Good afternoon, everyone. It's a pleasure to connect with you again on the occasion of this GovStack Advisory Board meeting.
It is also a pleasure to see substantive progress in GovStack.
This is becoming an international initiative of note and profile. We now see momentum building in what we do.
We see substantial international expansion. The GovStack ecosystem continues to grow with 19 countries currently involved at various levels of engagement.
We've initiated a range of new partnerships and country engagement efforts, with a strong presence of GovStack offering in all ITU Regional Development Forums held in 2023.
Let me outline some highlights of our recent work:
- We were glad to have our first GovStack deep dive in Egypt to adopt GovStack comprehensively in their digital government transformation.
- Our collaboration in Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia continues with two regional workshops and two use cases demoed in the GovStack Sandbox.
- We kicked-off also a Regional Cooperation on Digital Government for Central Asia and Caucasus countries, recently launched in collaboration with the Government of Kazakhstan.
- In the Asia Pacific Region, the GovStack approach is being adopted by PNG in their National eID Framework, and we are currently collaborating with Bangladesh for a comprehensive adoption of GovStack specs.
- We see more collaboration in Latin American and Caribbean through the RedGEALC – a Regional Network for the Development of eGovernment to build capacity and facilitate the digitalization of public services, addressing unique challenges in the region.
But GovStack is rapidly becoming far more than specific projects in specific countries. It is introducing new ideas and new ways of engagement.
Following the successful launch of the GovStack Women in GovTech Challenge last April, we've engaged 139 women in a specialised training and leadership track.
Sandbox adds exciting new approaches in learning, demonstration and prototyping. In the sandbox environment, which is now active, we have four digital products—ID, Payments, Information Mediator, and Consent.
In knowledge exchange, we've established the GovStack Knowledge Hub in Atingi and ITU Academy.
GovStack is going green. We have released two Green GovStack Guides for ICT Procurement and Data Center Management. These support e-waste reduction and more sustainable public procurement for ICTs. This is particularly important during this COP28 week.
Our journey ahead
Looking ahead, we have planned an exciting and compelling roadmap. In the coming weeks, four new technical specifications are set to be released: eMarketplace, eSignature, GIS, and UX/UI Guidelines.
We will continue our commitment to global capacity building, knowledge transfer and dissemination in 2024.
In all of this, partnership matters. Partnership is everything in GovStack and we are developing more and more.
I want to express my gratitude to the GovStack partners for their commitment to the momentum we talk about.
We are beginning to see more and more pieces put together. There are many touchpoints in the GovStack world. GovStack is teaching us as well about the power of partnership, the power of innovation, and on a global basis, the power of meaningful engagement.
This is becoming a role model initiative in how Digital Public Infrastructure development should be conducted.
My message is: we need more partnership and more collaboration for Digital Public Infrastructure development to amplify our impact and add to our momentum. I hope we will have an opportunity to discuss this in more detail during this meeting.
Thank you!
