Highlights – February 2022
21 February - 27 February
Digital inclusion: Global
A group of Generation Connect Regional Youth Envoys were briefed by the Comms Team on the various social media campaigns planned in support of the Global Youth Summit. These new "Comms Captains" provided feedback and valuable suggestions on our proposed plan and offered to promote the Summit within their own networks. We look forward to working closely with these well-connected Youth Envoys to build as much awareness for the Youth Summit as possible.
Digital inclusion: Global
The second of two UNITAR UN Career Development Courses were held for Generation Connect Regional Youth Envoys, Generation Connect video pitch competition winners, ITU Interns, and the young members of the Generation Connect Visionaries Board. Taking an interactive and conversational approach, the facilitator guided attendees through his own journey of joining the UN and offered a helpful five-step plan for building a successful career. These sessions were quite popular, and we hope to offer similar opportunities for our young talent in the future.
Environment: Africa
In the framework of the joint ITU-UNEP project “Implementing the EPR Concept in Policies and Regulations for the Sound Management of E-waste", the ITU Environment Team facilitated the first E-waste National Consultation Workshop for the public sector in Botswana. Representatives from key ministries, agencies and local authorities - including the Department of Waste Management and Pollution Control (DWMPC) of the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resource Conservation and Tourism - were invited to the headquarters of the Botswana Communication Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) to discuss the status of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) in the country, including current waste management policies and regulations, with the objective of supporting BOCRA and the DWMPC in developing a comprehensive National E-waste Management Strategy.
14 February - 20 February
Cybersecurity: CIS
On 14 February the Regional Office for the CIS Region held a meeting with the UNICEF Regional Office for Europe and CIS (UNICEF ECARO) to discuss the ongoing and planned activities on child online safety and technical assistance on COP. The parties agreed to share information on COP country activities.
Digital inclusion: Global
The second episode of the Generation Connect Podcast - the ITU’s podcast by youth for youth - episode discusses the potential future developments of our educational systems, through the eyes of youth. Luke Cavanaugh, a member of the Generation Connect Visionaries Board and Prince Zain, founder of the Y4X Movement, share their personal academic experiences and views which shape their visions of a future of education with youth and for youth. The episode is hosted by Arissanda Egorova, a former Generation Connect Intern. You can listen to the episode here.
Digital inclusion: Africa
The joint ITU-EIF project “Tech as a driver of women’s economic opportunity” presented a workshop and networking series for women in Ethiopia, in cooperation with EQUALS and the Ethiopian Ministries of Trade & Industry and Innovation & Technology. The workshops were hosted at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Addis Ababa, and the on-site expert guided the outcomes. Series of workshops:
• February 15-16: Product development digital workshops for women students and women-led start-ups in the textiles and apparel industry.
• February 17-18: Textiles and apparel product development digital workshops for women entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses.
• February 19: Speed mentoring and B2B networking event for all workshop participants to build community and increase the impact.
Digital inclusion: Global
To support the implementation of digitally inclusive societies, BDT presented related work and shared tools and resources in ICT/digital accessibility, including the online self-paced training courses in ICT and Web accessibility to over 150 decision-makers, stakeholders, and participants through the following events:
Disability inclusive disaster risk reduction hosted by UNDRR Geneva on 14 February.
Joining Forces on Inclusive Employment, Global Best Practice hosted by YAI Network on 17 February.
Creating Accessible Graphics & Social Content hosted by AbilityNet on 18 February.
These events focused on global and regional advancements in digital inclusion, specifically for persons with disabilities.
Digital inclusion: Asia and Pacific
The Women Ambassadors group and the women leaders of the United Nations in Thailand announced the 30 winners of the video competition #AmbassadorForADay (#มาลองเป็นทูต1วัน) to commemorate International Women’s Day 2022. All winners are invited to a unique mentorship programme facilitated by 10 women ambassadors and 12 women leaders of the UN. Suchanan Kokkrathok from the Ministry of Public Health is one of the winners. She will be mentored by Atsuko Okuda, the Regional Director of the ITU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, and learn the day-to-day work of women leaders in ICT. The work of all winners will be featured at the International Women’s Day Asia-Pacific Commemoration on 8 March.
Digital inclusion: Global
On 18 and 21 February, a virtual training session on 'UN Career Development' with UNITAR [United Nations Institute for Training and Research] was organized for the Generation Connect Regional Youth Envoys, Generation Connect video pitch competition winners, ITU Interns, and the young members of the Generation Connect Visionaries Board.
7 February - 13 February
Cybersecurity: Global
On Tuesday 8 February, BDT celebrated Safer Internet Day 2022 through different activities. With a blog, ITU launched a new initiative named POP: Protection through online Participation, in collaboration with Child Helpline International, Global Kids Online, IBM Z, the Office of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children, the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, UNICEF, and the UK Safer Internet Centre. This initiative aims to establish and disseminate a global mapping of the current ways that children and young people use the digital environment to access protection services, support each other, and stay safer, both online and offline, and to better understand the effectiveness of these systems.
