management and the like. That changed dramatically in 2003, when the Union organized and hosted the world's first-ever top-level UN summit on the information society.

The World Summit on the Information Society, a two-phase event held in Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005, not only addressed key issues such as Internet governance, it focused the world's attention on what had been the least well-known of ITU's three core activities - ICT development.

In fact, the Union's Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D) and its executive arm, the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT), have been going from strength to strength since their creation at ITU's Nice Plenipotentiary Conference in 1989. Now employing around 150 staff, including economists, statisticians, engineers and technical project managers, the Geneva-based Bureau and its network of 12 regional Field Offices last year invested some US$ 90 million in more than 100 different development initiatives in countries worldwide.

Projects range from training to hands-on infrastructure build-out and upgrade, emergency warning systems, telemedicine and distance learning projects, and cooperative initiatives to extend access to isolated communities through shared multipurpose telecentre facilities.

Digital Divide

Just over 20 years ago, the ITU-commissioned report entitled The Missing Link was the first study to attempt to provide a coherent global picture of the state of access to information and communications technologies (ICTs) worldwide, and to quantify the impact of access - or lack of it - on economic development.

That report painted a bleak picture. In the developed world, the near-ubiquitous wireline telecommunication networks that had long served as engines of economic growth were assuming a new importance. The advent of networked computing - and more crucially, the emerging internet - was snowballing the advantages of fast, reliable communications networks in the developed world, while developing countries were showing signs of falling even further behind the global growth curve.

When The Missing Link was published in 1984, author Sir Donald Maitland famously noted that at that time there were more telephones in Tokyo's central business district than in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. Since then, thanks largely to the emergence of affordable mobile telephony combined with successful development efforts led by ITU, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UNESCO and a host of national and regional aid agencies, that situation has improved - dramatically, in some cases.

Universal, ubiquitous and affordable access to ICTs is key to social and economic prosperity.

The Doha Declaration, 2006

A recent review of ICT penetration in the world's 50 UN-designated Least Developed Countries (LDCs) showed that teledensity - the number of telephone lines per 100 head of population -has more than doubled in most since the year 2000, with some countries boosting connectivity levels by up to 20 times. Star performers include island states like Cape Verde, the Maldives and Samoa, and the African nations of Gambia, Lesotho and Mauritania.

BDT's Jean-Yves Besnier, Head of Partnership, Promotion and Membership, ascribes a good measure of this improvement to ITU's success in convincing governments of the critical importance of ICTs to economic performance. "We've been pushing this point strongly for many years now, with some good results. But WSIS really focused the world's attention on the problem, and helped build bridges towards solutions by bringing together key stakeholders from across all sectors of the community."

The second phase of the Summit, held in last November in Tunis, translated the development principles set out at the 2003 Geneva summit into a concrete action plan that became the Tunis Commitment and Agenda.

A Development Smorgasbord

On the basis of that blueprint, and of the plan developed at the ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-06) held in Doha last March, BDT is striving to better target its activities across different regions to meet a broad range of diverse needs. "Each country is unique," notes Besnier, "but that doesn't mean we can't replicate our growing number of success stories from one environment to another. We just need to be sure to tailor our approach to match the realities on the ground."

Successful new initiatives managed by BDT include the E-Strategies programme, which focuses on delivering expertise and seed funding in six priority areas: IP network development; e-services (ranging from agriculture to health, e-government, education and e-commerce); multipurpose community telecentres (MCTs); cybersecurity; e-legislation; and community programmes to build ICT awareness.

"We're striving to bring sustainable, affordable improvements to the daily lives of ordinary people," says E-Strategies Unit Chief Alexander Ntoko. "The aim is to empower communities to develop their own ICT capacity and resources according to their unique needs. Our Unit works closely with local project coordinators in Africa, the Arab region, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America to provide technical and policy advice, develop new ICT applications and ICT-friendly legal frameworks, and promote ICT literacy and public education programmes."

Ensuring the direct involvement of local communities in planning and implementing their own development projects has proved crucial. "The new development model is based on the idea of joint effort," says Besnier. "Back in the 80s and 90s, aid agencies and socially-conscious companies tended to impose ICT 'solutions' on communities, often with little real understanding the problems faced. That too often led to absurdities like village schools equipped with the latest Internet-ready computing resources, yet lacking basic literacy skills and reliable electricity."

Besnier says BDT's own focus has been to build solid relationships with local authorities and communities through its network of field offices, strategically located throughout Africa, Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe, with a view to promoting longer-term sustainable initiatives with the support of partners from the public and private sector.

Spreading ICT wealth

New and emerging technologies have a significant impact on the expansion of telecommunications and have the potential to close the gap not only between developing and developed countries, but also between urban, remote and rural areas and between well-served and underserved areas within a country.

The Doha Declaration, 2006

Working out of ITU's Field Office in Bangkok, Dr Eun-Ju Kim, Senior Advisor for Asia and the Pacific, agrees that each region presents its own set of challenges. "In Asia, some countries, like the Republic of Korea, Japan, Hong Kong (China), and Singapore, have reached combined fixed, wireless and mobile ICT penetration rates of over 200%. But the majority of countries in the region, which includes 13 LDCs, are still struggling to achieve access to basic telephony services, with less than 10-20% combined ICT penetration."

