Every time someone, somewhere, picks up a telephone and dials a number, answers a call on a mobile phone, sends a fax or receives an e-mail, takes a plane or a ship, listens to the radio, watches a favourite television programme or helps a small child master the latest radio-controlled toy, they benefit from the work of the International Telecommunication Union.

The Union was established last century as an impartial, international organization within which governments and the private sector could work together to coordinate the operation of telecommunication networks and services and advance the development of communications technology. Whilst the organization remains relatively unknown to the general public, ITU’s work over more than one hundred years has helped create a global communications network which now integrates a huge range of technologies, yet remains one of the most reliable man-made systems ever developed.

As the use of telecommunication technology and radiocommunication-based systems spreads to encompass an ever-wider range of activities, the vital work carried out by ITU is taking on growing importance in the day-to-day lives of people all around the world.

The Union’s standardization activities, which have already helped foster the growth of new technologies such as mobile telephony and the Internet, are now being put to use in defining the building blocks of the emerging global information infrastructure, and designing advanced multimedia systems which deftly handle a mix of voice, data, audio and video signals.

Meanwhile, ITU’s continuing role in managing the radio-frequency spectrum ensures that radio-based systems like cellular phones and pagers, aircraft and maritime navigation systems, scientific research stations, satellite communication systems and radio and television broadcasting all continue to function smoothly and provide reliable wireless services to the world’s inhabitants.

Finally, ITU’s increasingly important role as a catalyst for forging development partnerships between government and private industry is helping bring about rapid improvements in telecommunication infrastructure in the world’s under-developed economies.

Whether in telecommunication development, standards-setting or spectrum sharing, ITU’s consensus-building approach helps governments and the telecommunication industry confront and deal with a broad range of issues which would be difficult to resolve bilaterally.

The result is real-life, workable agreements which benefit not only the telecommunication industry as a whole but, ultimately, telecommunication users everywhere.

Under the Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union, the purposes of ITU are:

• To maintain and extend international cooperation between all its Member States for the improvement and rational use of telecommunications of all kinds
• To promote and enhance participation of entities and organizations in the activities of the Union, and to foster fruitful cooperation and partnership between them and Member States for the fulfilment of the overall objectives embodied in the purposes of the Union
• To promote and offer technical assistance to developing countries in the field of telecommunications, and also to promote the mobilization of the material, human and financial resources needed to improve access to telecommunications services in such countries
• To promote the development of technical facilities and their most efficient operation, with a view to improving the efficiency of telecommunication services, increasing their usefulness and making them, so far as possible, generally available to the public
• To promote the extension of the benefits of new telecommunication technologies to all the world’s inhabitants
• To promote the use of telecommunication services with the objective of facilitating peaceful relations
• To harmonize the actions of Member States and promote fruitful and constructive cooperation and partnership between Member States and Sector Members in the attainment of those ends
• To promote, at the international level, the adoption of a broader approach to the issues of telecommunications in the global information economy and society, by cooperating with other world and regional intergovernmental organizations and those non-governmental organizations concerned with telecommunications.