ITU also published the fourth episode of the Online Safety with Sango course, focusing on Social Networks. In addition, ITU launched a poll on twitter assessing the top concerns in Child Online Protection from users. Approximately 300 people voted and interacted with this post. ITU published a news blog on Safer Internet Day presenting the top concerns for users resulting from the poll. UN News published an article on the results, and tweeted about it, while UN Radio ran it as ‘top audio stories’ of the day and News Week translated into Spanish.
Digital inclusion: Global
The Winter 2022 edition of the Global Youth Forum is an experiential learning platform that brings youth to the forefront of efforts aimed at supporting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). ITU was invited to contribute to the 2022 edition of the Forum through the delivery of a 90-minute interactive knowledge development session on “Building Digitally Inclusive Societies” on 8 February as part of a day entirely dedicated to “Social Inclusion for SDG Achievement”. The training session was attended by 75 young people undergraduate, graduate students and young professionals, from different countries and regions, aiming to pursue a career to advance the sustainable development dimensions (social, economic, environmental) of inclusion. ITU presented to the young participants the pillars of digital inclusion and shared how to guarantee that everyone, regardless of gender, age, ability or location is part of digital societies. It was further clarified key terminology including affordability, accessibility, accessible ICTs, and explained the catalytic role of ICT accessibility in ensuring that both equality and equity are considered within the inclusion process. Finally, the young participants received information about existing tools and resources to strengthen their knowledge in the topic, and understand the role that they can play in mainstreaming accessibility principles and build inclusive digital societies and environments. Young people’s interest in the topic of ICT accessibility as a pre-requisite to digital inclusion was also reflected in their questions as part of the interaction. Moreover, the analytics of the quiz provided at the end of the presentation showed that all participants passed. Over 65% obtained on average 80/100, which clearly demonstrates that the transfer of knowledge on the topic was successfully achieved.
Digital inclusion: Global
The week started with all Generation Connect Regional Focal Points updating the team on their efforts towards securing regional partners and sponsors for the Generation Connect Global Youth Summit in June. There has been a lot of promising outreach, and new ways to coordinate those outreach efforts were discussed.
Digital inclusion: Asia and Pacific
ITU participated in the UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia event on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on 11 February 2022. The webinar aimed to encourage equal Access and Participation for Women and Girls in Science in South Asia with the participation of the Government of Pakistan, the Government of Bhutan, UNICEF Pakistan Country Office, UNICEF Bhutan Country Office, and Female tech leaders from the Maldives. In this event, ITU presented the ongoing work and focus areas, Girls in ICT, and ITU’s collaboration with UNICEF in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Asia and the Pacific at large, to promote STEM education amongst girls as well as girls’ digital empowerment.
Digital innovation ecosystems: Global
ITU and UNOSSC celebrated the kick-off of their mentorship program comprised of a team of highly qualified mentors from over 15 countries with expertise in a wide variety of subjects. These mentors will support the Global South COVID-19 Digital Innovation Challenge winners in a journey to bring their innovations into other emerging economies enabling countries, societies, communities, institutions, and individuals from the Global South to deal with the cascading effects of the pandemic.
Network and digital infrastructure: Asia and Pacific
ITU participated as a speaker during Asia Telecommunications & Media Forum 2022 from 8-10 Feb. Presentation was made during Session on 5G network deployments and initial learnings from industry, regulators and government. Key insights and observations from the RO-ASP study on ‘’Wireless Spectrum in Asia-Pacific for the 5G Era: IMT Spectrum Assignment’’ were shared along with encouragement to join the Partner2Connect initiative.
Read more
Giga: CIS
On 4 February 2022, Natalia Mochu, ITU Regional Director for CIS Region, met with Alexandra Solovieva, UNDP Resident Representative in Belarus to discuss areas of cooperation under UNSDCF implementation and UNDP Accelerator Lab. It was agreed to strengthen cooperation on digital skills development and promotion of girls and women in STEM; organize a joint meeting with the ICT Ministry on this topic; work closely in the newly developed results group dedicated to digital transformation under the UNSDCF implementation; and coordinate possible joint activities at TIBO-2022 (exhibition, interventions). The ITU Regional office for CIS Region and UNDP Belarus also discussed possible future cooperation with the Eurasian Economic Commission and the Eurasian Development Bank under the digitalization strategy of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).
Other: Asia and Pacific
ITU attended the AIBD 1st virtual Strategic Plan Team (SPT) Experts Group and advisory board 2022 Meeting on 9 February 2022. The meeting was conducted to explore the format, the theme, and mechanism of hosting the Asia Media Summit in 2022, the selection of candidacy of President and Vice President of the AIBD General Conference as well as review the strategic plan 2020-2025 on the role of AIBD and action plan during these periods.
