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ITU REGIONAL ENGAGEMENT ROUNDTABLE FOR EUROPE

SEPTEMBER 13, 2021

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>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Hello to everyone.

>> Good morning.

>> I see there are still a few delegates joining. We may wait 1, 2 more minutes before we start.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Ladies and gentlemen, it is 9:05. I hope it is a I hope many colleagues will still be joining. Many of us are already here so welcome to the ITU Regional Engagement Roundtable for Europe Region. Before we're starting with the meeting, I would like to invite our colleagues, the technical moderator to provide us some guidelines on this hub and how this will be handled.

The floor is yours.

>> ANTONELA BARDHOKU: Thank you.

Dear participants, thank you for joining. My name is Antonela Bardhoku and I'm the remote participate moderator for the event.

I would like to give instructions on the Zoom platform and the meeting. This meeting is entirely remote. The audience is kindly asked to keep their microphone switched off the moderator of the session will address the speakers and will give the floor when your turn comes. You may use the chat for any questions or comments. Please include your name and affiliation for making it easier for the organizers.

Moderator also be monitoring and any comment may be red out if time allows. When the floor is open to the audience, please raise your Rand to request the floor. That's at the bottom of the participant window. To access that, click the participant part on the bottom of the Zoom interface. You can view and activate the captioning by clicking on the bottom place of the interface. We kindly ask you to display your full name and affiliation if possible. The meeting is being recorded and the recording will be used for report writing and communication purposes. Every effort being made to facilitate a smooth flow of this meeting.

Thank you very much and have a pleasant event.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you very much, Antonela Bardhoku, for this guidance and dear ladies and gentlemen, now It is my great pleasure to welcome you all at the ITU regional engagement roundtable. This is organized by the ITU office for Europe and hosted by the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia. This is held back to back with the CPT and the Committee for the ITU policy and it will be held from today until Wednesday and starting later during the day.

Our meeting, the engagement roundtable will provide an opportunity for our dialogue between our office and the ITU and decision makers of the ITU Member States and sector members and or relevant stakeholders. The event will provide as you platform for assessing stakeholder challenges related to digital development and strategic orientation and that it may be taken into consideration in the planning process of the Work Plan of the ITU office for Europe in particular focusing on 2022.

Today in the Opening Ceremony I had a great pleasure to be joined by two distinguished colleagues that are representative of the Government of Georgia helping us in the organization of this meeting, and also President of CEPT who is always constantly supporting our activities and providing the coordination on issues related to the implementation at the European level.

Thank you very much for this.

So not to prolong, we invite His Excellency Mr. Guram Guramishvili, Deputy Minister from the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia to deliver the opening remarks.

>> GURAM GURAMISHVILI: Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to virtually host ITU Regional Engagement Roundtable which brings together the administration of ITU Member States, regulators, ITU sector members, academia, regional and international organizations and or relevant stakeholders to discuss as well as exchange experiences and good practices on challenges at regional and national levels. These challenges are related to digital development and strategic orientations that may be taken into consideration in the planning process for the working plan of the ITU office for Europe.

I would like to extend my deep gratitude to the International Telecommunication Union for organizing this significant virtual event and all the participants of the roundtable for their participation. It is our pleasure to welcome you in person today's event in Georgia, but I hope after the COVID pandemic is over we will have such a possibility.

As a matter of fact, we're living in constantly evolving Digital World and information era. Where the information and the communication technologies have an impact on nearly every aspect of our lives ranging from working and learning to entertaining. The right to access the Internet and included in the Constitution of Georgia. The Internet is recognized as one of the most powerful instruments for accessing information and facilitating active citizen participation in building a democratic society.

The COVID pandemic shows us the significance of the information and communication technologies and necessity of the development technologies and broadband connectivities in the fastest way. In order to develop information and the information and communication technologies and broadband connectivity the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia which is a policymaker in the field of electronic communications and information technologies in the country is working on various activities. Some of which I would like to mention now.

The national broadband development strategy and its implementation action plan was adopted by government the Georgia last year. The targets of which are number one, increase competitive pressure, number two, attract investment, number three, build digital skills and demand. For implementation the Government of Georgia started to logging Georgia project, components of the project is to increase access to broadband, Internet and promote the use of broadband enabled digital services.

The development of 5G is one of the strategic priorities for our country. 5G Strategic Plan preparation process, coordination of preferences with neighboring countries and other activities are in the way. We support the development of community network in Hess populated areas. The community network project where successfully completed in 2017 and 2019 were taking advantage of its geographical location and its business climate, Georgia, has the potential and is able to host a regional digital hub. The working process of the development of the digital hub in Georgia is underway. The ministry, economy, Sustainable Development of Georgia started work on longterm national strategy of the development of digital economy and Information Society and implementation plan. The aim of the above mentioned strategy is to develop the digital economy in the country. I would like to take this opportunity and express our gratitude to the team of telecommunication communication Development Bureau, ITU office for Europe and experts for geotechnical assistance for Georgia on drafting National Assessment Report and ICTcentric innovation ecosystem snapshot and accommodations for Accelerated Digital Transformation.

This document will contribute to further development of the safe digital ecosystem of Georgia. I strongly believe that the goal of the virtual roundtable will also encourage a positive relationship between the stakeholders and the dialogue will provide a new opportunity for the implementation of the activities of the action plan. I wish you interesting discussion and productive workday.

Thank you for your attention.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Excellency, thank you very much for the warm greetings and we are looking forward to the great cooperation in the future.

Let me turn to our next speakers of the Opening Ceremony, coPresident of the CIPT.

The floor is yours.

>> CRISTIANA FLUTUR: Thank you very much, thank you, Minister, for the very nice words in the opening of this engagement roundtable. It would have been extremely nice to be in Georgia at this time. Unfortunately we have to make use of this virtual and thank you very much for hosting the virtual meeting.

I fully agree with what the Minister said in terms of the importance of ICTs in the current situation. I think we have known, us that work in the field, we have known for a long time the importance of ICTs, now the whole world knows it. We have all made use of ICTs for business continuity and also for let's say our social life, it moved online for a while. Let's hope that we will continue to make very good use of the ICTs in the future. Thank you very much, Jaroslaw for inviting me to say a few words in this meeting. Of course, it is very important for us at CEPT to have the meetings back to back, we normally have them in physical format. The physical engagement also between the platform that the BDT is providing with the ITU regional office for Europe, this engagement between us is very, very important.

As you know, the CEPT, it is also a platform for discussion for multistakeholder engagement in the works that we do in terms of preparing ourselves for the ITU events, the most important ones. What we want from the policy of the ITU, it is very important for everyone to be engaged in these discussions, because afterwards we see the results, not only for tackling the challenges that we have in Europe but you know that Europe is seen as reference point by other regions. It is very important how we engage and how we come together at the same table and we discuss all the plans ahead for the ITU.

Let me say that I think it is very important that we ensure that the actions of the ITU have a great impact.

I think these discussions, this multistakeholder format is key to how we move forward with our proposals and our positions and we want to also see the strengthening of the use of the resultsbased management that we see being implemented currently at the BDT level. I think that's a very impactful way of working and this is the perfect time to make use of it. Let's try together to also tackle our challenges and move ahead with being the good example that we normally are and I just want to take this opportunity to thank Jaroslaw and team for engaging with us and having this excellent coordination between our platforms. I think it is very important for us.

I wish you also very good discussions today and of course, we see each other later in the Plenary in the afternoon.

Thank you.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you very much, Cristiana Flutur. Thank you for always your warm words.

Let me say a few words on behalf of the ITU. Of course, welcoming you, Excellency and Cristiana Flutur and all participants that joined today in this engagement roundtable. This is a special meeting which aims not to confuse anyone in the exercise. You recall very well that in the beginning of the year, we kicked off the year with the regional preparatory meeting where we were focusing more on the milestones and our objectives for the programming, the contribution to the WTDC. Today, of course, we're focused on something which is very important, the continuation of our work in the coming months and year to respond to the immediate challenges and this is what we need to address in order to speed up and accelerate Digital Transformation in our region and country level, regional level and also remaining reference point for the other regions.

Before I start, let me thank Excellency for his opening remarks and also the ministry and the team for supporting this event and the continuous collaboration on many actions and the number of activities is increasing.

Thank you very much for this.

Also sincere thanks to Cristiana Flutur for her approach herself and also the team of the CEPT who is always there and to brainstorm, to act, to be with us ensuring the multistakeholder approach and bottomup approach.

I would like to also thank all members of the CEPT for the close collaboration and the engagement with the ITU office for Europe ensuring that we remain focused and always proactive wherever and whenever it is needed. I think it is I think the presence, the response, the call for contributions to the meeting, it is a perfect demonstration of this and what we're doing together, almost over 20 region contributions and 10, 15 other contributions to come today. It is a clear demonstration that we are advancing the Digital Transformation in the regional level and in the right direction and where the intervention is needed.

As you know, we live if exceptional times and this is an exceptional year. COVID19 caused the postponement, delaying the strategies for an additional year. This engagement roundtable, it is giving us the possibility and providing a platform for assisting stakeholders and addressing challenges that may be taken into consideration of the planning process of '22 working plan with the BDT, including the one for the ITU office for Europe which focused on and we have learned already our region is very diverse, but it doesn't mean that we have a very different group of the countries. All countries are working together and we're happy to see so many twinning programmes are coming to life. Thank you for this open discussion between those who are looking for some practices and those who are offering the practices at the regional level to be shared.

Now despite the COVID19, the extension of the implementation period, the office has been continuing the implementation of the regional initiative for Europe to support the members and continue fulfilling our mandate. Several activities have been done and engaging directly almost 46 countries, new projects were initiated and cooperation at the European institution are significantly strengthened not only for meeting expectations of the region but also creating new avenues for transfer of the knowledge and transfer of the knowledge and cooperation between the European countries and the countries of the other reason, what Cristiana Flutur had already mentioned, thank you for stressing this important function, of our joint action.

We have made available our implementation report, annual, on the website and we hope that you had the chance to take a look at this. We also are hearing about key updates in the next section from the members of the Europe office team who I would like to thank for their dedication and hard work on the daily basis, not watching the clock, and always being there to ensure the impact is a reality.

Ladies and gentlemen, today is all about coordination between different stakeholders to identify the main challenges and possible solutions to be addressed in the last part of the year and in the 2022 year. 2021, digital trends published in January, and it is also our discussions at the RPM provided already some foundation for the deliberations today, however today we have tried to be very much focused on priorities and possible areas of intervention in the very shortterm.

We're glad that we have received so many contributions and looking forward to hearing all of them. Thank you to the contributors for taking time to reflect and to propose and to be open for any kinds of the collaboration in order to advance the Digital Transformation.

Please note those contributions will be also contributed by our science analytical efforts based on the strategic analytical documents which we're referring to the European region. This includes also the common country analysis of the unite nation service of the digital development that we have made on the website and the strategies of the E.U., including the E.U. digital compass and the Western Baltic digital agenda for this, the roadmap on digital cooperation and many, many others. So this exercise, which we're conducting, it is really some efforts in order to make sure that there is no duplication of the efforts and we can support each other.

I would like to recognize our collaboration with many ministries and including the Ministry of Georgia and also our happiness to continue to work and in particular the readiness to support the efforts of the U.N. country team in the rollout of the roadmap for digital cooperation in Georgia which raised their hands to come down this path in the coming months.

