UN telecoms head calls for concerted effort on development goals

Information Communications Technology can be a solution for the UN’s Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals rather than a problem said Hamadoun Touré, the head of the International Telecommunications Union at a conference in Dubai.

Hamadoun Touré, the head of the International Telecommunications Union, said ICT was not seen as part of the MDG. Karim Sahib / AFP

Common goals including education for all, the eradication of poverty, gender equality and environmental sustainability can be more effectively reached by harnessing the latest telecoms infrastructure, the head of the United Nation’s specialised agency for the telecoms industry said yesterday.

Information Communications Technology (ICT) can be a solution for the UN’s Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals rather than a problem said Hamadoun Touré, the head of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) at a conference in Dubai.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include objectives to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education and combat HIV, Aids and other diseases made no mention of ICT when they were drawn up in 2000 for developing countries.

“As we shape the post-2015 agenda, it is important that broadband will be taken into account. Broadband was not involved in MDGs, ICT was not seen there as goal itself,” said Mr Touré. “When I created the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, it was to use ICT as a tool to help accelerate the meeting of MDGs through e-health and e-education.”

The ITU is hoping that the decisions and resolutions that come out from the World Telecommunication Development Conference currently taking place in Dubai will be incorporated into the Sustainable Development Goals that the UN is set to draw up that will build upon the aims of the MDGs.

“ICT is not part of the problem but part of the solution,” said Mr Touré. “This is the fact. ICT and especially broadband is part of the solutions of all the major challenges humanity is facing today.”

More than 1,500 delegates and 50 ICT ministers from more than 130 countries are in Dubai for two-week long conference which began yesterday. Member states have submitted more than 70 proposals to the ITU for consideration including ways to drive up investment in broadband, enabling e-health and e-education and drawing up regulatory frameworks to ensure better connectivity between countries.

“The next two weeks will not only help us shape the regulatory environment but also to look at ways and means for infrastructure investment,” said Mr Touré.

Currently 95 per cent of investment in telecoms infrastructure comes from the private sector worldwide, but the ITU is hoping to better encourage investors to keep up with the level of investment required as more people and devices go online.

“I would see it as a failure of the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development if such policies are not included in the finalisation of the MDGS and perhaps more importantly in the SDGs for 2015-23,” said Paul Budde, founder of the research firm Buddecoms. “I am very worried about the lack of inclusions of such policies in the various developments going forward.”

The UN and its organisations will have to transform themselves to be able to keep up with the socio-economic changes happening throughout the world today, added Mr Budde.

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