“This year marks the 25th anniversary of the ITU Telecommunication Development Sector. Over the past two and a half decades, ITU has contributed to the unprecedented development of ICTs worldwide and the wider transformation they have brought to society. Our new data show that young people are at the forefront of today’s digital economy with 70 percent of the world’s youth being online.
Today’s ICT development is driven by the spread of mobile-broadband services. The growth of mobile broadband has largely outpaced that of fixed broadband, while mobile-broadband prices have dropped by 50 per cent on average over the last three years. These factors have resulted in about half of the world’s population getting online and broadband services being available at much higher speeds.
As ICTs continue to be a key enabler of economic and social development, ITU has a pivotal role in the global efforts to bridge the digital divide and in fostering an inclusive digital economy. I am confident that the discussions at the World Telecommunication Development Conference 2017, to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 9 to 20 October 2017, under the theme of “ICT for Sustainable Development Goals”, will contribute to the mapping of results-oriented strategies aimed at hastening the pace of countries towards the timely attainment of the SDGs and their related targets.”
- : https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ICTFactsFigures2017.pdf
- : ITU Telecommunication Development Sector
- : ITU Telecommunication Development Sector