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Digital technologies to achieve the UN SDGs

ICT4SDG BCKGROUNDER

WSIS Forum 2018 Photo Contest, Promoting access to information to our key stakeholders in the Pacific, Vanuatu and Fiji

Overview

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can help accelerate progress towards every single one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
ITU contributes to all SDGs (see below) but especially to SDG 9, helping to build resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and fostering innovation. Efficient and affordable ICT infrastructure and services help countries to engage in the digital economy and boost their economic competitiveness and well-being. Most of the world's 42 least developed countries (LDCs) are making impressive progress towards SDG 9, with significant impact in financial inclusion, poverty reduction and improved health.
ICTs provide the means to deliver high-quality goods and services in health care, education, finance, commerce, governance, agriculture, and other vital areas. They can help to reduce poverty and hunger, boost health, create new jobs, help mitigate climate change, improve energy efficiency, and make cities and communities more sustainable.
Under half the world's people still do not use the Internet, according to ITU's latest statistics. Disenfranchised populations, particularly women and girls, older people, persons with disabilities, indigenous populations, and the economically disadvantaged, as well as people living in LDCs, landlocked developing countries, and small island developing states, need to be included in the emerging digital society to meet all 17 SDGs. Much of ITU's work aims to extend ICT networks, promote an enabling environment, encourage investment in telecommunication/ICT networks and foster digital inclusion.
The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted connectivity, as more people have moved online to continue working, studying and to stay in touch with friends and family during lockdowns and confinement. However, the challenges of the pandemic and economic slowdown have created additional problems for achieving the SDGs. The international community has pledged to learn from the global challenge of the pandemic and 'build back better'. Increased connectivity and ICTs can form a major part of building back better, countries can use increased connectivity to engage with their citizens better to achieve the SDGs.

How tech can help achieve each SDG:

Digital technologies can contribute significantly to the fulfilment of every SDG:

SDG 1: No poverty. More than 2 billion people in the world don't have bank accounts, while access to digital financial services has been proven to help lift people out of poverty. The Financial Inclusion Global Initiative (FIGI), begun in 2017 by ITU, the World Bank and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, expands digital financial inclusion in developing countries.
SDG 2: Zero hunger. By making agricultural practices more data-driven and efficient, ICT-enabled solutions can help farmers increase crop yields while reducing their use of energy. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has worked closely with ITU since 2017 to bolster ICT innovation in agriculture.
SDG 3: Good health and well-being. Direct patient interaction, health informatics and telemedicine can be improved through better connectivity. The "Digital Health for Africa" partnership launched by ITU and the World Health Organization in 2017, has delivered digital health leadership capacity development for more than 15 countries in Africa. Be He@lthy, Be Mobile, another ITU-WHO collaboration, is carrying out projects in several countries on mHealth, in addition to maintaining the mHealth Knowledge and Innovation Hub in Europe (mhealth-hub.org). Current and forthcoming ITU standards for multimedia systems, developed in collaboration with other organizations, will support the widespread deployment of digital health applications, including telemedicine and remote medical imaging.
SDG 4: Quality education. ITU and the International Labour Organization (ILO) are leading the Digital Skills for Decent Jobs Campaign, which aims to equip 5 million young men and women with job-ready digital skills by 2030 in support of the first-ever, comprehensive UN system-wide effort for the promotion of youth employment worldwide. The Giga Initiative led founded by ITU and UNICEF monitors and promotes connectivity in schools.
SDG 5: Gender equality. According to ITU statistics, 250 million fewer women were online than men in 2017. Globally, 62% of men use the Internet compared with 57% of women. Although the digital gender divide has been narrowing in all world regions and virtually eliminated in the developed world, wide gaps persist in LDCs (where 31% of men are online, compared to just 19% of women) and in Landlocked Developing Countries (where 38% of men compared to 27% of women). To close the digital gender gap, ITU members organize the annual International Girls in ICT Day to encourage more women and girls to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers. Gender equality initiatives where ITU is directly engaged include EQUALS, a ground-breaking global network to build an evidence base and improve women's access to technology, build relevant digital and other skills, and promote female leadership in the tech sector.
SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation. New and emerging digital technologies facilitate smart water and sanitation management. The ITU Focus Group on Smart Sustainable Cities follows key trends in urban smart water management, including ICTs for wastewater management.
SDG 7: Affordable and clean energy. Rising tech use contributes to emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But the industry is exploring ways to use greener energy, make devices more energy efficient, and incorporate solar, wind and other renewable sources into the value chain. At the same time, cutting-edge tech will be essential to cut global emissions, build smart grids and cities, electrify transport, and build sustainable economies and societies. ITU has helped set more stringent energy efficiency and emission control standards for ICTs and has outlined how smart grids can help to build more controllable and efficient energy systems and reduce carbon emissions.
SDG 8: Decent work and economic growth. Technology creates new jobs, enables resilient work and commerce, and stimulates wider social and economic development. ITU's Digital Innovation Framework helps countries, cities and other communities and systems accelerate their digital transformation, stimulate ICT-centric innovative entrepreneurship, and foster vibrant small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
SDG 9: Improved Infrastructure: Much of ITU's work directly aims to improve the extent and quality of ICT infrastructure of radiocommunication and backbone networks and to extend networks into underserved remote and rural areas. ITU's standards are improving the energy efficiency and performance of ICT networks, in backhaul, wireline and radiocommunication networks.
SDG 10: Reduced inequalities. ITU works to reduce inequality within and between countries, communities, and populations by extending access to technologies and knowledge to disadvantaged segments of society.
SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities. "United for Smart Sustainable Cities" (U4SSC), begun by ITU and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in 2016, helps cities take key steps to become smart and sustainable. Fifty cities from a number of countries worldwide have now joined this project.
SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production. E-Waste, including waste created by ICTs, is increasing all over the world. ITU has launched a coalition to produce the Global E-waste Monitor and strengthen collaboration to address the global challenge of waste from electrical and electronic equipment. ITU is also developing global strategies, standards and policies that offer guidelines for the sustainable management of e-waste.
SDG 13: Climate change action. Digital tools allow increasingly sophisticated climate modelling. ITU facilities international cooperation on policies and standards to help reduce energy consumption for ICT products and services. Key ITU standards promote green data centres and green power feeding systems. ITU is carrying out a joint project to model cities using digital twin modelling.
SDG 14: Life below water. ICTs are being extensively used to monitor the changing marine environment (e.g. the movement of ice flows and glacial movements). Buoys can be equipped with remote monitoring to monitor changing conditions at sea (e.g. salinity levels of water via buoys). Sensor networks and RFID chips can be used to protect endangered animals (e.g. whales and dolphins) to learn about their migratory patterns and needs.
SDG 15: Life on Land. ICTs can be used to identify, monitor, photograph and track wildlife populations. Sensor networks and RFID chips can be used to protect endangered animals (e.g. lions, elephants and tigers) to learn more about their migratory patterns and needs for protection.
SDG 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions. E-government services are helping improve the relationship of citizens and state and improving the efficiency of delivery of government services. ITU helps to drive citizen empowerment through its work on smart sustainable cities and key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure social inclusion, such as voter participation or the number of government services delivered through electronic means.
SDG 17: The power of partnerships. Public-private partnerships are key to bringing ICTs to all nations, peoples, and communities. Partnerships are particularly needed to build the physical infrastructure required to deliver Internet services in hard-to-reach areas and to currently disadvantaged populations, as well as to facilitate the investment, inclusion and innovation required to for SDG fulfilment across the board.