There are many other ongoing collaborations as well and challenges and needing more international cooperation and you will hear more in the next session. Before kicking off this event, I would like to thank one more time our strategic partners, including European Commission, BERAC, RCC of Western Balkans, CEPT, many, many others that are continuously supporting us in the implementation process of the regional initiatives for Europe. ITU, including the office for Europe is active and committed to supporting the membership and supporting more impact in the region. Therefore, it is also our great pleasure to draw attention to the importance of 2022 which is an important milestone for the ITU with three conferences coming up, the Standardization Assembly and development conference and the PP, we're sure we'll have the we will have lots of opportunities to strengthen even more our collaboration. We would like to use this opportunity also to extend our call and to all countries to engage with the CEPT and to take a look at the different work streams leading towards those conferences and to make sure that the voice of all Member States and all stakeholders is reflected to the contributions for those many conferences.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for the attention. Sorry for being long. It is really a great pleasure to kick off this meeting and with this, thank you very much and we'll be proceeding with the meeting, closing the Opening Ceremony at this moment.

As we're closing the ceremony of the opening and thank you to all who have contributed, of course, the tradition, it is to take a historic picture. Over to Julian.

>> If we could all for a moment switch on our cameras and we'll take a quick picture and then we can proceed with the meeting. Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Great. Thank you very much, Julian. Thank you for making this historic moment happening.

Now, dear ladies and gentlemen, let's move to the first session for the main session, the roundtable discussion on implementation of the regional initiatives for Europe and the BDT thematic priorities. I would like to request for displaying the slides. This session is composed of the four speakers, including those representing Member States in our Coordination Mechanism at the regional level. Before we'll go into the discussion I would like to invite my colleagues to share with us a few updates on this work that's happening this year and that we're getting good understanding on the dynamics of the work in the region as well as a little bit of the inspiration of the work we may do together in the future.

Before we're starting with the presentations on different items, next slide, we would like to draw your attention to the importance of the regional initiatives and they have been agreed on the development conference in 2017 giving us indications in which direction we should be going and we have received the guidance on the five areas of the work within which we are providing concrete services at the national and regional level and also providing some inspiration for others.

Next slide, please.

Of course, within the WTDC, within the work process, the Development Sector, it is working around the ten thematic priorities of the Development Sector which includes infrastructure, cybersecurity, managing communication, digital policy and regulation, innovation, capacity development, statistics services and applications and digital inclusion and environment.

Those are the global services which are providing studies of the services and providing capacities which we are using in order toed a dance the implementation of the regional initiatives.

Next slide.

That's why it is important for all stakeholders to make sure that you are aware of all service offering provided by the Development Sector. We have provided for you in the implementation letter the reference point to the service offering but also the shortened executive presentation made available on the websites where you're able to go through the examples of the services provided at the global level which can be transformed and transposed at the regional, national level.

Let's take a look how those rim packeting and providing support to the regional initiatives we see and for five regional initiatives, they're unique through the thematic priorities and our programming exercise for the next year, we'll continue to follow the same approach, and ensuring we're not committing to any activities which would not fall in the mandate of the ITU which is not covered and by the outcomes of the WTDC or where the ITUD wouldn't have the capacities of the implementation.

With this, I would like to invite our colleagues, my team to provide a short update in the executive format on each of the regional initiatives and activities carried out this year.

Next slide.

Over to you.

>> Julian McNeill: Welcome to all. From the perspective of the initiative, for the broadband infrastructure, broadcasting and spectrum management. We initiated this work with the ITU forum on meaningful connectivity which was kindly hosted by the Government of Slovenia and then we proceeded with the ITU GSR21 regional regulatory roundtable for Europe and Africa and we have provided the regional the interregional platform to provide input to the global GSR and then also in April we conducted the ITU regional assessment for Europe with the workshop for many stakeholders on the EMF building upon the work and the gaps highlighted in 2020 and there would be more activities and more deliverables coming out later this year on this item and also at the regional level we organized the special training for Europe on ICT infrastructure business planning with over 15 country was delegates from administrations from over 1500 countries in Europe taking the eightweek training. On the side of the report, we have in the pipeline a series of 5G nonE.U. country report and it is forthcoming over the next month. As I mentioned, just also just recently we published the report on the implementing 5G for good, does EMF matter, and as I mentioned, this is something it is a report that takes stock of everything that's going on in the policy and standard setting in the ITU and beyond.

Also importantly the ITU report on connectivity and education, which is a collaboration at the regional level with the regional office for Europe and Central Asia on UNICEF, and this is also something that I would like to highlight that would be presented in the context of the upcoming digital summit for the Western Balkans. At the level of country engagement, we have engaged many countries with the technical assistance and other activities where we did the technical assistance in Slovenia done in the form with twinning with Hungary, an interesting exercise and at the moment we're supporting Montenegro with the IPv6 with the procurement of a laboratory with the country to trigger the transition for IPv6 and we're kicking off the technical assistance Bosnia and Herzegovina and twinning went Slovenia and we have worked with Moldova and Romania to advance the ITU initiative on collaborative work.

To conclude, a few examples of where we're going, the example of the activities conducted in the ITU office for Europe has been scaled up globally on the EMF and on the mapping systems with where we're leveraging the expertise from colleagues in Poland to establish the ITU guidelines on the establishing of the broadband mapping systems.

This is all from my side. I will hand it over to my colleague for regional initiative 2. Thank you.

>> SARAH DELPORTE: In terms of regional initiative 2, focused on the citizen centric approach for building services for national administrations, next slide, please, we have a lot done on the digital agriculture topic because we have a longstanding cooperation with advancing Digital Transformation of the agricultural sector. One of the recent initiatives that was undertaken with the FAO is the digital excellence in contest, which was focused on identifying innovative good practices that had the potential of scalability in the Europe and Central Asia region. There was 6 steps to this contest and the three main steps were the call for good practices in the field of digital agriculture in Europe and Central Asia and then the launching event of the stocktaking report presenting the 171 eligible practices that have been collected through the call and then upcoming award ceremony held on the 23rd of September in the framework of the ITU regional innovation forum which will award the winner of the contest.

Within this same collaboration with the FAO we will soon launch the agriculture report focused on the 28 finalists practices identified through the call and also focused on the challenges and the trends that was identified through the call. Then we will also have the ITUFAO preparations on the digitalization and agriculture, a guide for preaccession countries to meet the policy of the E.U. digitalization and within this context we'll support the FAO on the development of digital agriculture policy and we will focus on the mobile health, so we have the health, knowledge hub for Europe, it is a ITU, WHO and Andalusin public health service funded by European. Union. And at the highlevel, it will aim to provide services in areas of operational research, train, education, identifying standards, regulatory and policy goals and implementing supports.

In this context on the 28th of January, January 2021, there were talks hosted and the first dialogue organized together with the WHO, ITU and the European Commission was focused on the integration of health systems. In the regional initiative, we also have the focus on eGovernance with the GovStack, it is government services for ate achievement of SDGs which is an collaboration between ITU, Estonia Germany and DIAL and it will look at the acceleration of government services for the Sustainable Development Goals and in particular, it is in other settings. It is talking about digital services and application in a cost efficient, accelerated, integrated manner and are built with best experiences and practices. Overall, it is to reduce time and effort to look at the digital services and we have held two special sessions on the developing countries.

We have a focus on eWaste, it is a new plan that will be kicked off to look at eWaste monitoring for the Western Balkans.

>> I'm happy to share activities on Regional Initiative 3. Go to the next slide.

Here we will see activities related to accessibility, digital skills, youth, gender. We have had a very exciting year until now. We have had plenty of activities where everyone here, I see a lot of colleagues that have been participating in these events and have been making that happen together with us. When it comes to accessibility, we started with a series of selfbased trainings on topics including crisis, emergency, web access, inclusive communications.

We held the special session focusing on fostering digital innovation ecosystems for Accessible Europe, it was part of the Zero Project Conference, Zero Project is a good partner of ours, working with us in accessibility related matters. We of course held our flagship event, Accessible Europe in March this year, which was very well received and we had a great host there, the Government of Portugal and of course EC like every year and we look forward again to this event in 2022.

During Accessible Europe, of course, before it, during, after, we have our flagship regional competition for innovative digital solutions and we had a lot of submissions, 97 submissions from 29 different countries, a competition that really brings a lot of key innovations to light and to support the innovators even more, we launch a curation program for the innovators which held open consultation webinars to understand better their needs and to create the best programme for them and we had an SME master class on accessibility as part of Digital World 2021 brainstorming and 101 mentoring sessions. We had a side event on the flexible work environments and home Office of The 14th conference of state parties to the CRPD, as well as we're going to have on the 4th of September a side event on accessibility again together with Zero Project on during the regional innovation forum for Europe which we'll talk about later on. We launched a very important report that ITU study on the assessment of digital accessibility policies in Serbia which also links us to our country engagement with the Government of Serbia on the technical assistance on ICT accessibility policy review, we had an event around the launch of this report and we also did a regional assessment of the enabling environments, issuing accessible ICTs for Person with Disabilities in the Europe region, a very interesting assessment that I invite everyone to go and have a look at together with the assessment for the Government of Serbia.

If we move to the next slide, in the same regional initiative we are looking now at gender, we, of course, have our gender digital divide event, this was linked to one of the reports that we launched together with U.N. Women that you can see on the slide. We launched the Network of Women at the beginning of the year, a network that's going very strong and we have had a lot of activities together with the CEPT and here I would like to thank all the various members of the Network of Women who have been very active in leading events such as the ITU and CEPT, girls in ICT tenure and anniversary, a lot of get togethers happened this year in different European countries by this network and we also had another get together at the CEPT which is very exciting for the Network of Women as well as we just held a leadership training on the fourth of June and one on the 9th of September which was very well received by the members.

On digital skills we have the Regional Forum for Europe on digital skills in March as well as we had the report and assessment, let's say, on the national approaches to the digital skills development and we also did some technical assistance and are doing it right now together with the governments of Albania, Ukraine, this is a very, very good country engagement of digital skills and you will see the interesting outcomes soon at the end of the year for both these assessments.

Looking at youth, we, of course, had Generation Connect which launched again at the beginning of the years with an amazing youth declaration. We have, of course, the Generation Connect which is super active and did an event on Girls in ICTs in April. They participated also in the youth roundtable in May and we'll have a youth innovation session on the 23rd of September during the European innovation forum and lastly end the year on the youth events with digital youth jam, awaited, it will have an outcome session at the IGF in Poland.

Thank you very much, I give it back to my colleague for the next slide.

>> SARAH DELPORTE: Focusing on regional initiative 4, we have a lot of focus impact on child online protection. We can go to the next slide, please.

As you may be aware of, in 2020 the updated ITU guidelines were launched following the request of the Member States to do so. So following this, we do have a lot of focus on Child Online Protection and the rollout of the guidelines in Europe region at the national level. At the moment we already have 11 guidelines available in 11 European languages and are continuing this in that sense and we have seen some new languages coming up in the coming months. In terms of the event, we will soon host the special ITU workshop on fostering child online protection and we'll focus on those guidelines on the 24th of September which is held within the context of the ITU coorganized conference keeping children and young people safe online. This will provide good practices on how the materials can be rolled out at the country level.

In terms of the country engagement in this context, the ITU has elaborated strategy for the Child Online Protection National Assessment from Moldova and we'll kickoff a new support to North Macedonia which we're excited about on the child online protection, on supporting the country to elaborate on the Child Online Protection Assessment and the operational roadmap to ensure safety of children online.

