The President has already conveyed his message on how honoured he is to receive this award.

Let me thank the Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré and also ITU senior management for this award granted to President Lula.

President Lula has in fact placed digital inclusion and cybersecurity as top priorities of his administration.

Several digital inclusion programmes have been launched in Brazil.

And the President himself has made a reference to some of them.

And together with cybersecurity, which are both at the top of his agenda, I would like to say a few words:

On digital inclusion, it is worth noting that one of the key elements of all of these programmes is the fact that they are launched on the basis of free and open source software, which create jobs, foster competition and facilitate access to knowledge.

On cybersecurity, let me congratulate ITU on the choice of the theme: ‘Protecting Children in Cyberspace’ for this World Telecommunication and Information Society Day.

President Lula and ITU are in perfect harmony here.

One more thing in the same vein, let me stress that for Brazil the launching of ITU’s Global Cybersecurity Agenda is a very welcome step, a very critical step in the direction of development of a long awaited and truly multilateral framework. Having said that, once again and on behalf of President Lula, I thank you all.