Unique among international organizations, ITU membership consists of Member States, represented by national government ministries, and Sector Members, which comprise a wide range of private and public companies and telecommunications-related organizations. Since its establishment 135 years ago, ITU has grown to become one of the most widely represented organizations in the world, welcoming its 189th Member State and 576th Sector Member in 1999.

During the course of the year, the Union experienced increasing demand for membership of its three Sectors – Radiocommunication, Telecommunication Standardization and Telecommunication Development – reporting a 6.5% overall net growth. New members reflected the increasingly broad sphere of communications-related activities, encompassing not only traditional telecommunications operators and equipment manufacturers, but also software developers, Internet service providers, financial institutions and even publishing houses.

ITU’s Telecommunication Development Sector, in particular, reported a strong demand for membership, ushering in 29 new members – a 15% increase. Of these, around one third were carriers and service providers, another third, industrial organizations, and the remaining third consultancies, research agencies and national and international authorities.

As the Union’s membership base broadens, so the liberalization of telecommunication markets continues to exert a positive effect on Sector membership, as former monopoly operators elect to become members of one or more Sectors and are followed by new competitive operators and service providers. National regulators also continued to join ITU in 1999, in recognition of the Union’s increasingly important role in international policy-making and regulatory affairs.

At the same time, the year’s spate of mergers and acquisitions involving companies operating in the telecommunications, multimedia and information technology sectors slightly off-set the growth in Sector member numbers, due to the amalgamation of a number of previously separate ITU members.

As part of the Union’s strategic priority of “encouraging private sector participation in ITU activities”, a special recruitment campaign was launched during the second half of the year to present the benefits of ITU membership in a proactive way. While positive results began to be seen as early as the end of 1999, the real fruits of this campaign will be reaped in the year 2000.