31 January – 6 February
Digital inclusion: Africa
The joint ITU-EIF project “Tech as a driver of women’s economic opportunity” hosted a weekend event series last week. The events were held in cooperation with EQUALS and the local KitHub initiative FemDev Burundi (2021 EQUALS in Tech Awards Winner in the Skills category). On 28 January, a “Digital Dinner” was held in Gitega, Burundi at the Helena Hotel. The gathering was an opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of digital technologies and ICTs for women’s economic empowerment and for a more prosperous country. During this dinner, a panel on “Inclusive and Entrepreneurial Digital Transformation: Collective Work, Responsibility, and Commitment above all” was presented, followed by discussions and a cocktail dinner. On 28 January and 29 January, two “Tech Ready, Girls Ready” bootcamps invited girls and women to improve their digital skills. The first bootcamp introduced 40 students to online security, programming and design, Photoshop, and tech innovation/creation. The second bootcamp invited women entrepreneurs to pitch and share digital business ideas and learn about management, digital marketing and how to use a smartphone as a work tool. The bootcamps concluded with some networking time for participants.
Digital inclusion: Global
On 27 January, the EQUALS Global Partnership steering committee held its first meeting of 2022. Co-founders ITU, GSMA, UN Women and ITC were joined by coalition leaders and supporting partners to discuss upcoming work and the partnership direction. Among other topics, the steering committee addressed a plan to develop an EQUALS Monitoring and Evaluation Taskforce to be led by the EQUALS Hub team at ITU-BDT. Additionally, a plan to introduce a new award category to the annual EQUALS in Tech Awards was discussed, to recognize outstanding EQUALS partner initiatives (other category awards are open to all gender digital equality initiatives).
Digital inclusion: Africa
On 3 February the Africa Network of Women for WTDC (NoW4WTDC) hosted a global fireside discussion on the importance of professional networking and gaining outside perspectives with the support of ITU and ATU. The virtual session was held in conjunction with the final African Preparatory Meeting for WTDC and welcomed an enthusiastic group of women and men who shared experiences and insights, and called for deliberative actions to be taken to include girls and women in tech, expand mentorship programmes and apply the 50-50 approach to all aspects of work.
Emergency telecommunications: Global
The Emergency Telecommunications team organized a webinar on the latest developments of Disaster Connectivity Maps (DCM). DCM is a mapping platform to help first responders determine the status of telecommunications network infrastructure, coverage, and performance before and after a disaster. The platform, which is an initiative by ITU, the WFP’s Emergency Telecommunication Cluster (ETC) and supported by GSMA, has produced map products in support of a number of disaster responses, including for Tonga, where a volcanic eruption brought down most of the country’s connectivity, in January 2022. The webinar gave a demonstration of the DCM platform and shared insights into the data sources used to build a picture of network connectivity and performance pre-and post-disaster. The webinar was open to Global Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) partners, and over 60 participants attended the session. The recording of the webinar is available here.
Environment: Global
On 26 January, the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) launched a report and issued a call for weather, climate & hydrological information datasets to be made open and freely available as digital public goods (DPGs). This was driven by the efforts of the DPGA's Climate Change Adaptation Community of Practice. Within the report, urgent attention is brought to why datasets are needed as digital public goods, the setbacks caused by a lack of data, and tangible steps that can be taken to help improve access to data. To showcase the positive outcomes of having open datasets, the report highlights existing digital public goods that are supporting climate change adaptation. As countries increasingly implement policies for climate change mitigation and adaptation, universal access to high-quality data will be crucial to help understand risks and enable action. The report brings needed attention to this often-overlooked cause in the hope that it will help open more datasets and aid in the discovery of existing open datasets. Read the report here.
Environment: Americas
On 25 January, UNITAR, UNIDO and ITU launched the Regional E-waste Monitor for Latin-America 2022 which presents an assessment of statistics, legislation, and management infrastructure of e-waste and persistent organic pollutants in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru Uruguay and Venezuela. The report found that e-waste generation in the region increased by 49 percent, from 0.9 Mt (4.7 kg/inh) in 2010 to 1.3 Mt (6.7 kg/inh) in 2019. Only 2.7 per cent of total e-waste is collected to be managed in an environmentally sound manner. All 13 participating countries in the region have legal and regulatory frameworks for waste management, but only five – Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Peru – have specific legislations for e-waste and Extended Producer Responsibility systems in place. The report is available in English and Spanish.
Other: Asia and Pacific
ITU together with UNICEF organized the 8th meeting of the Asia Pacific TWG on Digital Transformation in Education and Learning in partnership with UNESCO, UNODC, ILO, GSMA, WB, ADB, EdTech Hub, Huawei, Facebook and KaiOS on 3 February. ITU presented Girls in ICT Day and the Generation Connect while UNODC proposed the collaboration with ITU on Women in Cyber initiative. The meeting also discussed the finalization of the ToR, workplan, calendar, membership and areas for collaboration.