Zimbabwean telecommunications expert, Dr Cosmas Zavazava makes history by winning the coveted Director Telecommunications Development Bureau (BDT) position at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) at the ongoing ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Bucharest, Romania.

Dr Zavazava has over 30 years of hands-on experience in the ICT Sector and over two decades of work experience in the ITU, Development Bureau.

He has implemented activities and projects in all the regions of the world.

The Government of Zimbabwe has great confidence in him as a true professional and is optimistic that. Zavazava will land the prestigious post.

The 2022 Session of the ITU Council was presided over by the ITU Secretary-General, Houlin Zhao.

He was Chief of Department responsible for strategic partnerships, resource mobilization, industry and private sector engagement, and execution of ITU development-oriented ICT projects.

Prior to this, he was responsible for Statistics and Measuring the Information Society, Project Management, Capacity Building, Emergency Telecommunications, Climate Change, E-Waste Management, and support to Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing States, and Small Island Developing States.

Zavazava has been passionately designing and implementing global ICT projects for both sustainable development and disaster management. He has a track record of being a high-level multilateral negotiator, undertaking successful resource mobilization, and publishing.

He has written on the role of ICT in addressing the unique needs of least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, Small Island Developing States, and matters concerning developing countries in general.

He has also written on disaster risk reduction and management, climate change adaptation and e-waste management. He is passionate about innovation.

He launched a groundbreaking project on the use of big data to mitigate the impact of the Ebola disease, and epidemics in general. He also launched a project on the use of big data for official statistics.

He holds a Ph. D in multilateral trade (Switzerland), Master of Laws in Telecommunications and Information Technology Law (United Kingdom), Master’s in international Relations (USA), Master’s in Business Administration (Zimbabwe), Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, and Diplomas in Telecommunications and Systems Engineering (Romania and Japan).

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