In 2020, ITU, together with the governments of Germany and Estonia, and the Digital Impact Alliance, launched an initiative to assist national governments in establishing interoperable, secure, and reusable IT infrastructure in support of their national development objectives.
The “
GovStack” is a set of digital building blocks that allow national public agencies to harness the power of emerging IT technologies, while minimizing costs and dependence on external contractors. The building blocks can be stacked together to easily build need-tailored, yet technically standardized solutions and services for citizen-oriented use cases in administration, health care, agriculture, education, and more.
Between January 2022 and December 2023, as part of a project funded by GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Government, ITU complemented these efforts by ensuring that the capabilities of GovStack support the environment and minimize environmental impact.
Green GovStack Publications
Green Data Centers
In today's digital age, data infrastructure, including data centers and cloud solutions, plays a pivotal role in supporting public management and efficient service delivery. However, these essential components of modern societies come with challenges. They are energy-intensive, consume valuable resources, and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. To ensure sustainable digital transformation, efforts are needed to green digital infrastructure, manage climate risks, and reduce environmental footprints. The ITU and the World Bank in partnership with the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) have developed a practitioner's guide to green data centers.
Circular and Sustainable Public Procurement for ICTs
Public procurement is a powerful tool that can be used to improve the circularity and sustainability of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for a successful green and digital transition. Public authorities play a significant role in the sustainable transition of growing ICT value chains. Green GovStack and partners prepared a Circular and Sustainable Public Procurement Guide for ICTs for governments and other public sector organizations that procure information and communications technology (ICT) equipment, systems and services. It sets out the systems and process requirements for ICT procurement in a way that supports the transition to circular and sustainable system solutions.
Green GovStack Supported Countries
Rwanda
Extended producer responsibility is an environmental policy principle frequently enshrined in national e-waste regulation, as a principle to place financial and / or organizational responsibilities on those who produce electronics. The effectiveness of such a principle in place relies on the sharing of data, payment of fees and efficient monitoring and enforcement capabilities. Through Green GovStack, the Government of Rwanda the Rwandan electronics industry have received technical assistance to develop an EPR service for the registration of electronics producers and automatic membership of the producer responsibility organization.
Niger
Having a national e-waste management strategy in place can mark the first step in transitioning to a system of environmentally sound e-waste management in a country. Through Green GovStack, technical assistance was provided to the Government of Niger in the preparation of a national e-waste management strategy, developed through stakeholder consultation.
