From Connectivity to Capability: How UNU-MERIT and ITU Are Strengthening Digital Policy

Digitalisation is often presented as a force for development. It can expand access to information, improve public services, create new economic opportunities and connect people across borders. But those benefits do not emerge automatically. As digital technologies and artificial intelligence become more deeply embedded in economies and societies, an old development challenge is reappearing in a new form: who benefits, who is left behind, and what institutions are needed to ensure that technological change contributes to inclusive development?

That question sits at the centre of UNU-MERIT’s partnership with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). As part of our Multilateralism at Work series ahead of United Nations Day, we look at how this partnership brings together ITU’s global reach, data and direct relationship with policymakers with UNU-MERIT’s research, analytical and training expertise. It is a practical example of how cooperation across the UN system can work when institutions contribute complementary strengths to a shared challenge. 

Connectivity is only the beginning

The first challenge is access. ITU data continue to show substantial differences in household internet connectivity across regions, with particularly large gaps in parts of Africa and significant inequalities elsewhere. But simply being connected does not mean that people are able to benefit meaningfully from digitalisation. Connectivity also needs to be affordable, reliable and supported by the skills people need to use it effectively. Yet the data needed to understand these wider dimensions of meaningful connectivity are often absent or incomplete.  

This distinction matters because societies can expand digital infrastructure while still reproducing, or even deepening, existing inequalities along geographical, economic, social, age and gender lines. The Global Digital Compact, adopted by the United Nations in 2024, reflects this wider challenge through its emphasis on the responsible use of digital technologies, addressing the digital divide and strengthening international cooperation on digital transformation. Translating those ambitions into practice, however, requires more than infrastructure. It also requires institutions and policymakers with the evidence, analytical skills and capacity to make informed choices.  

Combining complementary strengths

This is where the partnership between ITU and UNU-MERIT becomes particularly valuable. ITU works directly with the governments and institutions responsible for designing and implementing digital policy around the world and maintains globally comparable data on connectivity and digitalisation. UNU-MERIT contributes a different set of strengths: research on technological transformation through the lenses of innovation, governance and development, alongside experience in translating academic knowledge into professional education and capacity development.

Through the ITU Academy, ITU works with academic institutions around the world to strengthen the capabilities of its membership, and UNU-MERIT is one of its Academic Training Centres. In 2026 alone, the partnership delivered six online courses and three face-to-face summer schools, with programmes drawing directly on UNU-MERIT research and teaching expertise and addressing topics ranging from human rights and digitalisation to the use of artificial intelligence in policymaking.  

The objective is therefore not simply to transmit information from one institution to another. It is to help professionals interpret evidence, question assumptions and apply knowledge to the policy challenges they face in their own settings. That combination of global data, research and practical policy experience is where the partnership can add value.

Turning data into better policy

One example is the advanced training programme Evidence-Based Digital Policies to Achieve Universal and Meaningful Connectivity, designed for professionals who work with ICT statistics and need to use that evidence more effectively in their daily work. ITU and UNU-MERIT colleagues teach alongside one another, combining expertise in data collection and statistics with methods of analysis, development research and public policy.

At the latest edition, held in Bangkok from 28 September to 3 October 2026, 30 participants spent a week examining the relationship between digitalisation and sustainable development. Sessions led by José-Luis Cervera and Daniel Vertesy focused on the importance of collecting and using data effectively, while Pui Hang Wong, Praachi Kumar and Mindel van de Laar explored analytical methods and the ways ICT statistics can support better digital policy.  

For Daniel Vertesy of ITU, the value lies precisely in combining those perspectives:

“Collaboration with UNU-MERIT is special among ITU’s other collaborations with UN bodies and specialized agencies: the jointly organised trainings help widen perspectives and deepen content. They help participants – ITU Membership – as well as ITU staff gain new insights, challenge ideas taken for granted, and learn about questions of technological change and sustainable development. The summer schools on evidence-based digital policies have been a great template, showing that combining UNU-MERIT and ITU statistics expertise results in more than the sum of the two. I hope this example also serves future collaborations on other topics, including conducting joint research on issues related to digital transformation”.

The learning, importantly, does not move in only one direction. Participants bring their own institutional realities, policy constraints and practical experiences into the classroom, allowing assumptions to be challenged and research questions to be sharpened. That exchange is part of what makes capacity development genuinely multilateral: expertise is shared, but it is also tested against different national and institutional contexts.

From training to research

The relationship between UNU-MERIT and ITU also extends beyond training. UNU-MERIT’s wider research agenda examines how digitalisation and AI are changing economies, institutions and societies, creating opportunities for research to inform wider ITU discussions and policy agendas. Previous collaboration has included UNU-MERIT contributions to ITU work prepared for the Indonesian G20 Presidency in 2022, while ongoing research across the Institute addresses many of the questions raised by the Global Digital Compact.  

Recent doctoral research illustrates the breadth of those questions. Jonas Krieger examines how people perceive and communicate risks associated with artificial intelligence, including how language and framing influence the way societies respond to emerging technologies and the regulation they demand. Praachi Kumar studies the gender digital divide and the role of social media in both shaping gender inequality and addressing violence against women and girls. Dobrina Stoyanova Poirier, meanwhile, examines meaningful e-participation, showing why merely creating digital channels for citizens does not automatically result in meaningful engagement: outcomes depend on the interaction between what governments provide and how citizens are able and willing to use those opportunities.  

These projects approach digitalisation from very different directions, but together they reinforce a central point: digital transformation is not simply a technological process. It is also about institutions, behaviour, inclusion, governance and the choices societies make about how technology should be used. That is why a partnership focused on digital development needs to connect data and technical expertise with broader questions of development and public policy.

Multilateralism through complementary expertise

The importance of the UNU-MERIT–ITU partnership therefore extends beyond individual courses or research projects. Effective multilateralism does not require institutions to perform identical roles. Its strength often lies precisely in their differences. ITU contributes global policy relationships and an extensive evidence base on connectivity and digitalisation; UNU-MERIT contributes research on technological, social and institutional change together with the pedagogical expertise needed to turn that research into professional learning.

When those capabilities come together, data can inform research, research can inform training, and practitioners can bring experience from different national settings back into both. The result is not simply knowledge being transferred from one institution to another, but knowledge being combined, tested and applied.

At a time when digital technologies are evolving faster than many policy systems can respond, that kind of cooperation is increasingly important. Connecting people remains essential, but meaningful digital inclusion requires much more: reliable evidence, stronger institutions, capable policymakers and continued learning across countries.

That is the contribution UNU-MERIT and ITU are seeking to make together — and one example of what multilateralism at work can look like.