Asia-Pacific proposes new gauges for ITU digital index

Summary

Asia-Pacific administrations propose that the ITU's EGTI and EGH expert groups explore supplementary measures that could improve the ICT Development Index in a later revision.
Their draft retains the adopted rules for an annual index without country rankings, a four-year method, Member State consultation and opt-out. The current 2026 edition covers 159 economies.

An index looks settled once it has a number on the page. The arguments happened earlier, when someone chose what the number should measure. Asia-Pacific administrations put that earlier fight into addendum 7 to ITU contribution 79, listed by the Union on 21 October for its Doha conference. Their proposed revision of Resolution 131 asks the Expert Group on Telecommunication/ICT Indicators and the Expert Group on ICT Household Indicators to explore supplementary metrics and share findings for possible future improvements to the ICT Development Index, or IDI.

The draft also explicitly endorses continued work on a composite index for benchmarking ICT level and growth. A new recital allows a wider conceptual toolbox: quantitative or qualitative measures, input or output measures, and composites where the method can bear their weight. It does not install any new indicator in the published index. ITU's 2026 IDI page says the current edition covers 159 economies and is the fourth built on the method introduced in 2023.

The 2022 Resolution 131 already contained the restraints that make the exercise auditable: annual publication without a country ranking, a four-year period for the structure and method, consultation with states, an option not to participate, minimum-data rules and agreement before using estimates or outside sources to fill a country's gaps. It also called for open formulae, algorithms and source data. The APT text keeps that architecture and adds a place to test gauges for a later cycle.

That makes the dispute less theatrical than a league table and more consequential. A measure chosen now can later become the definition of progress. The experts can examine candidates; Member States still have a formal say over the instrument. A digital dashboard is only as neutral as the hands that decide which dials deserve a hole in it.