In terms of project, we're also very excited about this and we will soon support the Albania in the rollout of the Global Project, creating a safe and prosperous cyberspace for children, and it will comprehend a lot of very exciting activities such as awareness raising across multiple stakeholders.

Thank you very much.

>> Thank you.

If we can move to the next slide for regional initiative five and next slide, please, we're just going to dive straight into the activities.

We started very, very interesting digital innovation profile work with Georgia, this was a great, great work that we did together, some amazing cocreation workshops with insights into the digital ecosystem in the country and a big stakeholder event where we had a lot of feedback and we're in the last stretch where we'll be publishing the document very soon and we're excited to share it with everyone and I really look forward to everyone reading it because they are interesting insights, including some insights on artificial intelligence. We also are working towards the innovation forum as I mentioned, this is happening '22 and '23 of September. Join us in the forum and it will take place virtually and we thank the Government of North Macedonia for hosting this forum. Before it started, of course we have a very, very interesting report that we launched on accelerating innovation, entrepreneurship and digital transformation in Europe so you will find a lot of best practices in the report and I invite you all to have a look at it. We did a launch event on the first of July and we reheard from the change makers directly on the various projects that took place.

Then we have a new country engagement on the digital profile with the Government of Serbia which we're planning to end, to do by the end of the year and we'll also a large event for both of these digital innovation profiles and we'll certainly get more information on that.

Then moving on a little bit on the Centres of Excellence, which are a programme full of very interesting courses. We had around 21 training, some are still ongoing, invited to check them out on the website and at the ITU academy, we had the 5th meeting of the ITU Steering Committee for this year which really approved, was going to happen until the end of the year and we'll have a next meeting on the 5th of November which will be looking at next year and approving the plan for next year.

This is just from my side. I pass it on to my colleague again for the next slide.

>> To finish this presentation, we'll focus on the U.N. affairs, the objective is to strengthen the cooperation of ITU with the U.N. Sustainable Development system, cooperation with the E.U. structures and the collaboration of the ICT projects Advancing Achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals leading to foster Digital Transformation and ICT development through enhanced multistakeholder cooperation and interagency coordination.

So with this in mind, next slide, please.

The ITU has joined two regional mechanism, the first one being the U.N. Digital Transformation Group for Europe and Central Asia and the idea of this is to provide a platform for coordination among the U.N. agencies to align on the Digital Transformation and the activities that can be rolled out together at the regional level. To name a few of the milestones, in March of 21 there was a special event on Sustainable Development for Europe and Central Asia. In April of 2021 we kicked off the coordination of the Western Balkans digital services to be held in October to provide inputs and to hold special sessions and we invite you to join this done together with the RCC in order to see a bit of the Digital Transformation.

In May of 2021 we held a special event at the World Summit and we're forcing in November of 2021 to hold special data protection executive trainings for resident coordinators in Europe and Central Asia.

Another regional mechanism that we joined recently, and that we're cochairing together is the U.N. taskforce on digitalization for the SDGs. So the Digital Transformation, it aims at providing a platform and mechanism for coordination between the U.N. agencies and this time focused on aligning the U.N. approach to Digital Transformation with the Europe approach to Digital Transformation which is the strategy for the next ten years which is the digital compass.

To name a few of the biggest milestones, we have been undertaking that together with the group and we held a sorry, we elaborated a brief on the E.U. programming for the resident coordinators and the country teams and we also from January through October of 2021 we held a series of coordination and we will be holding a series of coordination with digital connect, others, the Secretariat and the U.N. office as well.

Finally we worked on the digitization of SDGs accompanied as you can see on this slide aiming to again showcase the different approach to advance Digital Transformation from the U.N. and how this fits with this approach.

Finally, so I have been mentioning the U.N. country team and the resident coordinator, ITU recently joined the sustainable system in the Europe region and we're working together with the Regional Coordinator office and U.N. country teams in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Moldova, North Macedonia, Georgia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine, and we held a common country analysis and a special Digital Transformation session in North Macedonia and Georgia to share information and to identify the challenges in the national level and basically opportunities to collaborate and advance Digital Transformation together.

Finally, in the same context, of advancing, the ITU is having a series of country profiles, aimed to be a collaborative work together with the U.N. country teams and to provide building blocks to advance the digital development at the country level and we're finalizing this exercise for Georgia, Moldova, North Macedonia, and we'll soon have Albania.

Thank you.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you very much, colleagues, for providing the executive briefs. I think this is very important to have the big picture of what's happening in the region and all of this would not happen without your strong engagement, the stakeholders with us day by day, looking at how to connect different dots to ensure that there is no duplications, that we're going in the same direction and most important, that we can provide the support to the countries and to the region in the right way.

In fact, it is my great pleasure to welcome at this panel colleagues, representing and being with us in different functions and being the voice of Europe in different coordination bodies who would also provide their views on how the European contribution and to the work of the Development Sector and the whole ITU and how it may work in the best way.

This brings us to the introduction of our first speaker, Blanca Gonzalez, TDAG ViceChair, Telecommunication Development Advisory Group ViceChair for Europe and head of the unit at the cabinet of the Spanish Secretary of State for telecommunications and Information Society in Spain and I would like to kick off this panel with introduction coming from her.

Blanca Gonzalez, the floor is yours.

>> BLANCA GONZALEZ: Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody.

I would like to thank the Government of Georgia for organizing this very important meeting. I would like to express my thanks to Jaroslaw Ponder and his team. They are doing an excellent job. With very limited resources, they're doing a very good job in Europe as they have mentioned, and I will as I'm the TDAG ViceChair along with the Netherlands, and our role, it is to coordinate the regional activities with the TDAG, the Telecommunication Development Advisory Group. The invitation letter for the TDAG meeting was sent last week and the next meeting is 8 to 12 November, fully virtual, I would like to invite you, to encourage all of you to participate in the meeting as it is very important because the development conference is coming soon. We'll be we'll be defining the strategy for the Development Sector for the future.

Besides being ViceChair for TDAG, I'm currently chairing the TDAG group for the strategic, operational plan. In my group we are preparing the action plan for the Development Sector. We are now starting our work, we have our next meeting on October the 4th, and we have also a sharepoint, a sharepoint site where we're exchanging documents and my group is together with the Working Group on works in works with Resolution, Declaration, Thematic Priorities, and so for the next period we're envisioning instead of the 10 thematic priorities that were highlighted in the previous slide, we are now considering between 4 and 5.

The discussion is now very active on the future and so I would encourage all of you to participate in this preparatory process and just to say I'm at your disposal, any question, any request you may have, you can contact me and I'll be very thankful and finally I would like to say there are 16 contributions for this meeting, it mean there is a lot of interest from Europe regarding the digitization and the new Digital Transformation.

To thank all the contributions, all of the contributions to this meeting. And with this, I thank you all. Thank you very much.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you, Blanca Gonzalez, for introduction.

I thank you very much also for all of those words directed to our team. This is teamwork with all stakeholders as mentioned. All these words are going to all of you and colleagues, we're very happy that we're able to contribute and as I understand, there is a lot of opportunities for the stakeholders to country butt to the development of the operational plan and also to the other work that Blanca had represented, the voice of Europe is very important in the TDAG and from different perspectives.

They're looking forward to the enhanced engagement of different stakeholders and also I was talking about engagement, let's take also a look at the different preparations of the European region and its work with the WTDC, today we're joined by the Chair of the Com team focused on the presentations of the WTDC, welcome, Inga, Inga Rimkeviciene, representing the CEPT at this meeting and also being the Director of the international public relations for the division of communications regulatory authority of Lithuania.

If you don't mind providing us an update, where we stand with the preparations and what you would like to see happening in the coming months.

>> INGA RIMKEVICIENCE: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you to the colleagues from Georgia for giving us this platform and for giving us the opportunity to meet and here what's going on with the implementation of regional initiatives.

I would like to speak a bit about the perspective for the future. As you have heard from my colleagues already, we're having a pretty busy year ahead of us in 2022 because of three major events of ITU ahead of us. One of this will be the postponed World Telecommunication Development Conference. To start preparations to this event, last year the CEPT established a project team dedicated to the preparations of the WTDC. I'm addressing here today as the Chair of this project team.

One of the tasks of this is to develop draft proposals for the conference and currently we already have nine approved and still many projects, drafts to work on. For today's discussion, I think that the most important is number 2, and this is the European common proposal on regional priorities for Europe for the new cycle, 2022/2025. These priorities were formally called initiatives and now it is called priorities, more accurate, these are five trends where representatives of Europe considered that common efforts should be enhanced. So including digital infrastructure development, Digital Transformation for resilience, inclusion and skills development, trust and confidence in the use of digital technologies and the last, digital innovation ecosystem. These five priorities were not elaborated on the project team initially. Though later on we discussed, actively discussed this at the project team, but these initial draft priorities, they were based mainly on the inputs of national administrations and sector members for the Regional Preparatory Meeting in January.

This was the result of two days’ work with the representatives of administration, the Secretariat and the private organizations also.

So these are the outcomes of the joint efforts, they went to the project team and finally became an ECP. By the regional priorities, why they're so important, just to remind you, because in the new cycle of 2022 these priorities would be translated into specific actions, specific projects, initiatives and events on the regional and national level.

There is still a long way to go until this happens and as mentioned already by Blanca Gonzalez, some processes that are really important for this to happen, and it is vital to sustain this bottomup approach as mentioned earlier by Jaroslaw Ponder that we have an RPM in the beginning of the year so that we achieve real tangible results at the WTDC conference later the next year.

Yet, as we have addressed, some challenges, sometimes approaching the countries, I hear the opinions that we do not see the WTDC as a priority, development is not about us, it is about some developing countries. Is it really? Is this approach really relevant? I think COVID taught us many good lessons, proved that this approach is really not good because even those countries who are ranking on top of telecommunication, ICT development, these huge challenges, and the big gaps between the expectant and the real situation with ICTs, so there is still much to be done in terms of telecommunications and ICTs in Europe and in every specific country. I will just join my colleagues and once again, ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to take this opportunity and to see the activities of the Development Sector for the new cycle and also the region, that your country would benefit from the activities here.

Voice expectations so that we can altogether find the best way to respond to the needs. I also invite you to take part with the preparation process at CEPT and also the project team on WTDC and tomorrow we're having the meeting with this project team so I invite everyone to please be active and to participate there and also invite you to follow the preparations in TDAG and the Working Groups so the voice of Europe is strong and our region. Be there, follow what's going on, it is important.

Well, I think only with our efficient preparation and our active participation at the conference next June, we may expect the real impactful results of the conference to our region.

Thank you once again for your attention and we'll see you later.

Thank you.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you very much, Inga, for this intervention.

Thank you very much for drawing attention and for the important message and the Development Sector is for everyone, without cooperation between all countries we cannot support each other and also support other regions so this is the open call for the engagement in the implementation and also in the work on the strategies, planning, and also the Strategic Plan which Blanca was referring to, all of the components are coming together.

Today we'll be discussing more about the operations of the 2022 and you see already from the two interventions that the context in which the planning exercises are impacting our daytoday operations at the Office of Europe.

Of course this is the work headed out under the office for Europe for fulfilling the mandate, the mandate, the results of the development conference and of course we are not working in a silo. ITU is following the one ITU approach, we have the three sectors, the standardization, the radiocommunication and the Development Sector and important is that all of this is coming together.

Just to tell, we have heard a lot about the different activities carried out in Europe and none of these activities, in first quarter, let me formulate this differently all those activities are coordinated with all three sectors, why we're doing this, why this is very important for the delivery of the country and regional level, let's listen to our next speaker who is the Chairman of the intersector coordination group of the ITU, Fabio Bigi.

