World leaders call for more timely, harmonized data on global ICT access and affordability

Delegates to the International Telecommunications Union’s World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium (WTIS), held in Mexico City (4-6 December) endorsed the need to strengthen and adapt the way data on information and communication technologies (ICTs) is collected to better meet the needs of today’s fast-evolving environment.

Accurate data on indicators like network access, service affordability and connection speeds is increasingly recognized as essential to each country’s plans for social development and economic growth. The three-day symposium is the world’s most important meeting of ICT data experts from around the world. Organized by ITU, and hosted in 2013 by Mexican regulator the Federal Institute for Telecommunications (IFT), the event welcomed over 300 delegates, including government Ministers, industry CEOs and heads of national and international statistics agencies. “The ICT sector is evolving faster than any sector in human history. The role of this annual symposium is to meet the challenge of measuring the rapid evolution of the sector, and of making sure that ICT data, statistics and indicators are internationally-harmonized, and internationally-comparable,” said ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun I. Touré.