Page 62 - 4 Years Report

ITU-T is a strong advocate of “Universal Design” and TSB continues its efforts to include a gender
has developed standardization guidelines to produce perspective in all of its activities and programmes
solutions that are inherently accessible to persons under the umbrella of the ITU Gender Task Force.
with and without disabilities. ITU Member States and Sector Members are encouraged

IEC, ISO and ITU have developed a “Guide for addressing to support the active involvement of women experts in
accessibility in standards” (ITU-T H-Series Supplement 17 standardization groups and activities. Currently, 56 per cent
| ISO/IEC Guide 71) as well as a joint policy statement on of all TSB staff are women. The number of women in the
“Standardization and accessibility”. The guide adds to professional category has more than quadrupled over the last
two other pioneering ITU documents for accessibility and 10 years, taking the proportion of women in the professional
standards, the “Telecommunications accessibility guidelines category to 41 per cent. Diversity of staff, gender equality
for older persons and persons with disabilities” and the and the empowerment of women continue to be among
“Telecommunications Accessibility Checklist”. the priorities of the ITU secretariat. The establishment of the
Women in Standardization Expert Group (WISE) was agreed
ITU members have completed the standardization of
accessibility terminology, and a new ITU standards provides by the February 2016 meeting of TSAG, with the goal of
accessibility profiles for IPTV systems. supporting ITU-T’s efforts to encourage the active participation
of women in standardization work.
ITU-T provides services such as sign-language interpretation
and captioning, and financial support in some cases, to engage
persons with disabilities in the ITU-T standardization process.

A pair of ITU-T technical papers provide guidelines on
organizing accessible meetings and how to ensure that online
remote participation in meetings is accessible to persons
with disabilities. The latter complements the new A-Series
Supplement 4 on the organization of remote participation in
meetings.

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