Dr. Fabio Bigi, the floor is yours.

>> FABIO BIGI: Yes. Thank you, Jaroslaw Ponder. Thank you to the Minister of Georgia for having organized this meeting, and thank you also to Blanca and Inga for having set the scene for Europe. I'm lucky, I have a request to be present Victoria who is assisting me in so I can show you the slide.

Please, next slide.

The intersector coordination group is based on PP Resolution 191, strategy for the coordination of efforts among the three sectors of the Union and this is in order to avoid duplication.

Next slide, please.

There is three advisor groups. Resolution 191 instructs the SecretaryGeneral to continue interaction and the regular letter exchange of information between ISCT and the ISCTF and instructs exchange between the taskforce established under the chairmanship of the SecretaryGeneral and our intersector coordination groups. This is to ensure the coordination between the sector on their agenda.

Next slide, please.

The ISCG is established by the three advisory group and is charged to identify the subject of common to the three sectors or bilaterally to consider containing the interests to the three main areas, and it is important in harmonization and to identify the joint activity and the interests, with particular interest to the developing country. The ISCG developed a list of area of mutual interest and approved mappings to include the candidate topics on working methods for the work and this is consisting of the representative of the three Advisory Groups and keeping in mind also the geographical balance.

Next slide, please.

The purpose is very important, the mapping work, it is to identify topics of mutual interest and responsible for these topics across the three sectors of the Union. The result of the mapping work is regularly updated and published in the ISCG webpage and functions as a guide to facilitate smoother information exchange within the Union, it is very useful by various Study Groups and other Advisory Groups in order to avoid duplication to know which of the sectors send the information.

In these mapping table, there is mapping from ITUD Study Group 1 and 2 Question and ITUR Working Parties and mapping ITUT questions to ITUR Working Parties, mapping of ITUD Study Group 1 and Study Group 2 Questions to ITUT questions and finally, very important, mapping resolution of Plenipotentiary, Radio Assembly, WRC, WTSA and WTDC in order to avoid duplication of text and to streamline the efforts, that the work is going on, I know also in the Development Sector.

Next slide, please.

We willed identified the team of mutual interests to be discussed in the precoordination and collaboration between the sectors change and you can see that this has been recorded in the previous initiatives. For example, the first pilot theme was Climate Change and the taskforce, it comes together with the sustainability report to the work performed and there is, as you are aware, there is the organization of several events and develop playbooks, toolkits, eLearning courses and policy briefs and report, promotion and implementation of the ITU recommendations and guideline, assistance to countries, partnerships and collaboration and last number, more importantly, the greening of the ITU, a recent report on activity going on this side.

Coordination of activities also includes having a dedicated webpage, and I draw your attention to that webpage.

Next slide, please.

This is an environment and Climate Change, and ITU, it is important area of activity and you see mitigating and adopting to Climate Change, protecting human health and eWaste, it was in the previous initiative. Facilitating the solutions for energy efficiency by driving down emissions and reducing carbon foot print, growing its effort to greening ITU. The spotlight, the UNDP, it is a policy brief and so on.

Next slide, please.

The other theme that's been talked about, it is the accessibility. The taskforce on this report on the work coordinated, and this includes among other work that ITU is working to approve its accessible workflow as the official standard production method for its publications and there are benefits attached with the view to show the workflow and to have this in the six languages a standard. So the standard of accessibility, they're referenced and a technical paper, it should include media access and the development use standards, that they receive the highlight and attention during COVID pandemic workshop and also a telehealth workshop organized on the 23rd of June as you're aware. Completion is expected by 2022. Safe listening to the collaboration of WHO continues with a conformance testing specification and ITU recommendation H.870V1 and work initiated by its version 2 and there is a workshop on the future of T.V. for Asia and Pacific on the 23 April, 2021 with 320 participants and highlighted audiovisual accessibility.

Next slide, please.

It is important to have a regional presence. As you're aware, Accessible Europe, ICT for all, online, it was held, regional workshops delivered to 175 ITU members towards building inclusive society, interactive sessions and finally a report on Question 71 work on relevant to ICT accessible for Persons with Disabilities and other person was Specific Needs.

There was a group held by our dear friends from the United States as you're aware, Jaroslaw Ponder, you have to remind me, what is the name? Yeah, yeah.

That's correct.

Finally, this is a special thing for accessibility, specifically during the WSIS Forum with the workshop and showcase.

And ISCG members have already shown interest on other themes to be discussed, and it is important to have easy access on the web pages and the special advisory group webpage continues to be present if different places and to link all of the sector to be included in the ISCG webpage. The harmonization of access and sharing of documents on intersectoral activities among the three sectors, with ties account, independently of the members category and or affiliation, and the resource sharing implications on themes being coordinated at the ITU wide level, and guidelines on reporting the main achievements by ITUR and ITUT and ITUD, requested by the ViceChair of RAG. The next meeting, it will be the last meeting probably before the Plenipotentiary Conference, where we have to decide the Resolution 191 and if the intersectoral group will continue in this form and the taskforce and so the future will be decided at PP22 and finally, I draw the attention to ISCG webpage, and if you have any questions of me or Victoria, we're ready to respond.

Thank you for the time being.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you very much for this presentation. I think this is very important part of our work, ISCG, our daily work.

Those working with us, starting the collaboration always, they are looking for the better understanding of how to place activities carried out with the ITU office for Europe, but as already mentioned, quite important, the understanding of all stakeholders, that awareness carrying out, it is implemented with the very strong collaboration and coordination with inputs from the three sectors. And we're very happy that all of our activities can find those inputs and the capacities of different sectors are enough to make this happen.

Therefore, when we're talking about different activities for 2022 it is also important to keep this in mind that the other sectors will be involved in our work and operational and also strategically to address and sustain operations designed by the membership with the sectors, for standardization and the radiocommunication.

As we're running out of a bit of time, let me, colleagues, can maybe one question very short one.

We got very good understanding, what's happened at the strategy planning and operational plan development level, we have very good understanding where we stand with the preparations for the WTDC from the European perspective and we have understanding and keeping in mind the one ITU approach, but what you in your position will expect from the European membership and all of the implementing agents to do and to do something positive to advance your work.

Maybe let's start from Blanca and continue with Inga and Fabio.

Blanca, over to you.

>> BLANCA GONZALEZ: Thank you very much.

I think as for Europe, it is very important to participate in the upcoming new Strategic Plan and action plan.

I think Europe always has played a key role as more between the other regions. We have always been a breach between them, and I think we should keep this. For example, on the item on cybersecurity, where there is a lot of discrepancy, I think that you can play a very successful role as a bridge. Through our history we have shown we are very good at doing this. I think also Europe has a very good expertise in things that are going to be very important for the future such as 5G, cybersecurity for 5G. All of these things that Europe is doing very well, I think we can input to the new Strategic Plan.

I think Europe is highly regarded as a global level in terms of connectivity, Human Rights, of course, it is the link let's say between. I think all of these things that Europe is doing very well, I think we have to input them into the strategic plan. Of course, I am open to any of you who might be interested, how to put this into the Strategic Plan. I'm at your disposal.

Thank you.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: I thank you very much for this.

I call for engagement.

Let's turn to Inga.

The floor is yours.

>> INGA RIMKEVICIENCE: Thank you.

To what was said already, and so as we ask to participate, to join us, to follow us going on already, what are the processes that are going on in preparation, but in addition to this, I should call the countries just to think what is important, what are your priorities when you think about the standardization, the Development Sector and what are the results you expect from each of the conference.

Also, why is it important to participate in the work of CEPT and ITU activities because you may participate as a separate country, but you know that CEPT and ITU is leading the preparation to all of the events of ITU. It is really easier to join the efforts and go as region so that the voice is stronger.

There are countries that are very active and we'll have the common understanding from other perspectives and the Balkans, Eastern European Union countries, they need their own input and what's important in these parts of Europe.

Please be active and voice your expectations so that we have a common understanding of the whole Europe, Europe is diverse as Jaroslaw Ponder has said, we need to reflect all of the diversity on the bigger scale.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Let's turn to Fabio for the final statement.

>> FABIO BIGI: As you say, the ITU should be unique organization, all of the sector and General Secretariat should have the same goal or scope let's say. Telecommunication communication is developing, so it is very important that you have asked the priority and see what is really major.

ITU has a lot of experience and traditionally evolving so that you cannot look to the evolution of technology and services so we have to keep that in mind in building the future. We have to respond also to the request of other region Nall Developing Countries that asked ITU to do something.

Within the framework of the unique ITU we have to see the way out better Europe can contribute to the effort and I count on you and Inga, also Blanca to fill up the scope and have a unique view with evolving technology and service.

Thank you for the time being.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you very much, Fabio.

Let's treat this as the concluding remark for this session.

I think we learned a lot.

Now we will build the foundation for our next part of the meeting, which will be focused on the concrete propositions of the works and currently is on top of the priority list of different stakeholders so let me turn to my colleague who will lead this session.

Julian, we invite all stakeholders and those that provided written contribution and to present their contributions.

Over to you.

One more time, thank you very much to all our guest panelists of the first part of the meeting.

Thank you very much.

Julian, over to you.

>> Julian McNeill: Thank you. Welcome all to this session, reviewing the country challenges to be addressed in 2022. Just to provide a little bit of a background, as you may know, the postponement of the WTDC has entailed that the implementation period has been extended by a year. In this event, and also with the consultation that was launched a month and a half ago we wanted to create the platform for the engagement with the various members and we received 18 contributions from 17 institutions and this session, you will hear, you will hear more from these institutions.

Before we jump in, I would like to just remind the colleagues to perhaps keep their intervention at 2, 3 minutes maximum for the sake of time before going to each country, every organization, I would like to start by inviting, we have here with us today at U.N. resident coordinator Mr. Simon and I would like to he kindly submitted a contribution. I would like to start by inviting him to take the floor.

>> Simon Springett: Thank you for the kind opportunity to join you today.

First of all, on behalf of the United Nations country team and Republic of Moldova, we also appreciate the opportunity to contribute.

I think as Julian mentioned, we did submit a written contribution. Just to add a little bit to that, I would just like to make two main points. First, it is the Republic of Moldova's new government has created a cabinet level position for digitalization. This is on behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister by the way. This is really, you know, a strong commitment by the Republic of Moldova putting forward such a senior level post to be able to push forward this agenda.

Furthermore, a new digital roadmap is being developed in a very inclusive, participatory manner with a view to address the country's multisectoral digital needs.

We really look forward as the U.N. to working with the government agencies and ministries in support of developing this real holistic vision for inclusive, digital efforts and engaging in the implementation on the specific activities that would be reengineering some of the business processes and improving public service delivery.

I would like to mention that the E. government, digital payment infrastructure, E. health, data protection, it does remain a work in progress, but it is moving forward in the right direction. In a digital focus, it will need to be placed in ensuring equity and citizens access to digital services so including accessibility for hard to reach groups. These groups may be hard to reach for a number of reasons, social or economic and others.

Support to SMEs and engagement in eCommerce and to digitalize internal processes, but also to operate the capabilities of stakeholders and citizens to really effectively, efficiently engage in and benefit from these digital opportunities.

I would like to again commend the Republic of Moldova for the work they're doing in this and I would like to highlight here that the ITU has put engagement with Moldova quite high up the organization's priority.

