Capacity Development

Key Insights

The ITU Academy, ITU’s main platform for capacity development, welcomed over 21 000 new learners, bringing the user base to nearly 79 000 learners from 190 countries. Over 5000 certifications were issued (January through mid-November) for the training catalogue, which offers 161 courses delivered face to face, online, or in blended learning formats.

ITU Academy Training Centres (ATC) programme reached over 1400 public- and private-sector professionals between January and mid-November. ATC institutions, ITU’s main capacity-development partners, offered more than 70 courses—nearly half the ITU Academy training catalogue. More than 80 per cent were online, ensuring broad accessibility, and 176 countries were represented. Courses covered priority topics for ITU membership, including emerging technologies, spectrum management, wireless and fixed broadband, cybersecurity, digital transformation, and regulation of information and communication technologies.

The Capacity Development for Digital Transformation project, funded by the European Union, has delivered 57 training courses, 26 in person and 31 online. The courses have reached over 3100 government officials and policymakers, 82 per cent from developing countries.

Two summer schools were organized in collaboration with the United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT), one of 14 ITU Academy Training Centres. The first joint summer school on Evidence-Based Policy Making for Achieving Universal and Meaningful Connectivity was held in partnership with the EU-funded project Promoting and Measuring Universal and Meaningful Digital Connectivity. The project continues to leverage the ITU Academy Training Centres for the design and delivery of its courses. While most courses were organized in collaboration with the ATCs, selected ones were jointly implemented with other United Nations agencies—such as UNESCO—and enriched by contributions from external experts.

The Digital Transformation Centres Initiative has brought basic and intermediate digital-skills training to almost 620 000 class participants, more than half of them female. During the first half of 2025, DTCs trained more than 130 800 participants.

The number of DTCs offering Introduction to Computer Basics for the Visually Impaired increased to five. Centres in Ghana, Pakistan, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Uganda have trained their trainers to deliver the course to visually impaired people.

Through the Boosting Digital Skills through Digital Transformation Centres project, BDT and the Government of Norway supported DTCs in Côte d’Ivoire, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Morocco, Pakistan, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Zambia in implementing training programmes for citizens and trainers, along with activities to raise awareness of digital literacy and the DTC Initiative.

The DTC Workshop and the Annual Meeting of ITU Academy Training Centres (ATCs) were held in June in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Organized in partnership with Cisco and hosted by the Centros Tecnológicos Comunitarios (the country’s DTC) in collaboration with the Instituto Dominicano de las Telecomunicaciones, the meetings brought together stakeholders to accelerate implementation of the DTC Initiative and the ATC programme.

Three in-person courses that support school connectivity were organized as part of the project Capacity Development to Accelerate School Connectivity in Collaboration with the Giga Initiative. These covered school infrastructure mapping, applied geospatial tools and sustainable public procurement.  Online courses on topics such as ICT business planning and financing for school connectivity were also delivered.

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