Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It has been two days of intense meetings and matchmaking roundtables.
I thank the Government of Kazakhstan and especially His Excellency Minister of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry Badgat Mussin, for making this great Forum possible. We greatly appreciate the generosity and exceptional warm hospitality in Kazakhstan.
I would like to thank His Excellency Askhat Orazbek, Vice Minister of the Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan for serving as Chair of the Forum and for his leadership and guidance throughout these two days of intense and engaging discussions.
This was a remarkable meeting with the attendance of more than 105 participants, both physically and online, from 10 member states of the CIS Region, UN agencies, and other industry organizations.
5 VIPs joined this forum.
It was gratifying to witness the diversity at this RDF, the dedication of stakeholders in discussing the digital needs of the region, and the vision of transformation through digital.
You have unselfishly shared best practices, ideas and proposals towards the implementation of the Kigali Action Plan to drive universal connectivity and sustainable digital transformation in the region.
The highlight of this Regional Development Forum has been the matchmaking experience to address the needs of Member States with commitments by partners.
I was very pleased to see among other areas, the commitment of Member States to continue improving their regulatory frameworks as well as drawing from the benefits of new and emerging technologies.
As we harness the immense potential of multi-stakeholder partnerships, we continue to receive pledges via the Partner2Connect Digital Coalition, but more importantly we are also seeing the commitment to actualize the pledges made this far as evidenced from the match-making at the Regional Development Forums.
I would like to applaud every single commitment made by our partners and countries.
The roundtables discussed and identified effective mechanisms to coordinate and collaborate for better and optimal use of resources that will bring high impact and sustainable development in the CIS and beyond.
The matchmaking in this RDF yielded 11 commitments, ranging from digital inclusion work, GovStack, infrastructure development, capacity building on online safety, ICT accessibility, Early Warnings for All, Internet Sustainability, among others.
To date, the total number of Partner2Connect pledges for CIS Region is 89. These pledges valued at 7.17 billion US Dollars have been made by 56 entities from 24 countries.
The complete list of commitments is available on the webpage and will be annexed in the report of the RDF.
I am very grateful for the great achievements and my colleagues in the CIS Regional Office will continue to follow up to facilitate the process, and provide support needed to make sure that concrete projects emerge out of this.
I am pleased that we already witnessed some of the commitments through the announcement of cooperation agreements with partners at this RDF.
I applaud your undivided attention during this event. I must say, the wheels are now moving, taking us to the future we all want.
Let me also express my thanks to all the moderators and panelists, for the invaluable contributions.
Special thanks to the interpreters, technicians and all conference staff who were working behind the scenes to make the RDF an enormous success.
To my ITU colleagues here in the region, led by the Regional Director, Natalia Mochu, and colleagues back in Geneva, thank you for your hard work.
I would like to reiterate my thanks to the Government and the people of Kazakhstan for such a memorable event.
I wish those travelling back a safe journey home!
Raqmet, Spasibo, thank you!