Thank you for the opportunity to act in this consultation.

Thank you, ITU, for your continued support, not only in Moldova but across the Europe region.

Thank you.

>> Julian McNeill: Thank you for the nice words.

I invite the delegates to browse the contribution. I have put a link in the chat that will lead you to all contributions that have been submitted to this consultation.

Thank you, once again, for your intervention.

So now we would move to the next contribution, which is from Albania, from the Ministry of Infrastructure and energy.

I would like to invite delegates from the ministry to take the floor.

>> ALBANIA: From Albania, we have two proposals, the first is related to the broadband infrastructure and broadcasting and spectrum management which is connected as Albania has benefited from the framework of ITU regional initiative for Europe on broadband infrastructure, broadcasting and spectrum management. The work undertaken over six months of the technical assistance to look at the plan for Albania aims to free up the digital in line with radio regulation agreed at WRC19 was presented during the workshop held on the 2019 of April, 2021 and we will continue to work to promote and build the networks to achieve the 13th of June of 2022 and the second proposal, it is related to the E.U. free accessibility, affordability, skills development, and it is related, Albania has come a long way to prepare and fostering the digital economy and institution and administrative organizations setting out and going forward with the Albania strategy, as a number of jobs in the ICT sector increase, so does the need of digital skills, the digital skills assessment of Albania is going with the support of ITU focused on assessing the digital skills of the private sector as well as general public.

The next steps is the development of the digital skills strategy, enabling and developing basic and advanced digital skills in order to broadly involve the population to use ICT services and to increase ICT professional will be the main objective.

This is our proposals.

>> JULIAN McNEILL: Thank you for the contribution and for the contribution from the Government of Albania. Thank you also for the work that we have been doing together and I believe this is something also that is a challenge which is common to other countries in the region.

Again, thank you for your contribution which we note.

Moving on to the next contribution, I would like to invite the representative from the Communications Regulatory Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

>> BOSNIA and HERZEGOVINA: Good morning, and welcome.

And I can confirm there are two contributions and I invite my colleague to present one and I am going to focus on the contribution, on the contribution accessibility, affordability, skills development to ensure digital inclusion and Sustainable Development.

I'm the first one to go.

First of all, allow me to start on a positive note, saying thanks to capacity building provided by ITU and thanks to the proactive approach from the office for Europe really there are specific positive results and outcomes that have been achieved, however despite the progress made due to the regulatory framework, during the COVID crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as in other developing country, the disadvantaged users have experienced harsh consequences caused by the lack of implementation of the international convention, existing international framework and accessible products and services. What's encouraging, it is encouraging that as I said, I mean, we as regulatory authority imposed certain measures that resulted in a very specific, practical outcomes and in the audiovisual media sector that particularly refers to the introduction of certain obligator quotas and other measures for product services and broadcasters. I would like to mention that there is a few projects that are being supported by the European Commission with the aim to leverage the implementation of accessibility in Bosnia and Herzegovina so that's positive.

However, we still talk about a lot of there are still a lot of challenges, many challenges and in my brief intervention this time I would like to point out the following ones: It is still crucial to develop and implement national policies and legal frameworks on ICT accessibility, it is evidence that there is a lack of support, a lack of knowledge, a lack of proactive involvement by policymakers in this area.

What is also crucial, it is crucial to identify digital accessibility as priority at the regional level to ensure that all citizens, including Persons with Disabilities can access and benefit from eGovernment and other public digital information products and services.

What is extremely important which was said in the introduction, it is that we should continue to develop and leverage national capacities through regional opportunities and resources presented and exchanged through Accessible Europe since it has been recognized and it has proved that it is the regional multistakeholder and knowledge development platform on ICT accessibility.

Last but not least I would like to really bring it to the attention that considering the timely implementation on ICT accessibility could be vital for all which we unfortunately had seen during the COVID crisis and which we're still witnessing, activities towards the implementation on ICT accessibility should be intensified and accelerated because unfortunately we could definitely say that as far as in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in other countries nothing could compare to the fact that nothing could compare to the wellbeing of all citizens, including Persons with Disabilities. With this, I'm going to close my briefing and intervention and I would like to invite my colleague to present the second contribution.

Are you there?

>> I'm here.

>> Good morning, everyone.

With our second contribution we raised an issue of mapping. We have applied for technical assistance by ITU and we are pleased to announce that the project under the working title enabling environment for broadband mapping in Bosnia and Herzegovina is about to start actually this week we shall have in a couple of day, meetings that will be working with the help of the Slovenia colleagues. Generally, communications regulatories of Bosnia and Herzegovina, they are dedicated to implement the regulation that provides incentives for investments in high capacity and we're aware that we need to establish comprehensive broadband mapping system. So the circumstances in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the we have not adopted broadband strategy, cost direction directive, it has not been imposed, so the technical environment, they still need to be considered and redefined. In order to respond to the requirements of the developments.

So we need to define the scope of broadband mapping and we need to establish cooperation between the different stakeholders so we're aware that essential requirements to collect data on the service availability has been broadened by strengthening the infrastructure mapping, investment mapping, so in order to lay down a proper outline for broadband mapping we are taking into account the experience and best practices available and we have applied for assistance and we expect that this project will really give us proper guidelines and to enable us to align with the new policies and best practices. That would be all from me.

>> JULIAN McNEILL: Thank you. Thank you for these two valuable contributions, and we look forward to working with you on both accessibility and mapping over the coming months and years.

Thank you very much once again for this contributions and I invite stakeholders to go and browse them.

Moving on to the next contribution, I would like to invite the representative of the Czech Republic to take the floor and say a few words about the contribution.

>> CZECH REPUBLIC: Thank you very much.

Good morning, everyone.

Just very briefly, I think we are all facing some problems or issues concerning the broadband infrastructure. We're mapping, preparing national broadband plans and we see that this is an issue even in the more developed countries so it will say just in the E.U., this is something that is very much in the core of the ITU mandate where we can follow, where we can study and think of possible ways out, but my main focus here would be the youth because I was invited to be close to the youth activities preparing their text and the outcome for the WTDC and towards the Development Sector.

It is very much also for the youth and especially outside of the urban areas who lack a good connectivity. This is something we should probably look closer at and where we can as the ITU, as the Development Sector, where we can help because we see all of the statistics, how the digitization helps boost the economic outcomes of every country around. It's the youth, it's the educational system, even at the lower level because the youth and young people should be able to start building their digital literacy at an early stage and this is the way how we can steer what happens with their knowledge, how we build their capacity. With this, I see as a positive, an optimistic outcome if we can be focused on the youth and on their access to the digital highquality digital infrastructure in the future.

The more we can help in Europe, the more it shows to the other regions around the globe that it is important and that we all need to be focused on this one.

Thank you very much.

>> JULIAN McNEILL: Thank you for drawing attention to this important topic and we have been working together on the Generation Connect Youth Group and it is very there's very important topics. I invite the Delegates to go and read the contribution from the Czech Republic.

Moving on to the next contribution, I would like to invite the host of this event, the Ministry of Sustainable Development of Georgia to present the two contributions that were received from Georgia.

>> GEORGIA: Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone.

Once again, it is our pleasure and I would like to express our gratitude to the ITU for giving us the possibility to be host on this very important event. Deputy Minister also had mentioned, it is our great pleasure to welcome you in person in Georgia but we're regretful because of the COVID pandemic we're not able to host it in person but I would very much hope that after the COVID pandemic we would have such a possibility.

As for the challenges, we have two contributions as mentioned, one by GITA and the second from MoESD, this one includes the contribution as well, the innovation, the second one, please open the second one.

The digital economy and digital society is important, but without connectivity, without a well-developed process, it is impossible to develop the digital economies. For us, one of the main priorities and challenges for the development of digital infrastructure, and last year, by the Government of Georgia was adopted the national development strategy and it was collaborated with society and it was elaborated by the financial assistance from the European Commission, and so according to the strategy, we have lots of challenges. I would like to mention those now.

It is the increasing access to affordable broadband Internet, promoting the use of the broadband enabled digital services, hosting the regional hub which we will have to address the challenges of the limited digital capabilities and the domestic capabilities, capabilities and one of the challenges, supporting in one of the networks in the less populated areas and the development of the new technologies including 5G. And one of the main challenge for us also, it is the building of digital skills and demand, especially rural areas.

At the same time, our main challenge is to develop the digital economy and society and working with the collaboration of the longterm national strategy for the development of the digital economy and Information Society to promote the development of eServices and health, security, ICT innovations and the governmental eService, et cetera. And on the other hand, one of the main challenge, the development of the artificial intelligence and just to promote the development of the first industry revolution and we have close collaboration with the ITU and ITU for this issue and here I would like to just thank again the ITU office for Europe for the technical assistance for Georgia on drafting the national online safety assessment report and on the other hand, for to the collaboration of the ICTcentric innovation ecosystem snapshot and recommendations and so our main challenges are to overcome the still existing digital divide on the local level as well and develop the digital skills and develop the networks, including 5G and, of course, innovations ecosystem and artificial intelligence.

Of course, we're more than happy to cooperate with the ITU in a national and international level within the framework of the ITU regional initiatives on the above mentioned issues.

I thank you.

>> JULIAN McNEILL: Thank you.

We dually note all of the challenges that you raise and really look forward to continuing our collaboration on many of these areas. Thank you very much again for the valuable contribution.

Now let me move on to the next contribution which is a contribution from Hungary, from the national media.

>> HUNGARY: We have one proposal, we consider implementation of 5G technology as a concrete challenge at the country level as well as regional level.

In particular, the challenge we face is the 3G technology, to phase that out and implement the 5G network, creating when necessary the technical, financial condition to ensure its implementation. Hungary believes that advancing the discussion on these matters is key to ensure that countries in Europe are supported in their efforts towards the implementation of 5G. For this reason, Hungary proposes to support the organization of the regional conference in 2022 to other such items.

Thank you very much.

>> JULIAN McNEILL: Thank you very much.

I see 5G as coming out quite frequently in the contributions and we thank you also for the commitment to supporting the organization of an event, of the workshop next year where I'm sure we can address we will be able to address the challenges that you raised.

Thank you very much once again for the contributions.

Now I would like to move on to Lithuania. We have received two contributions from Lithuania from the communications regulatory authority. I will leave it to you to walk us through this contributions.

Thank you very much.

>> LITHUANIA: Thank you. Thank you.

I'm switching my role. I'm now talking as representative of national regulatory of Lithuania, and I will be very brief with the presentation of this contribution.

In terms of accessibility of service, we would like to draw attention that ITU could force the discussion on the accessible design and functionality of devices and solution and eServices and also on the simplicity of solution and services so that People with Disabilities and special needs could use easily especially when we speak about the promoting of public eService, so we think it is really, really important, and this issue should be widely addressed.

On the national level, as the national regulator, we feel responsible for our consumer, for all of the groups of our consumers. We think that we still have we hadn't done many things that are important in terms of accessibility and we need more specific actions throughout this and we seek support from ITU and maybe building a strategy for our regulator, for our authority with the specific actions, indicators, what can we do to address these needs and also maybe in building partnerships with counterpart administrations who have more experience in accessibility area as the regulator. This is briefly about this contribution. I think you can I think you can find it on the website later.

