ITU is a committed partner in the United Nations system and tries to develop joint-initiatives with sister organizations within the UN system and contributes to the “Delivering as One” objective.
Below are few examples that illustrates the growing role of ITU as a United Nations important team player.
WHO Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’ Health.
ITU Secretary General has been invited to act as co-vice Chair together with the Director of WHO. This Commission has been established by the UN Secretary-General as part of its Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. The objective of the Commission was to determine the most effective international institutional arrangements for global reporting, oversight and accountability on women’s and children’s health. ITU Secretary-General participated in both meetings of the Commission (January and June 2011). ITU has provided substantive input to the work of the Commission highlighting the potential of ICTs to improve national health information system, health infrastructure as well as the tracking of health resources. The report of the Commission includes a specific recommendation on innovation and the use of ICTs. For more information
Broadband Commission for Digital Development
In 2010, ITU Secretary-General and UNESCO Director-General established the Broadband Commission for Digital Development. The Commission presented its first report on 19 September 2010 to the UN Secretary-General at a high-level event just before the MDG 2010 Summit in New York. The report provides broad policy guidance for the development of a strategic framework for action in order to accelerate the deployment of universal access to broadband networks for the scaling-up and fast-track achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other priority development programmes.
UN Secretary-General Innovation Working Group (IWG)
In 2011, ITU joined the UN Secretary-General Innovation Working Group (IWG). Its mission is to be the global hub to catalyze cost-effective innovation in the implementation of the UN Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. Among the focus areas of IWG’s work is m-health and e-health, two topics particularly related to ITU’s development activities. There is a number of interesting public-private partnerships within the area of m-health aiming to use mobile phones to support MDGs 4 & 5 at different levels of sophistication.
UPU Addressing the world - An address for everyone initiative
ITU is involved in the Universal Postal Union (UPU) Addressing the world - An address for everyone initiative that aims to create synergies between United Nations agencies, intergovernmental organizations, academia, NGOs, development banks and the private sector in order to find shared solutions to the issue of addressing as well as define a common action plan, and implement it efficiently.
