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The world is being remade by telecommunications. For many countries, communications development will also bring a better standard of living, as people become connected and get access to new employment opportunities as well as services from e-education to e-health that most of us take for granted.
Getting connectivity in the right hands has never been more necessary. Meeting internationally agreed targets such as the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015 to alleviate poverty and improve education and healthcare around the world may not be possible without making underserved regions and people connected with advanced telecom.
But ICT development is a challenging, multi-faceted task. The potential needs are vast, as a world leader in this area, the ITU Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D), has recognized for many years. ITU-D, with a clear mandate to support communications development everywhere, sees massive demand for its expertise and services. At any one time, it is engaged in more than 70 separate projects around the world, and 28 key regional initiatives, as wide ranging as planning and feasibility studies for broadband implementation in Africa to NGN planning in a host of Asia-Pacific countries.
Individual projects also show the scope of work: direct development assistance in sub-Saharan Africa and Afghanistan, establishing telecentres in Malawi, advising on universal service in Thailand, and trialing public wireless broadband in Belarus.
Why is development so complicated?
But development is challenging: it needs to be done correctly. ITU-D experience suggests that there is no standard approach. Getting projects to a successful conclusion needs a clear and targeted focus, best practices in management, budgeting, and performance monitoring. There is an emphasis on providing the right resources at the right time, with the ultimate aim of self-sustainability.
As a unique intergovernmental organization with many different stakeholders and direct expertise in ICT development of all kinds, ITU is well placed to provide resources and share best practices to do this. To maximize cost-effectiveness, ITU-D prefers development to be done in partnership, involving in-country resources, private sector stakeholders, financial institutions and other agencies. ITU-D complements resources with an extensive toolkit system to provide high quality training, and access to current technical and regulatory information. It also runs an extensive programme of in-country workshops and tutorials to develop face-to-face interaction. Getting development to work means ITU-D must engage on many levels, from the technical to the policy-based and organizational.
Making a difference: some ongoing projects
Analogue TV makes way for the digital wave: The transition from analogue to digital broadcasting creates great opportunities for the provision of information and communication technology (ICT) applications and multimedia services. Switchover needs to be carefully planned and scheduled to minimize disruption with benefits clearly delivered to stakeholders. In a ground breaking initiative, ITU has produced a major report and resource – The Guidelines for the Transition of Analogue to Digital Broadcasting – as a comprehensive toolkit covering best-practice policy, regulation, network planning, customer awareness and business planning in this area. ITU-D is also providing direct assistance to developing countries to help them prepare for the analogue to digital transition.
Spectrum management system for developing countries (SMS4DC): Spectrum issues – involving high technical expertise - are complicated, and require high level skillsets that may be in short supply in many countries. ITU-D has developed SMS4DC specifically for developing countries as a software tool to provide competence to enable most of the tasks involved in frequency assignment to be managed effectively and competently with minimal resources but in compliance with internationally-agreed practice. Keying into the toolkit is a geographical information system to complete the on-the-ground analysis. A new feature also means the SMS4DC can be connected to monitoring software.
Connecting communities: Telecom must meet on the ground needs, says ITU, and where better to start than in school-based telecentres? ITU-D has launched the Connect a School, Connect a Community project in collaboration with partners to deliver ICT facilities to remote schools with the intention of leveraging telecom into the wider community. It’s an impressively simple concept. Schools make the obvious locations to leverage the facilities much more widely and launch e-services from e-learning to e-health.
Other activitites in brief
ICT Infrastructure: As well as spectrum management and digital broadcasting, ITU-D is working on broadband deployment, interoperability, next-generation networks and rural and satellite telecommunications, as part of its assistance to membership for maximizing the use of appropriate new technologies for the development of ICT infrastructure.
ICT Applications: ICTs provide an opportunity for developing countries to facilitate trade and economic development. ITU-D is working with members on national strategic planning frameworks and toolkits for ICT applications and services and on such areas as improving education and healthcare, or enhancing access to education.
Enabling environment: ITU-D is assisting Member States and national regulatory authorities in developing an enabling environment that fosters a transparent legal and regulatory framework, to stimulate investment and promote universal, ubiquitous and affordable access to ICTs.
ICT Statistics: ITU-D plays a major role in enhancing the availability of comparable ICT data worldwide and in analyzing the latest ICT trends and sector developments, which enables policy makers and business leaders to make informed and strategic decisions.
Capacity building: ITU-D plays a pivotal role in providing assistance in human and institutional capacity building that improves skills to support the development and use of ICTs, taking advantage of the most current methods and means of delivery that leverage the use of ICTs.
Integrating Least Developed Countries (LDC) and countries in special need into the world economy: these countries face particular development challenges that require focused assistance from the international community to ensure their integration into the world economy. ITU-D provides concentrated assistance to help them in the development of their telecommunication sector.
1By the ITU, World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), and World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-10) remits.
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