Another one, it is submitted by RT but not on behalf of RT, it is actually on Network of Women for Europe, it is dear to me, and I also hope you will draw attention to this initiative. Also we see I think it is the only one, if you could upload another from Network of Women for Europe, so you will see that there are three contact persons indicated so I'm not alone here, I have wonderful colleague who is are working hard on promoting this idea. I think we have done very good progress and achieved very good results of this network. Just to remind you, the first meeting of the Network of Women, NOW as we call it usually, it was created in January and to encourage gender balance in the activities leading to WTDC21. Now it is supposed to be a platform for networking through new and experienced delegates, also to share information and also to promote the active participation of women in the activities of ITUD.

In this direction, we think the fostering of the initiatives should be done also in the next year, in the next year so that we suggest several actions in these directions so we think that more visibility of the Network of Women is needed to spread information about this initiative and also to organize the informal networking meetings, maybe side events of the major conferences and also dedicated events at the national level, national administrations that was done this year and I think that this initiative was very successful and then we think we can create and strengthen the coaching and mentorship programmespecific training workshops or seminars and also encourage experienced female delegates to participate in the mentorship activities, the sharing, especially for the new delegates, the new activities, so help from experienced ladies would be appreciated and very important.

Also within the sharing information with the telecommunication administration and other organizations, including private sector, academia, also it should be very helpful in the inclusion of women in the activities of ITUD and also we ask for the support from the Secretariat. I want to thank you, use this opportunity to thank very much the European office for helping us in this initiative this year, Annamaria, you have helped us a lot, I think we have had really good events and really good training. Thank you to you. We rely on your help the next year also.

Also I just remind those that are not familiar with the initiative, you see that context on at the beginning of the contribution. If you have any ideas or proposals, please you may contact us directly the European office so I think this initiative should be promoted and I hope that we will see more ladies participating next year also.

Thank you very much. That's all.

>> JULIAN McNEILL: Thank you to your colleagues from Poland and to Inga and to Romania on the work on this. I pasted in the chat the link to the global page of the Network of Women so that delegates can really see what this is about and how impactful this initiative is and will be over the next months and years.

Also, Inga, thank you for the contribution on accessibility. We take good note of your points that you raised and we look forward to incorporate them in the planning phase of Accessible Europe also next year.

With that, I would move to I would move to the next contribution which is from before, we're a little bit behind schedule A short announcement, we'll continue with the contributions and as soon as we finish, I propose to have a 5minute break before we dive into the next session.

We'll postpone the coffee break for a little longer.

The next contribution, it is from the Republic of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development. I invite the representative from Moldova to take the floor.

>> MOLDOVA: Good morning, everybody. Do you hear me well?

I thank you for the opportunity to take part in this important event and would like to express a special gratitude for the support offered by ITU to our administration over the years.

I would like to present contribution implementation of the single information point broadband mapping system in the Republic of Moldova.

This contribution, it is related to the issue of affordability of the broadband services to the users. According to the report, the Digital Trends in Europe, 2021 represented on the LPM, in January of this year, the fixed broadband and the mobile data prices, as a percentage of the GNI, the speeds and caps in the Republic of Moldova, highest in Europe. The national legislation on access to appropriate and shared use of the infrastructure of the electronic communication networks adopted in 2016 provided effectiveness in this regard. For this reason, the Republic of Moldova intends to implement the best new practices to reduce the cost of deployment for deploying either deploying the communication network.

This case and decade, it is the new approach, it is the single information point. the Republic of Moldova has all the necessary prerequisites for the implementation of this infrastructure and national plan. Despite that the implementation may be significantly delayed due to the limited financial capabilities of our national regulatory agency for electronic communication and information technology. The Republic of Moldova could implement working within the Republic of Moldova and the Republic of Moldova could implement this with ITU support on the regional initiative broadband infrastructure, the broadcasting management.

Thank you very much for your attention.

>> JULIAN McNEILL: Thank you for raising this item. It is recurring in many countries and we very much welcome this contribution and we look forward to engaging more closely with you over the next perhaps months or even weeks to have the discussion on this item.

Thank you very much for the contribution.

Now we would move to the next contribution from Montenegro, from the agency of electronic communication and process services, so I would invite the representative to take the floor.

>> MONTENEGRO: Good afternoon to all.

We submitted the submission with the broadband and broadcasting spectrum management, so the first one, it is in regards to the regional regulatory forum for Europe, and that's the short background in the ITU regional for Europe joint organized by ITU at the regional meeting held each year, this year in Montenegro, we have more than 150 stakeholders from European industries are joining this meeting between stakeholders and on strategies and policies and the development in the region.

So we propose to continue organizing the this in 2022, to have this space and look at the agenda of the forum and to accompany the regulations of ITU and to ensure the regional followup to the outcomes of GSR.

The next contribution, it is in regards to IPv6, ITU is providing technical assistance on this, including national capacity building workshop, training at the country level and development and assessment and communications for the IPv6 and it has helped us to implement the laboratory in Montenegro. As you know, the digital information can be realized only in the countries with IPv6 and we should do this now than later. In particular, it is more and more socioeconomic abilities online. We propose that ITU replicates these efforts in other countries in Europe to look to IPv6 regime.

I would just use this opportunity to invite you to the ITU regional regulatory forum for Europe on the topic of connectivity for the post pandemic Europe organized online in September.

Thank you.

>> JULIAN McNEILL: Thank you for the collaboration on the Regional Regulatory Forum which we look forward to at the end of this month and for your valuable contribution really putting the focus on the role of regulation, of some regulation and of the transition to IPv6 and we look forward to working with Montenegro on these items.

Thank you very much.

I would now pass to the next contribution which is from the Republic of Poland. I would invite the delegates from Poland to take the floor. Thank you. Poland.

I see there may be some technical issue. I see online. Can you hear us? Perhaps we'll come back to this contribution later.

Moving on, we can we can move to the contribution of the Government of The Republic of Serbia from the Office of The Prime Minister. We invite the representative for the contribution.

>> SERBIA: Hello, everyone.

It is great to see you today and great to hear from all of the colleagues.

So the Serbian contribution is focused mainly on digital inclusion and digital innovation ecosystem. When it comes to digital inclusion the most important challenges that we encounter are digital literacy and connectivity of all citizens in Serbia. We really are working on raising awareness around disability and ICT accessibility and we're doing a lot on capacity building as well.

In order to tackle the connectivity issue the Republic of Serbia has a programme aimed at delivering highspeed affordable Internet connection to sparsely populated areas and we're doing this by incentivizing private sector investments. When it comes to digital literacy, we have the strategy for development of digital skills that we are working on the implementation of it and we're also working on digitalization of schools by the end of 2022. When it comes to the work that we're doing with the ITU, we really see ITU as a very strong partner in the field of advancing digital inclusion.

During 2020 we did an ITU assessment that Anna Maria mentioned before, digital accessibility, assessment on digital accessibility policies and what we're doing now, so this was a we had a national event, we had a successful launch earlier this year and what we're doing now, our next step is to develop a roadmap to raise awareness and to Mr. Capacity around digital accessibility and to really put into practice everything to find some really concrete solutions on some of the greatest challenges that were assessed in the assessment on digital accessibility policies.

When it comes to digital innovation ecosystem, this is something that we have also been working very closely on with ITU, with Jaroslaw Ponder, with Annamaria and the team, so actually Serbia is really working on the developing innovation ecosystem and creating that incentivized environment to support entrepreneurs and startups and one of the major challenges, it is that we work on bringing people closer to accepting the digital revolution and the new age that is coming and that's why we really are understanding the we really are trying to put everything, you know, up with the digital agenda and to really understand the importance of innovative, digital solutions.

Last year, we introduced the new mechanism, partnership for innovation, and that was a way for public procurement of innovative solutions to be adopted by the state institutions. We're also working on implementation of the new mechanism for a lab in Serbia that will facilitate the process and educate the employees and in state institutions and with the support of ITU which is again a very strong partner in the digital innovation ecosystem development as well we are working on creating a comprehensive analysis of the digital innovation ecosystem, what we're doing, we're applying ITU digital innovation framework and we're analyzing, interviewing different stakeholders from different sectors in order to really make a comprehensive analysis that can really help us to assess where we are and where we need to be of where we need to be, what we need to do in order to really build a competitive sustainable ICT enabled economy.

Thank you.

>> JULIAN McNEILL: Thank you very much for reiterating the collaboration with ITU and also highlighting what the country is doing on these challenges.

Really, I think this provides a good food for thought for other stakeholders in the region. Thank you very much again for this contribution.

I would move on to the next contribution, which is from Turkey, from ICTA. I would invite the representative to take the floor. Thank you.

>> TURKEY: Hello, everyone (poor audio quality).

(Audio quality too poor for transcription).

(Audio quality too poor for transcription).

>> JULIAN McNEILL: Thank you to you. Thank you for drawing attention to this cybersecurity and the coordination on the certs and we look forward to hearing and continuing this conversation on the challenges that many countries are facing this this field which is becoming more and more important as we move forward.

So I would like now to move to the contribution from Ukraine, from the Ministry of Digital Transformation. I invite the delegate from Ukraine to take the floor.

>> UKRAINE: I see perhaps Ukraine is having some difficulties to connect.

So perhaps we can go back to Poland. If Poland is online, we would invite Poland to briefly present their contribution.

Please, the floor is yours.

I see you have the hand raised.

We can hear you but not see you.

>> POLAND: I would like to thank Georgia for hosting us, even virtually, but still hosting us. I would like to also thank Inga for updating us on the development issues that we have to take and the preparations we have to take in CEPT. We have a lot of things (technical issue).

>> JULIAN McNEILL: I think we have lost Poland for a moment. Maybe he will try to reconnect.

Can you hear us? For the sake of time, we'll move on with the next contributions.

We have received the contribution from the Eastern Partnership of Electronic Communication Regulatory Network. I would invite Delegates who submitted this on behalf of EaPeReg to say a few words.

I see delegates from EaPeReg may not be available to present this contribution. Perhaps we can move on to the next contribution and I believe this is the last contribution that we received from Zero Project, from Austria. If there is a delegate from Zero Project, that would be available to take the floor to present this contribution, please go ahead.

Okay.

I will take that as a no and I would invite the delegates to go and browse the contributions that were presented not at this moment, but I would now perhaps before we take the short break, I would hand over to Jaroslaw Ponder for a few words before we take the coffee break.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Yes. Thank you very much.

Thank you for guiding us through the written contributions as we have discussed, we're inviting you to take a closer look at what's been submitted in written form. It is a solid basis for some food for thoughts for programming purposes and maybe before we're going for the break, I would like to propose and to give the floor to our colleagues from Estonia and from Germany and also to present the initiative.

Maybe we will start with Martin, from Estonia, Martin, the floor is yours.

>> ESTONIA: Hello. I hope you can hear me.

Basically this context, in addition to the initiative, I would like to point out that last week we had conference on digital summit here, we were talking about the global agreement on ethical financing of infrastructure projects under the theme of trusted connectivity. Basically probably none of us wants to have an issue with our software systems. Please with that theme, the trusted connectivity, there will be updates coming this week both on the E.U. and world level and there has been great traction on the global level, European Union has been onboarded and the whole European Union infrastructure investments will contain that element of trust which is about basic transparency and the ethical financing methods.

On the other side, together with ITU, DIAL, we have actually made significant progress last week also on building the reusable building blocks for digital future and digital governance and I think this is a great potential because what we see is the cost of building digital governance is going up and that the complexity of this kind of system is going up. This effort, in this effort, we basically hope to build reusable building blocks that can be shared and in a simplified way what we're building is an app store for governments, a kind of duel sided markets where the supply and demand would be there and if you would need to deploy any kind of a small, bigger type of a government service, then GovStack is here to help this initiative, it is in the infancy but again, as last week, we actually physically met in Ireland, that was a kind of big thing, we got do that and start building a stronger community and trust among its members and I think there's great potential in it.