ITU has formed strategic partnerships with UN agencies and other organizations and companies to drive sustainable development and address specific challenges in relation to all 17 SDGs.

ITU’S CONTRIBUTION: Harnessing tech to meet all 17 SDGs

ITU's contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals starts with SDG 9: Building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and fostering innovation. ITU helps countries deploy broadband connectivity and develop ICT applications to facilitate the provision of free or low-cost digital access for schools, hospitals, and underserved populations. ITU supports countries in achieving SDG 9 (specifically SDG Target 9.c) by enabling access to the Internet and other ICTs, in three main ways:

ITU is the sole international institution that brokers international agreements to allocate and coordinate the use of the global radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits. This effort allows ICT devices anywhere in the world to be used on the same frequency bands, which in turn ensures that radiocommunication services run smoothly, without interference from other radio communication services and users, and benefit from the resulting economies of scale.
ITU and its members, including governments, the private sector and academia, are developing the international standards—the technical criteria, processes, and practices—that ensure key ICTs perform smoothly, efficiently, and safely and will provide further opportunities for economies of scale.
ITU supports developing countries in making ICTs affordable, accessible and relevant to all. Key programmes, for example, help to build the necessary physical infrastructure, strengthen cybersecurity, build digital skills among youth and others, ensure digital inclusion for people with special needs, enhance the regulatory and market environment to increase access to ICTs, and promote ICT-centred innovation and entrepreneurship.

ITU raises awareness and rallies the commitment necessary to achieve the SDGs through various processes and fora. Through the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process, ITU leverages pre-existing Action Lines and other WSIS mechanisms to promote SDG achievement. The annual WSIS Forum takes stock of the positive impact of ICTs on people's lives around the world.

An SDG Mapping Tool illustrates how key ITU activities contribute to the SDG. ITU is the custodian of the following SDG indicators and tracks progress on each of these indicators at the global levels:

indicator 4.4.1 (proportion of youth/adults with ICT skills),
indicator 5.b.1 (proportion of individuals who own a mobile telephone, by sex),
indicator 9.c.1 (proportion of population covered by a mobile network),
indicator 17.6.2 (fixed Internet broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants) and
indicator 17.8.1(proportion of individuals using the Internet).

The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted connectivity, as more people have moved online to continue working, studying and to stay in touch with friends and family during lockdowns and confinement. However, the challenges of the pandemic and economic slowdown pose additional problems for achieving the SDGs. The international community has pledged to learn from the global challenge of the pandemic and 'build back better'. Increased connectivity and ICTs can form a major part of building back better, countries can take advantage of increased connectivity to engage with their citizens better to achieve the SDGs.

Further Resources

SDG 1 - ITU News Magazine – Digital financial inclusion - My ITU

SDG 2 - Focus Group on "Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) for Digital Agriculture" (FG-AI4A) (itu.int)

SDG 3 - How COVID-19 accelerated digital healthcare - My ITU

Here's how we can avoid an AI divide in healthcare - My ITU

SDG 4 - School connectivity equips learners for education, work, and life - My ITU

SDG 5 - International Girls in ICT Day 2021 | #GirlsinICT 2021: Connected Girls, Creating Brighter Futures (itu.int)

SDG 6 - Focus Group on Environmental Efficiency for Artificial Intelligence and other Emerging Technologies (FG-AI4EE) (itu.int)

SDG 7 - Focus Group on Environmental Efficiency for Artificial Intelligence and other Emerging Technologies (FG-AI4EE) (itu.int)

SDG 8 - Digital Transformation Centres Initiative | ITU Academy

SME programme - ITU Digital World 2021

SDG 9 - ITU Development Digital Innovation Ecosystems