ITU is committed to upholding its policy of linguistic diversity and promoting awareness of the importance of multilingualism within its work. This commitment is set out in Resolution 154 (Rev. Bucharest, 2022) of the Plenipotentiary Conference on the use of the six languages on an equal footing, and overseen by the
Council Working Group on the use of the six official languages of the Union (CWG-LANG). Developed in consultation with CWG-LANG and formally approved by the ITU Council in its 2022 session, the Policy Framework on Multilingualism outlines in detail ITU's official approach and implementation of multilingualism.
Multilingualism is the ability of individuals and the capacity of organizations to communicate and work in speech and writing in multiple languages. Languages are of strategic importance for people and the planet, playing a vital role in development, intercultural dialogue, international cooperation and sustainable development.
Multilingualism is critical to the multilateral communications at the heart of all UN activities across its three pillars of work: international peace and security, development and human rights. It is a powerful tool for diversity, inclusion and mutual respect, enabling people from all over the world to communicate, share perspectives, discuss and reach agreement. As a core value of the UN, multilingualism promotes tolerance and ensures the increased and effective participation of all.
Multilingualism at ITU
At ITU, multilingualism principally refers to the equal treatment of the six official languages of the Union (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) in all the activities of the organization within available resources. Multilingualism is essential for the fulfilment of ITU's mandate as the UN specialized agency for digital technologies, allowing all our members and staff to engage meaningfully and effectively on the wide range of technical and complex issues we address.
It is an important means of improving the efficiency, performance and transparency of the work of the Union, promoting dialogue, understanding and inclusive participation.
Our language tools page provides more information on the practical implementation of this policy, including the use of innovative neural machine translation technologies such as ITU Translate, which enable high quality gist translations of ITU webpages and other texts to complement the work and reach of our experienced team of professional human translators. Our terminology databases provide access to updated, relevant ITU terminology in all six languages of the Union, including those approved by the expert ITU Coordination Committee for Terminology (CCT).