Again, I'm pleased to look into the GovStack thing and also look out for the trusted connectivity topic on a much higher level because I think this kind of methodology and guidance will be coming both from the E.U. and also from the U.S. and things are moving rapidly here in and we hope to contribute to the ITU and other partners.

Thank you.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you very much for this update.

We're looking forward to the outcomes of the digital summit in order to synchronize the activities carried out at the ITU level.

Now It is my great pleasure to invite David Roos from Germany, David, the floor is yours.

>> DAVID ROOS: Thank you for the invitation. It is a pleasure to be with you for a couple of minutes.

I encourage you to be a part of this community, the digital governance transformation is a key priority area of the German development cooperation and GovStack is a key flagship that we're implementing in nine partner countries for the next few years with significant funding, also cofinanced by the European Commission.

I can only add to Martin's remarks, what we see, it is the lack of coordination, especially amongst donors in the field of digital governance transformation which often leads to fragmented siloed solutions that are poor in IoI and not scalable n is why we share this approach of the building blocks and with our partners, ITU, DIAL, Estonia as founding partners and this is a community, we have gaged 50 experts to specify the most critical building blocks that can be used as digital public infrastructure for other government partners and this is digital ID, this is data exchange and digital payments, but also including security aspects as well as information mediation and so on, so forth.

This so critical to have the digital information available in a secure manner, built on trusted connectivity that can be reused by our partner governments. So the GovStack efforts is the groundwork for future implementation and to digital public goods that are secure and accessible to our partner governments.

With that sense, again, looking into GovStack.global and join our movement on the digital government transformation. This is actually something that is regionally implemented and it comes in with the east European partnership especially under the field of partnerships that connect and so this aims to strengthen the eGovernments in the region to increase the transparency and accountability for the public administration and to facilitate the future response.

Thank you so much.

>> CHAIR: Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for raising the several points, digitalization is becoming an area that has a lot of potential and a lot of requests are coming also to the international community for supporting, and one of the focus countries in the Europe region is Ukraine and today we're very much pleased to being joined by the colleagues from Ukraine and I'm handing over the floor to them.

>> UKRAINE: Good morning, colleagues.

Let me Thank you for giving me the floor. Thank you, Georgia, ITU, for organizing this very interesting, very useful event. We also appreciate the work that you are doing and would like also to thank you for being a part of this GovStack. From our part, the government is working on the technological development of our country despite the pandemic and the Russian aggression. Together with ITU we're working on the different aspects of the transformation agenda including cybersecurity advancing broadband infrastructure, developing digital skills, strengthening child online protection and others. The pandemic has shaken up the way the world functions, simultaneously, set setting new standards for a new normal. Much of the success in the crisis depends on how well government, organizations have developed the digital launch before.

The Government of Ukraine was one of the better prepared one, in 2019 the government had set up an ambitious agenda for comprehensive Digital Transformation in the public sector to make government services available online. In 2020 the numerous online services enhanced the existing tools to accelerate access to public services for Ukrainians in the lockdown were launched. However, paving the way for new digital areas, this exposed gaps between resilience societies and it is highlighted in the inequalities on how many men, women, boys and girls are left behind. Such barriers were highlighted in the development of the national strategy on the environment in Ukraine which was adopted in April of this year. Our goal is high speed Internet for every citizen in our country, to reach this goal, an action plan for the broadband for Internet access in 2021 and 2022 has opinion approved and we have had success in digital documents. We're the first country in the world to legalize the digital smartphones, the ID cards and other applications and completely eliminating paper and plastic documents. The government will improve the map of national networks by creating an enabling environment for the broadband mapping as a country and to look at the specifications for the mapping system. This had may cover the backbone infrastructure for the fulfillment of the lab are abrasion between the ITU and government on the global ITU map project. This improvement will provide a better telecommunication services where they're first needed, including the most important institutions such as schools and hospitals. Digital schools are a key component to the plan and we're working towards the assessment as well as creation and establishing of the various activities related to that topic. Together with ITU we're working on a digital skills assessment case study where our activities, challenges, lessons learned will be shared with the global community. We look forward to the document in the next quarter and we're excited to share with everyone our story.

Children exposed to risks in the digital environment, from privacy issues and the dissemination of fake news and the content of violent, sexual exploitation, et cetera. Therefore, education and to raise awareness, it is important. Thanks to the ITU, the Child Online Protection guidelines as published in 2020 were translate understood Ukrainian language which will help us to contribute to the relevant protection of our children especially time of the COVID19 limitations and lockdowns.

Just to conclude, we would like to express our gratitude to ITU, to the management and to continue our further fruitful cooperation. Thank you.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you very much, Ukraine, for this input.

Dear ladies and gentlemen, we just took the three interventions from our colleagues who had the time challenge that were planned for the next session. We are a little bit running behind.

We would like to propose just a very executive break for the most necessary things to be done during 5 minutes.

We have the 5 minutes that we would meet together at 11:40 I should say 11:38, but let's apply diplomatics to this. So 11:40. Let's get together and we'll start sharp and the first contribution is from the U.N. Women as they have a time challenge as well. Thank you for your understanding.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much so far. Thank you for guiding us through and we'll see you in now 6 minutes, exactly 6 minutes. Thank you.

(Break).

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: I hope you had a good break and you were able to catch up with what was necessary.

Now let's move to the second part of this session exercise which will be constituted by the oral contributions. Just to recall, in the first part, we went through the status of the written contributions. I would hope, let us doublecheck with the two stakeholders from the Eastern Partnership and Regulatory Network and Zero Project if they're with us and to give them the opportunity.

We encourage you to study the contributions, they're going in the direction of collaboration, the continuous collaboration on reduction of the network deployment, the cybersecurity, emergency communication and the radio spectrum as well as enhanced television services and the 5G launch between different countries in the case of the Eastern Partnership for the original network and our colleagues from Zero Project proposed and identified several challenges and also solutions, how to look at the enabling environment for the community, the link with innovation innovation for Persons with Disabilities.

As soon as stakeholders are ready, we'll give them the floor, but for the time being, we'll move to the second part of this exciting review of the session.

I see we have Poland, let me hand over to Anamaria to modern this session. Ana, the floor is yours, maybe we can start with Poland.

>> ANAMARIA MESHKURTI: We're starting the oral contribution interventions where you can express challenges, solutions, you can give any comments on previous contributions and we'll be running the sessions with the maximum 3 minute intervention per contribution and please use the raise hand button. This is how we'll be giving you the floor.

As we have here, the colleague from Poland who could not make the contribution earlier in the session, we would like to start with him and then we'll give immediately to U.N. Women who has patiently had their hands up and we'll continue with other colleagues.

Our colleague from Poland, please, you have the floor. Thank you. Poland.

You are muted. I don't know if you hear us.

>> POLAND: Thank you for giving me back the floor.

I would like to thank Georgia for hosting us, even if it is virtually, but still hosting us. I would like to thank Lithuania for the preparations to WTDC, which is the development conference. I would like to thank you, all the ITU European team for

>> ANAMARIA MESHKURTI: Thank you very much. Thank you for this contribution. Thank you for the support that you have given in this different activities that we have done together.

I now move to our colleagues from U.N. Women that have been patiently waiting for us.

Thank you. You have the floor.

>> U.N. Women: Thank you. It was very a great pleasure to hear and see from all partners, specifically country partners about your work being done and what you've achieved.

Let me bring a few key points to the discussion.

First of all, I would like to remind you, this year, I hope very much many of you attended the generation equality forum where coalitions were formed and one action correlation was devoted to gender equality. And the Member States, Georgia especially, Ukraine, Finland, Armenia, they made commitments for the action coalition and also coChair, there was a bold commitment to achieve some key targets for 2026 in order to reduce digital gender gap and let me share the four key actions that were agreed with the action coalition to be achieved by 2026.

First action, it is bridge gender gap and digital competency; second, invest in investment contributions and building accountable innovative ecosystem and fourth, which is important for U.N. Women, prevention and elimination of online and facilitated genderbased violence and discrimination. You know that we have specifically asked for general work on the elimination of violence against Women and Girls and the U.N. system and we're very happy that this coalition highlights the needs to address the issues.

Let me highlight why this action was defined as a priority to be addressed by partners by 2026. You may know that within Europe there the online violence is the highest between young people between 18 and 29 years old. Some groups of women, including women in politics, journalists, HIV positive, LGBTQI, they're targeted by the ICT facilitated violence and what we have noticed, user, the limited digital skills, they're more at risk of cyber violence. All of this evidence, it is very important in order to ensure that we are working together to eliminate Boston against women in the digital life. There is some solutions, for example, Instagram recently launched a restrict tool allowing users to block accounts and to manage comments. And access now, digital security help lines to help women at risk to help with digital security practices and to provide emergency assistance to women who are actually under attack in the virtual platforms.

I think we can use some initiatives to allow us to duplicate and to bring them into different countries and platforms in order to ensure that by 2026 we have reduced the number and also prevalence of online violence against Women and Girls.

Another very important issue which we are discussing with ITU and other partners already several years, it is a need to improve quality data for gender responsive digital policy making. This is what I would like to bring to your attention.

The use of sex desegregated intersectional data is very much important at every stage of innovation to be able to assess the progress and especially to assess the results for every women and girl.

We have some kind of interesting instruments which can help us also to make this assessment in more quality manner, for example, the digital gender gap audit which was done in different countries and by different agencies, but it is really very important and very valuable in order to collect evidences and to monitor the countries growth to closing the digital gender gap.

I think we have to pay attention with new and ongoing regional and especially country programmes and interventions in this area to have a component on data collection, data analysis and data useful policymaking.

In regard to the Action Coalition, let me finalize my statement with this Action Coalition on Innovations. There is also possibility for partners to develop and implement collective commitments, this can be done at the regional level in the form of regional programme for example. We have by now two collective commitments developed at the global level, one specifically targeting partners in Latin America and in other collect active commitments called the technology, it is aimed to create technologies across Global South that respond to the needs of and advanced Rights of Women and Girls to ensure that Women and Girls community leaders can lead, design and maintain their own technology solutions. This commitment is not well developed yet, it is in the progress of not development. I think we can be a part of it, partners from our regional U.N. Women will be happy to be part of this collective commitment. I think we need to work closely at the corporate level, global one, and to develop this commitment more region specific, and also adapt the commitment to our regional needs and to have some kind of the programme that addresses and supports partners to implement such kind of commitments.

I think also for the Action Coalition of technologies and innovation, because we have several Member States already as a commitment measure, we can have a clear common roadmap, how we can support and work together to implement the commitment.

As an example, all countries which made commitments, Ukraine, private companies, also Finland, Romania, an action proposed to be implemented by 2026 is related to national campaigns to improve awareness and to have the recognition of needs to address gender digital gender gap. If all countries want to do the national campaign, why are we not bringing them together for the common voice and stronger voice in order to address these issues? It can be national campaign, it can be supported by subregional and regional actions.

I think we can look for this more precisely and together with ITU and other U.N. agencies and to work together with partners for the programming in this area.

Thank you very much.

It was really a pleasure to listen to your interventions today.

>> ANAMARIA MESHKURTI: It is a pleasure to work together towards the gender digital divide and bridging it. Thank you so much.

I see I have another hand up, Ms. Antonella from the Government of Malta. Please, you have the floor.

