Committed to connecting the world

ITU Activities & Sustainable Development Goals

As a UN specialized agency, ITU collaborates closely with other organizations to deal with issues pertaining climate change, energy efficiency, e-waste, rapid urbanization, and the promotion of sustainable development. By supporting institutions and processes, such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the New Urban Agenda and the follow-up to Rio+20, ITU is working with the UN to "deliver as one" in the area of climate change and emphasizing the close relationship between ICTs and sustainability.

ITU and the SDGs

ITU takes an active role in promoting and addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the use of ICTs.

ITU addresses Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, Goal: 12 Responsible Production and Consumption, and Goal: 13 Climate action through its climate change programme which devotes its efforts to guiding member states, ICT sector and academia on climate change adaptation and mitigation, improving energy efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and using environmentally sustainable methods for handling e-waste. Through the United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative, ITU also commits to attaining Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.

Connect 2030 Agenda

ITU adopted Connect 2030 Agenda for global telecommunication/information and communication technology, including broadband, for sustainable development to reaffirm a shared global vision for the development of the telecommunication/ICT sector, envisaging "an information society, empowered by the interconnected world, where telecommunications/ICTs enable and accelerate social, economic and environmentally sustainable growth and development for everyone".

Targets under Goal 3: Sustainability, directly relate to the management of challenges resulting from telecommunications and ICT development:

Target 3.2: By 2023, increase the global e-waste recycling rate to 30%
Target 3.3: By 2023, raise the percentage of countries with an e-waste legislation to 50%.
Target 3.4: By 2023, net telecommunication/ICT-enabled Greenhouse Gas abatement should have increased by 30% compared to the 2015 baseline

Click here to learn more about the Connect 2030 Agenda.

New Urban Agenda

The New Urban Agenda was the outcome document agreed upon at the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in October 2016. It presents guidelines to address the challenges of rapid urban growth and offers a new model of urbanization, outlining the key issues relating to the right to adequate housing during construction or the implementation.

ITU has been actively involved in the Habitat III process following which, the concept of “smart cities” has been duly included into the New Urban Agenda.

Habitat III took place from 17 to 20 October 2016 in Quito, Ecuador.

WSIS Forum

World Summit on the Information Society Forum represents the world's largest gathering of the "ICT for development" community.

ITU continues playing a key role in WSIS implementation and follow up in line with its mandate and the WSIS documents.

The WSIS Forum 2023 was held from 13 - 17 March 2023.

UN Climate Change Negotiations

ITU supports the implementation of the Paris Agreement, resulted from the negotiations held within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

ITU has participated in several previous UN Climate Change Conferences, including COP20 (Lima), COP21 (Paris), COP22 (Marrakech), COP23 (Bonn), COP24 (Katowice), COP25 (Madrid), COP26 (Glasgow) and COP27 (Sharm El Sheikh).

The next COP (COP28) will be held in Dubai, UAE Egypt from 30 November-12 December 2023.

Working together

ITU actively cooperates with other stakeholders to tackle environmental challenges and shape smart sustainable cities.

Together with UNFCCC, WMO, UNU, UNIDO, UNESCO, WHO, UNEP, UN Habitat, UNECE, WIPO, ECLAC, the Secretariat of the Basel Convention, GeSI and WEF, ITU collaborates on issues related to climate monitoring, mitigation and adaptation, e-waste management and smart sustainable cities, among others.