Giga

A product of timing, opportunity, and need, Giga is a joint International Telecommunications Union (ITU)/United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) initiative that was founded in 2019 to support governments in making the quest to connect every school and every young person to the internet achievable, a sound investment and a fruitful undertaking. Giga is a model of UN system cooperation, combining the know-how and expertise of UNICEF and ITU.  

Giga supports governments to make data-evidenced decision-making, access financing and undertake procurement to connect every school to the internet by 2030. 

As of early 2025, 34 countries and territories have been engaged with Giga.  

Giga also collaborates with other UN agencies on digital education, such as UNHCR and UNESCO, in the Digital Transformation Collaborative and the Gateway to public digital learning platform.

Giga has been recognised in the GDC as a key stepping-stone to the commitment to connect all schools and hospitals to the internet by 2030. 

Giga is supported by the governments of Switzerland and Spain, the Regional Government of Catalonia, and the City of Barcelona. Other major supporters include Ericsson, Dell, and IHS Towers.

With 2.6 billion people still offline and an estimated half of the world’s schools are still not connected to the internet.  

Without internet access, children miss out on various learning and opportunities to participate in an increasingly digital world.

This is why the work of the ITU/UNICEF Giga initiative to achieve universal school connectivity has never been more critical. 

Giga draws on the strengths of its two partnering organisations: ITU, in policy and regulation and capacity development, and UNICEF, in improving children’s lives across the world, with operations in 190 countries and expertise in procurement.

Giga’s work is carried out under four key pillars: mapping schools, modelling the requisite infrastructure, mobilising finance, and contracting for connectivity. All of this work is underpinned by capacity development across all the areas relating to school connectivity.

Giga is headquartered in Geneva at the Giga Connectivity Centre, at Campus Biotech, in the heart of International Geneva. Aside from being a collaboration hub for the joint ITU–UNICEF team, the Centre is also the base for activities to facilitate digital innovation, capacity building, information sharing, and showcasing solutions across the entire value chain of school connectivity to help stakeholders advance their digital transformation agendas in education. The Centre is also home to Giga’s work on supporting governments in mobilising capital for connectivity and to streamline public procurement processes for contracting school connectivity services.

The Barcelona Technology Centre is the base for Giga’s technical work, where its data scientists and engineers develop scalable and sustainable open-source solutions for school connectivity using different technologies.

Digital policy issues

Sustainable development

By providing data-driven insights, strategic policy and regulatory guidance, and innovative financing models, Giga supports governments in developing achievable, scalable, and sustainable connectivity plans. 

Strategic policy guidance 

Giga leverages ITU expertise to help governments develop policies and regulatory environments that foster the effective realisation of school connectivity, including influencing market behaviour, use of universal service funds, investment incentives for school connectivity, and efficient procurement practices that promote fair competition. It also offers tailored guidance to governments on adopting technical solutions for last-mile infrastructure to regulatory frameworks.

Innovative finance

The absence of essential digital infrastructure presents a significant obstacle, especially in low and lower-middle-income countries, restricting access to learning and economic opportunities. A key part of its work under the finance pillar, Giga is actively involved in major multistakeholder efforts to galvanise investment in digital infrastructure.

One such effort is the Digital Infrastructure Investment Initiative (DIII). Launched in 2024 by ITU, it is co-led by six development finance institutions (DFIs) in coordination with the G20 presidencies of Brazil (2024) and South Africa (2025). The DIII is working to identify ways to maximise the impact of traditional investments and develop new financing mechanisms and instruments to boost digital investment.  Representatives from the Giga community have provided useful insights to the DIII Working Group. For its part, Giga is also exploring innovative financing approaches to support school connectivity. 

Digital public infrastructure 

Giga is also involved in strengthening the springboarding of education transformation through the harnessing of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). Giga’s focus is on interoperability of platforms – usable practically anywhere – that support a learner-centric approach. 

A new Giga report, Building the case for a digital public infrastructure for education, published in early 2025 in collaboration with ITU, presents case studies in DPI to achieve scalable, impactful digital solutions for schools.

Digital tools 

Giga designs, develops and deploys digital products and services to help governments accelerate their school connectivity goals. These offerings are adaptable to the circumstances of each country rather than one-size-fits-all solutions. Examples include tools to geolocate schools through a combination of government and open source data, complemented with tools such as machine learning algorithms that use satellite imagery. This and other tools are designed to facilitate the planning and implementation of interventions to foster digital inclusion even for remote or underserved regions. Our open-source tech solutions align with Giga’s principles of openness and scalability.

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