Dr Kim and her team are involved in a wide variety of development initiatives designed to bridge the digital divide within the region, including the installation of equipment and MCTs in countries including Bhutan, India, Samoa and the Solomon Islands; the provision of on-the-ground expertise in areas ranging from spectrum management, policy and regulation, and emergency response; the delivery of specialized training and information sharing through seminars and forums on key topics such as broadband, Next-Generation Networks (NGN) and technologies adapted to rural and remote areas; and the fostering of partnerships and resource mobilization through cooperative relationships with regional organizations, UN agencies, and donor countries from both within and outside the region.

The power of knowledge

One area where this emphasis on cooperative efforts is proving particularly fruitful is education, with the announcement of five new Asia-Pacific Centres of Excellence to be set up in Iran (Islamic Rep. Of), Malaysia, Pakistan, the Republic of Korea and Thailand, in partnership with local universities and educational authorities.

The new centres, which will provide top-level training to senior ICT professionals, will boost the BDT's already strong commitment to empowerment, which, in addition to other Centres of Excellence serving Africa, the Arab region, Eastern Europe/CIS and Latin America, includes Internet Training Centres and the ITU e-Learning Centre.

In conjunction with private sector partners like Alcatel and Nokia Communications, the Development Sector also offers a number of Youth Education Scheme scholarships each year, to help promising young students from the developing world complete their tertiary studies in ICT-related fields, to the ultimate benefit of their local communities. The scheme, which has been running since 2003, has already assisted young people from Benin, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Togo and Uruguay.

ICTs are essential for political, economic, social and cultural development. They fuel the global information society and are rapidly transforming our lives and promoting better understanding among peoples.

The Doha Declaration, 2006

ITU-D's programme of educational initiatives is closely tied with another of the Sector's key priorities - regulatory reform. In addition to publishing regular analytical reports, including Trends in Telecommunication Reform - mandatory reading for anyone working in ICT policy-making - the BDT also hosts the world's most important gathering of regulators from around the world, who meet annually to discuss new challenges and get up to speed on latest best practice. The 7th Global Symposium for Regulators, which will take place in Dubai in February 2007, will focus on the regulatory hurdles posed by NGNs and broadband technologies.

In partnership with the World Bank's InfoDev programme, the Bureau also recently developed a modular ICT Regulation Toolkit that provides an up-to-date global overview of best practice policy implementation, with practical materials highlighting experience and results.

Emergency response

Recent disasters such as the Asian tsunami and earthquakes in Kashmir and Indonesia have highlighted the vital importance communications play in saving lives and coordinating rescue efforts. As the only global organization dedicated to ICTs, ITU's Development Sector has a long history of helping countries get back on their feet after a disaster, brokering deals to restore vital links through satellite capacity, equipment donations or provisional alternative ways of ICT access while the infrastructure is being rebuilt.

Since the early 1990s, it has also been working closely with the international community develop a streamlined global legislative framework that would allow countries hit by disaster to take full advantage of new technologies like mobile telephony, VSAT satellite systems, and secure wireless networks such as TETRA. Such technologies have the potential to save thousands of lives - yet until recently regulatory snarls in many countries meant vital communication equipment provided by donors often couldn't even clear customs; if it did, using it was frequently deemed illegal.

That's now changed, thanks to the Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations, which came into force in January 2005. The Convention calls on ratifying States to facilitate the provision of prompt telecommunication assistance to mitigate the impact of a disaster, and covers both the installation and operation of reliable, flexible telecommunication services. The first-ever treaty of its kind, it waives regulatory barriers such as licensing requirements, restrictions on the import of telecommunication equipment and limitations on the movement of humanitarian teams. It also requires States to make an inventory of the resources - both human and material - available for disaster relief, and to develop a telecommunication action plan that identifies the steps necessary to deploy those resources.

In the wake of the Asian tsunami, ITU also provided US$ 250 000 towards the preparation of an ICT infrastructure rehabilitation plan and an emergency communications plan, as part of Tsunami Early Warning System being developed for the Indian Ocean region.

Getting the full picture

Coming full circle back to the 1984's Missing Link report, one of the Bureau's most valued tasks remains rigorous, comprehensive global statistics-gathering. The BDT's Market, Economics and Finance (MEF) Unit currently tracks more than 100 ICT indicators annually, gathering information directly from telecoms government authorities, regulatory agencies, operators and carriers. These figures are used to create an accurate and impartial picture of the today's fast-changing ICT landscape, pinpointing trends and helping quantify the success rate of various development strategies in different parts of the world.

In addition, in collaboration with governments, consultants and industry players, the Bureau is currently compiling a series of new internet country case studies in an effort to get a clearer picture of internet penetration and usage patterns in the developing world.

This project aims to understand the factors which accelerate or retard the development of the internet in different environments and, through comparative analysis, to advise policy-makers and regulatory agencies on ways to accelerate internet take-up. Case studies not only help raise awareness, they provide decision-makers with in-depth substantive information that can serve as the foundation of more effective public policy strategies.

Through these activities, and its unique position as the world's leading agency for ICT development, ITU is striving to make a difference. For the millions of people for whom reliable, affordable access to modern communications remains a goal, rather than a reality, BDT projects worldwide represent a link to a better, brighter future.