Extraordinary Meeting of the Expert Group on Telecommunication/ICT Indicators (EGTI) & the Expert Group on ICT Household Indicators (EGH)
1-3 March 2017
Welcome Remarks by
Brahima Sanou, Director, ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT)
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear colleagues,
Good morning.
I am happy to welcome you to this Extraordinary Meeting of the ITU Expert Group on Telecommunication/ICT Indicators (EGTI) & the Expert Group on ICT Household Indicators (EGH).
The work of these two expert groups has a huge impact on the statistical work of the ITU and that of countries, in identifying and defining indicators that are important for policymaking and international benchmarking.
During the next three days, you will have another important task, to review and finalize the indicators that will be used to calculate the IDI.
Our indicators and the IDI are the most authoritative in the world. I am happy that we are providing the unique source of trustful data and statistics to all the stakeholders and players in the Telecom/ICT sector and all other sectors of the economy.
There three main reasons for that:
First, all data collected are coming from authoritative sources of the countries and validated by them;
Second, the methodology used is that agreed by the countries themselves through the work of EGTI, EGH and the approval of WTIS.
Third, the full transparency and neutrality in the processing by ITU.
It goes without saying that your work is of utmost importance as specialist representatives of Members States on the issues under discussion.
As you may recall, during the joint meeting of EGTI and EGH in October 2016, you decided to review the indicators included in the ICT Development Index (IDI) and to create the EGTI/EGH sub-group to carry out this task.
This decision was later endorsed by the World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium (WTIS) that was held in Botswana from 21 to 23 November 2016.
In order to help the work of the EGTI/EGH sub-group, I engaged an independent group of consultants to carry-out a parallel work in reviewing the indicators included in the IDI and make recommendations that will strengthen the index to reflect the recent market developments and ICT adoption.
I am happy to say that both the experts from the sub-group and the group of consultants are here with us this week to share the outcomes of their work.
During the course of this three-day meeting, you will deliberate and discuss on indicators that are fitted to the IDI's conceptual framework.
I encourage all of you to be objective in reviewing the indicators, to forget how your country will rank in the IDI, but to select indicators that will truly reflect what the index hopes to measure.
We have to make sure that the index is inclusive, that it takes into account ICT developments in both developed and developing countries. This can only be done if we ensure that the data for the revised set of indicators are defined internationally and can be collected by the majority, if not by all countries.
I know that the task in front of you is not easy given the time available and the indicators that you need to consider. This is why I am grateful for your dedication and for being here this week.
I would particularly like to acknowledge and thank the Chair of the sub-group: Mr. Rati Skhirtladze for his dedication in leading the sub-group, and all the sub-group members and experts that provided contributions to this very important work.
I would also like to acknowledge the EGTI and EGH chairs who are with us today, Mr. Inigo Herguera and Mr. Alexandre Barbosa, for their involvement in this work and for their continuous dedication in chairing the expert groups.
I wish you all an enjoyable and productive meeting.
