ITU continues to provide leadership in building cooperation among the many interests served by ICT standardization. The World Standards Cooperation is a partnership of ITU, ISO, and IEC to promote international standards. [44] ITU-T is a strong advocate of "Universal Design" and has developed standardization guidelines to produce solutions that are inherently accessible to persons with and without disabilities. [45]

ITU-T is leading efforts to improve the capacity of developing countries to participate in the development and implementation of international ICT standards, using the vehicle provided by ITU's Bridging the Standardization Gap (BSG) programme. [46]

The ITU conformity and interoperability (C&I) programme is of particular value to developing countries in their efforts to increase conformance with ITU standards and benefit from the improved interoperability that results from this conformance. [47]

Chief Technology Officer meetings: CTO meetings bring together industry executives to highlight their business priorities and supporting standardization strategies. [48]

24 ICT industry executives and the strategic management of ITU-T met in Hammamet, Tunisia, 23 October, hosted by Tunisie Télécom. Participants highlighted the importance of innovation capitalizing on VoLTE and other unique opportunities presented to network operators by advanced packet-based communications. They agreed that Gigabit-speed broadband access and data security will form key priorities to industry in coming years. Executives also pointed to the importance of regulation creating a level playing field for competition between telecoms and OTT players in fields where they provide equivalent services. Read news on the event, or read the meeting's full set of conclusions issued as a communiqué.

CJK CTO consultations: Consultations with CTOs of China, Japan and Korea – in 2015 and 2016 (press release) – called for standardization to support networking innovations to meet the demands of  5G systems, rapid growth in video traffic and ubiquitous smart technologies. [49]

e-Health: ITU-T continues its longstanding collaboration with bodies active in the healthcare field, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the Personal Connected Health Alliance (formerly Continua Health Alliance), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), Health Level Seven International (HL7), Joint Initiative Council (JIC), Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM), European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), GSMA, and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). [50]

Aviation applications of cloud computing for flight-data monitoring: The ITU-T Focus Group on flight-data monitoring benefited from the participation of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), as the participation of the aviation and avionics sectors was crucial to ITU-T's study of aviation applications of cloud computing for flight data monitoring. [51]

Intelligent transport systems (ITS): The Collaboration on ITS Communication Standards is a body responsible for the coordination of technical standardization work to encourage the offer of interoperable ITS products. [52]

Smart Sustainable Cities: ITU and UNECE have launched the United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC), a global initiative which advocates for public policy to encourage the use of ICTs in enabling the transition to smart sustainable cities. U4SSC is supported by 17 United Nations Agencies and Regional Commissions, and is open to all United Nations agencies, municipalities, industry, academia, and other relevant stakeholders. [53]

ITU is involved in several smart city pilot projects (with cities including Wuxi, Manizales, Dubai, Singapore, Santiago de Chile, Montevideo, and Rimini) to measure the smartness and sustainability of the participating city. The pilot projects are also expected to generate inputs for the refinement of these KPIs and subsequent approval within ITU-T SG20 on IoT and Smart Cities and Communities.

Following, the completion of the first year of the Dubai pilot project, the Dubai Case Study was published in December 2016. This case study documents the Smart Dubai journey from its initial planning stages through to the current status of related ICT applications, highlighting lessons learned along the way. The study offers an evaluation of Dubai's progress in meeting its smart-city objectives, evaluations undertaken using ITU's KPIs.

To cater to the international standardization activities on smart cities within ITU, the ITU-T SG20 on Internet of Things and Smart Cities and Communities has developed a series of Supplements, available on the Study Group's website.ICT, environment and climate change: ITU-T has strengthened its cooperation with other bodies active in tackling environmental issues, including ETSI, IEEE, WHO, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), UNECE, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (UNESCO-IOC), United Nations University, UNIDO, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Basel Convention, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN-Habitat, the Comisión Tecnica Regional de Telecomunicaciones (Comtelca), the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), Solving the e-Waste Problem (Step), and the Asociación Interamericana de Empresas de Telecomunicaciones (ASIET). [54]

ITU-T Study Group 5 continues to develop standards and best practices to combat climate change, promote environmental sustainability and reduce energy consumption. Within the ITU Academy, ITU is developing a standardized set of training materials for a training programme on ICTs and Climate Change. The content of this training programme is currently being reviewed by a number of ITU experts. In order to raise awareness, ITU has organized a series of events and trainings, and will continue these in 2017.

The "ICT product conformity database" provides industry with a means to publicize the conformance of ICT products and services to ITU-T Recommendations. The database assists users in their efforts to select standards-compliant products.

e-Health solutions included in the database were tested for compliance with the specifications of the ITU-T H.810 "Interoperability design guidelines for personal health systems" sub-series, which are a transposition of the Continua Design Guidelines as international standards. The testing procedures are specified in the ITU-T H.820-H.850 sub-series of Recommendations. [55]

Mobile phones included in the database were found to be compatible with Bluetooth-enabled vehicle hands-free terminals, compatibility determined in accordance with the 'Chapter 12 tests' ("Verification of the transmission performance of short-range wireless (SRW) transmission enabled phones") of ITU-T P.1100 and ITU-T P.1110. [56]

Ethernet products included in the database were found to comply with ITU-T G.8011/Y.1307 "Ethernet Services Characteristics". This standard as well as the corresponding tests are based on the work of MEF (formerly called Metro Ethernet Forum). [57]

Conformance and Interoperability (C&I) events showcase emerging standards-based technologies and highlight opportunities to improve their interoperability.

An ITU-T series of regular IPTV testing events offers a continuous platform to test products based on both existing and developing ITU-T IPTV standards. Learn more about IPTV testing events here. Recent events June and September 2016 focused on new IPTV products and services built on ITU-T H.702 and ITU-T H.721, with the findings of these events contributing to discussions in ITU-T SG16. [58]

Speech quality tests for vehicle hands-free systems are defined in ITU-T P.1100 "Narrow-band hands-free communication in motor vehicles" and ITU-T P.1110 "Wideband hands-free communication in motor vehicles". These tests help industry players to configure their products for greater interoperability, ultimately to improve the performance of mobile phones as gateways to car hands-free systems. The 2nd ITU test event on the performance of mobile phones as gateways to car hands-free systems, 23-25 May 2016, saw the participation of Bosch, Toyota, Jaguar Land Rover Limited, and Continental Automotive GmbH. Learn more about the HFT testing here. ITU also organizes on-demand testing of mobile phones upon the request of clients interested in determining which mobile phones perform as required when functioning as gateways to car hands-free telephone systems. [59]​