ITU: forging strategic partnerships to advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals
ITU works to advance progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. ICTs are enablers for all 17 SDGs, and play an important role on at least ten of them.
Cooperation, resource-sharing and win-win arrangements that benefit governments, industry and users – coupled with a “whole-of-government” approach – are helping drive towards technology as a basic enabling service that benefits all. As part of this effort, ITU puts emphasis on forging strategic partnerships that deliver better outcomes, tangible results and real impact on the pathway to achieving the SDGs through ICTs.
This section summarizes key partnerships over the period of this report.
Partner2Connect
The Partner2Connect Digital Coalition (see Document C23/INF/8) is a multistakeholder alliance launched by ITU in close cooperation with the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology, the United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS), and in line with the UN Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation. The Partner2Connect Digital Coalition fosters meaningful connectivity and digital transformation globally, with a focus on but not limited to the hardest-to-connect communities in LDCs, LLDCs and small island developing states (SIDS).
Broadband Commission – putting broadband firmly on the international policy agenda
The Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development was established in 2010 by ITU and UNESCO to boost the importance of broadband on the international policy agenda and expand broadband access in every country – key in accelerating progress towards national and international development targets. In 2022, the Broadband Commission community engaged over 50 Commissioners, including seven new members, over 150 external experts of the working groups, and 15 strategic partners.
Publications, open statements, working group reports, and SDG-related research across the reporting period include:
- The State of Broadband Report 2022, Accelerating Broadband for New Realities, the Commission’s annual flagship report.
- Three open statements to UN processes and events (TES, HLPF, LDC5), SDG4 research compilation on Quality Education and Recommendations on SDG5: Gender Equality.
- Seven working groups, with three completing their work: AI capacity building, smartphone access, and virtual health and care. Two working groups are in progress: data for learning and connecting MSMEs.
Strategic outreach: the Commission gained over 600 newsletter subscribers, has more than 11 000 combined followers on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Over 26 000 readers have downloaded reports in the reporting period.
EQUALS – promoting access, skills and ICT leadership for women and girls
As a co-founding partner of the EQUALS Global Partnership for Gender Equality in the Digital Age, and as the partnership’s host agency, ITU supported efforts in the Access, Skills, Leadership and Research Coalitions in 2022, including becoming co-leader of the Skills Coalition with GSMA. EQUALS has 113 partners representing private sector, civil society, academia, international organizations and UN agencies.
Giga – working since 2019 to connect every school to the Internet
To date, Giga has mapped 2.1 million schools in 136 countries in an open source platform that provides a real-time display of access and needs for funders, governments and service providers. Since the initiative’s launch, more than 2.1 million students have been connected to the Internet in over 5 000 schools across Africa, Central Asia, Latin America and the Eastern Caribbean.
ITU and WHO partnering on Artificial Intelligence for Health
The ITU/WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health (FG-AI4H) worked in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) to establish a standardized assessment framework that evaluates AI-based methods for health, diagnosis, triage or treatment decisions. Since July 2022, the group has finalized 15 additional deliverables, and plans to finalize several more by July 2023.
ITU, World Meteorological Organization and UNEP are examining the potential of leveraging AI for natural disaster management
The ITU/WMO/UNEP Focus Group on AI for Natural Disaster Management held three meetings during the reporting period. Three deliverables were completed during the reporting period: 1) Technical Report – AI for Communications: Towards Natural Disaster Management; 2) Technical Report – Standardization Roadmap on Natural Disaster Management: Trends and Gaps in Standardization; and 3) Glossary – Artificial Intelligence for Natural Disaster Management.
An ITU /WMO/UNEP Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Natural Disaster Management was held in Athens, Greece on 24 October 2022. An ITU webinar on “Fighting wildfires with AI-powered insights” is being organized in April 2023.
ITU and Food and Agriculture Organization cooperate closely on AI and IoT for Digital Agriculture
The ITU/FAO Focus Group on AI and IoT for Digital Agriculture held three meetings during the reporting period. The ITU/FAO Workshop on “Digital Agriculture at Scale: Sustainable Food Systems with IoT and AI” was held in Seongnam, Korea (Rep. of) on 24 August 2022. In the context of digital agriculture, two webinars were held under the umbrella of the Digital Transformation Webinar Series, showcasing the ongoing work of FG-AI4A within this domain: February 2023 – Episode #21, Digital Agriculture: Driving Digital Transformation for Food Security (co-organized with FAO and ISO); and March 2023 – Episode #22, Digital water in smart sustainable cities (co-organized with UN-Water and WMO).
