Statement of the situation or problem
In order to continue to contribute to and promote attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined in September 2015 and objectives set by the Geneva Plan of Action of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in the era of digital transformation, it is necessary to address the challenge of digital infrastructure development to make available consequent benefit in developing countries.
The offerings of e-services, m-services and over-the-top (OTT) applications present new opportunities for economic development, particularly in developing countries. Enabling technologies such as cloud computing offers ubiquitous, convenient and on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service-provider interaction.
Increased broadband networks also lead to the development and deployment of new services and applications, such as mobile money transfer, m-banking, m-commerce and e-commerce. More importantly, in developing countries, especially in remote areas, there are few health professionals, and the United Nations goal of "minimum healthcare for all” will not be achieved by 2030 without the use of e-health technology. The coronavirus pandemic has made it more difficult to meet people in person, and the relationship between patients and medical doctors, pregnant women and midwives, and elderly people and visiting nurses has begun to change in many ways in the medical field. In addition, students at schools or universities in both urban and remote areas were not able to meet their instructors in person during the pandemic and demand increased sharply on different educational platforms and applications. Such a trend is expected to continue and even increase as it proves effective. Over-the-top applications have connected communities, families, businesses, clients and partners all around the world to stay informed, socialize, practice sport or yoga and be entertained. M-services were at the core of the pandemic response, and will continue to be essential in the years to come.
Question or issue for study
The scope of activities is:
- Introduce best-practice models for e-services in developing countries, including e-health and e-education.
- Ways to promote an enabling environment among ICT stakeholders for the development and deployment of e-services and m-services.
- Study of new e-health technologies, including combating pandemics.
- Sharing e-health standardization with developing countries.
- Methods of development and deployment of cross-cutting m-services related to e-commerce, e-finance and e-governance, including money transfer, m-banking and m-commerce.
- Regulatory frameworks for the provision of OTTs.
- National case studies and experiences regarding legal frameworks and partnerships seeking to facilitate the development and deployment of e-services, m-services and OTTs.
- Impact of OTTs on end-user demand for the Internet.
- Strategies and policies to foster the emergence of a cloud-computing ecosystem in developing countries, taking into consideration relevant standards recognized or under study in the other two ITU Sectors.
Expected output
The output will be a report on the results of the work conducted for each item studied, together with a handbook, case study analysis reports, and other relevant materials at appropriate times, either during the course of or at the conclusion of the cycle.
Information shall be consolidated and disseminated to the membership to organize/support seminars and workshops for sharing best practices on the deployment of e-services, e-education and e-health in developing countries. Specifically, study outputs may promote gender equality and greater access by women to communication technologies, as well as to employment, health and education.
