The new ITU management team was formally inaugurated on Thursday 15 January 2015 at ITU Headquarters in the presence of Permanent Representatives of Member States to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Heads of UN agencies.
Speaking during the occasion Mr Brahima Sanou, Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau, thanked ITU Member States for re-electing him to lead the bureau for another term of four years.
"I feel honored and humbled by the full confidence you placed in me to continue leading the Telecommunication Development Bureau. It is a great privilege to lead a sector where every moment is a challenge and every challenge opens unlimited doors of opportunities," he said.
Mr Sanou said the Development Sector will in the next four years be implementing the Dubai Action Plan adopted during the 2014 World Telecommunication Development Conference putting more emphasis on access to affordable broadband connections and on ICT for Development.
He said that he will continue to build partnerships with the private sector and at the same time reach out to other United Nations agencies in order to, "fully and effectively harness the potential of ICT in achieving their development mandate in education, health, agriculture, investment and trade."
Mr. Sanou has been Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau since January 2011, following his election at the Plenipotentiary Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, in October 2010.
At the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference last October in Busan, Republic of Korea he was re-elected to a second four-year term.
As BDT Director, he is committed to promoting ICT as a major driving force for sustainable socio-economic development, bringing the unprecedented benefits of next-generation networks and services to remote and rural regions, least developed countries and persons with special needs in particular.
He has placed particular emphasis on the mobilization of resources and knowledge-sharing through the forging of collaborative, cross-sector multi-stakeholder partnerships.
Key elements include the m-Powering Development Initiative to deliver improved services such as healthcare, education and business over mobile platforms; the Smart Sustainable Development Model initiative, focused on optimizing resources for sustainable development and disaster management; and the ITU Academy, offering an integrated online resource for the provision of ICT education and training opportunities.