>> MALTA: Good morning. Thank you once again, I will echo my previous colleagues for organizing this.

I think I muted myself. Sorry. I apologize.

Yeah.

As I was saying, I would like to echo the previous speakers and thank you and ITU for organizing again such an exchange and interesting exchange. I will be speaking on behalf of the Malta Foundation for Society in Malta which has a child online protection project. In order to address the issue, the topic that we're discussing today, I mean, there is no doubt that COVID has caused multiple issues in relation to digital development and even more we have been exposed to multiple issues ranging from digital illiteracy, lack of ITU resources in households when it comes to online classes and particularly the side I will focus is on the child online protection whereby we have seen a steadily and continuous increase due to minors using more and resourcing more to digital tools. In this regard, we believe that there is more than ever a need for a holistic, consolidated approach, including the industry for gender digital divide lines which you have very interestingly put forward last year and the need for more resources on the national and regional level.

We're at a stage where we definitely need to move beyond awareness when it comes to child online protection. But to actually do and create policy which in this regard to the guidelines I very much believe are helpful. As I was saying, the pandemic, which we have experienced, it has uncovered multiple issues when it comes to digital development and child online protection or the lack of and as I have said, we have seen this, we have seen that there are literally no barriers in terms of age when it comes to online abuse. We have seen it unfortunately happening even on very young ages and there are different target groups and perpetrators, and we have also seen and experienced online abuse in different forms, harassment, bullying, et cetera, amongst minors and children themselves. This is something that we cannot take for granted and we can forget about.

Therefore, we feel that there is a need for further studies on the impact of online abuse on victims and also on the realities of the victims and particularly speaking in terms of Malta, there is more than of the need for statistics to capture a clearer picture and a clearer picture of the local scenario in order for us to know the phenomenon that's being addressed.

Cyber is the main tools of crime now, I believe that's on an international level we're experiencing. We're going to need to be up to speed with the current times and it is our utmost duty, all of U to protect the most vulnerable, children. Therefore, just to conclude, I would really like to call upon the U.N. and U.N. ITU to foster and to encourage more exchanges and discussions on child online protection more than ever and to provide assistance which you already are very well doing, of course, in different forms ranging from training, liaising with other international organization, capacity building, as well as the fostering cultural exchanges of best practices amongst countries and just really one last word, we cannot omit, we cannot forget, that the importance of pairing up, with coupling the digital development with protection and they really need to go hand in hand and it is pertinent for to us ensure, it is the duty of all of us to ensure that Internet is a safe environment for our children in order for them to get the best benefits.

Thank you.

>> ANAMARIA MESHKURTI: Thank you for the point. We have a link to the initiatives. Thank you. This was really, really appreciated.

Still, the floor is open, I know that this session is supposed to end at 12:00 and we will end at 12:00, we have one more intervention. I don't see any hands up at the moment. Oh, I see colleagues from FAO raised their hand. Please, you have the floor.

>> FAO: Thank you very much. Thank you for giving me the floor.

Also to say what we're doing at the moment with ITU. There has been good collaboration in the past with the publication on the stages of digital agriculture in 18 countries of Europe and Central Asia and we look at what was the national framework that were available for the digital agriculture to also look at the connectivity issues and the connectivity issues that's important to the region, maybe not cities, but when it comes to rural areas, the cost of the connectivity is sometimes higher than the cities and the connectivity, it is unstable and very poor quality.

There is really a big effort to be made in order to be more inclusive with the rural digital divide.

In agriculture, we're facing also the migration, the news migration, the urban, rural urban migration. So it is also important to reinforce the availability of services in rural areas and in agriculture. This is also the reason why after having done these reports on the status of digital agriculture in the 18 countries we launched a contest, a contest on the digital excellence in agriculture in the region in order to understand what the digital technologies are available, how they can be adapted to small orders and how to make a real difference in the agriculture sector.

(Technical issue).

(audio coming in and out).

Okay. I'll just leave it this way.

So what I wanted to say, we have also apart from the issues, it is a part that we also need to have financial investment in this sector, to show (audio issues).

Therefore we should invest more in looking at what is the return over investment and to support funding programmes for agriculture. This will enable us to have the confidence for the stakeholders at rural level to engage and therefore the digital skills, literacy, they are also something that we will have to continue working on.

What we have learned from our research, it was that it was important to involve people, to have peoplecentred approach, to involve to have userfriendly support so that local languages can be used and there is more buyin and also uptake.

These factors, the policy that's mentioned, that's why we will continue working and preparing the digital agriculture intervention and policies (audio issue).

Another issue that they have, of course, it is part of the digitalization and (audio issue).

>> ANAMARIE MESHKURTI: Thank you for the intervention. I hope you most of it. I did and I want to remind you on Digital Excellence Awards, they're taking place on the 23rd of September, join this very, very interesting session whereas Sophie mentioned you will be looking at a lot of good practices and innovations in agriculture.

As I see, we have already hit the time, I would like to make a last call if there is anyone else that would like to take the floor. I do not see a hand razed.

I would like to move ahead to the next session and I would like to give the floor back to Jaroslaw Ponder for the next session.

You have the floor.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you very much, Ana.

Thank you, colleagues, for all interventions. In case anybody with a like to intervene, we have a couple of minutes and we have some marginal time for the interventions.

Thank you very much for keeping the time of the interventions and so that we can present the core of the propositions to be reflected in the planning proposals.

Just to start, maybe I would like to invite Julian to display what we're still planning to do this year. Many of you can keep an eye on that during your upcoming weeks, months, but also the days and hours and some of the activities that have been happening even this week, this week we're holding the cyber drill for Europe and Africa, this is one of the mechanisms which we're trying to strengthen and to have the interregional interactions of taking a look at how to strengthen the enter regional cooperation. The Cybersecurity Drills, that's from the 5th of September and to join us for three hours’ time with the representatives and to interact with representatives from Europe and to Africa.

As you see, we have several activities and events proposed. I will not read out all of them, but we have the innovation, digitization, the Regional Forum of the regulatory discussions, we have also the ITUD, T, R activity on the future of television Bureau and we have also the 5G regulatory and the youth jam, the platform for the young people to interact and to create, cocreate and to have activities.

We're drawing your attention to several reports which are in the pipeline. Please bear with us, take a look at the announcement date of many of those which in the coming months, the days, the weeks, we have the markets and ITU, it is amazing achievement of many stakeholders working together, all of those reports are the results of the joint contribution of the stakeholders, and in addition to this, of course we have the digital development country profiles and the coming part of the digital assessments and the exercises which were carried out with the U.N. country teams and clearly going through the different challenges at the country level.

We'll contribute to this. Thank you very much, Sophie, of course, on the innovation, the innovation forum which we will not forget about, the important milestone of the digital excellence in agriculture, this is something that's really a breakthrough on the work on the digitalization of the agriculture and we have submitted the eco system of the stakeholders working around the digitalization in the pragmatic way providing concrete solutions and we hope that with this we'll be able to also kick start the concrete actions going in this direction to further develop the environment for the benefit of digitization of the agriculture.

Also we would like to draw your attention to the different U.N. engagements, our work on the U.N. coordination at the regional level as a part of the new redesigned United Nations Sustainable Development system is of key importance, this is the way, how we're integrating the component of ICTs into the work stream of the U.N. country teams and also creating the opportunities for strength and collaboration with the international donors and this is a special call for those who are engaged in these activities and also trying to find a way to strengthen their impact through the international projects and regional projects, national support given to the U.N.

In our ongoing discussion with the European Commission, it is of course going on and we see in the coming weeks also several announcements related to our interaction as the U.N., the European Commission, the E.U. institutions in Brussels, as well as several activities with our partners at different levels.

Just to say we have several country engagements, many of them have been already mentioned today, just to sum up our plan to the end of the year. We thank very much to all countries for strong engagement in those and we're looking forward to 2022, to share contribution was other strategic documents that would be important milestones in the programming of the future work of the ITU the ITU working together with the others.

And finally, the projects, some of them, they're progressing very well.

Some of them, they are growing and some of them are just to be about to launch like the eWaste project on the eWaste monitor to support the five Western economies jointly done with others.

Colleagues, this is a review of what we're currently working on. Let me still open the floor for the final comments coming from your side on anything that we're planning.

Just a little bit to say what would be the next steps out of our exercise. This exercise is a little bit different from what we have been doing in the past. In the past such events were resulting in the draft Plan of Actions and adopted or noted by the regions.

This time we're collecting the requirements and the needs in the region and we have taken a look at the different synergies happening at the level of the ITU in order to come up with the best possible support to the Digital Transformation at the country and regional level with the support also from the global services and also support of the different sectors.

That's why it is important it is quite important that we have looked at all needs expressed by you. We are planning to have the draft report out of this meeting already for tomorrow. To be shortly presented and using that occasion, we have the regional telecommunication organization, all administrations, the meeting for today, tomorrow, on Wednesday, and this will be a good opportunity for all of us also to take a look and to include any comments which you would like to see to be included in this.

As next step, this report will be provided to our internal mechanism of programming exercise which around November, December we'll come up with the new operational plan for next year and of course in the meantime we have been discussing with you already on the concrete activities and starting from January and to be able to assist the region and the countries in this way.

This is our plan.

I hope that we provided an overview in a quite easy way and also leaving the understanding of what's in front of us, but let me still open the floor for any comments or suggestions. We're already advancing through the time. In case there would be no other comments or suggestions, then we would be proceeding to the closing.

Let me still open the floor and I must invite colleagues to support me, to tell me if you would like to make an intervention.

I see that we're always happy to have the private sector contributing. So those discussions, so let me turn to our colleagues from Intel.

>> INTEL: Thank you very much, Jaroslaw Ponder.

First of all, I would like to thank ITU and Georgia for this excellent meeting event. As Intel is from the industry perspective, this kind of meetings, events, they're very, very useful for us to learn the exact need of the region, of the countries, as Intel, we're developing new technologies, such as 5G, wifi 6, artificial intelligence, other kind of new technologies but the implementation of and the acceleration of this new technology in all countries, it is important and especially we're also accelerating the broadband connectivity in all countries.

We also know very well it is not sufficient to develop the new technologies, it is important to donate, especially the young generation with digital securities such as artificial intelligence and other technologies, we are also implementing this kind of digital statistical programmes in different countries all around the world.

I would like to thank you and congratulations again.

Thank you. Over to you.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you very much. Thank you very much for this input, indeed. We need to find a way, how to make sure that all of the emerging technologies are available in our region and beyond. Thank you very much for all of your support and looking forward also to the proactive engagement in the region and in the different activities with the participation of the private sector.

So dear colleagues, one more time, please let me turn to my colleagues and see if they would like to say if we have anyone raising their hand to say something? I see the European Union would like to take the floor.

The floor is yours.

>> EUROPEAN UNION: Good morning, dear colleagues. I have to admit, this is my first time for participating here. I'm learning a lot. It is a very interesting platform. Let me first thank our ITU colleagues for organizing this discussion and for everybody's contribution.

I see that there are many, many projects taking place, especially what we call our neighborhood countries and there is also a lot that the European Union is planning to do. I will certainly relay this information back to Brussels and we can try to explore whether there are some ways to cooperate together in those areas that are all very important priorities also for the European Union.

Maybe to update on our end, we published the digital decade policy in February this year. It is a very interesting strategic outline of the priorities for the European Union within the European Union, also in terms of partnerships with our partners outside of the E.U. It is essentially an approach outline for the E.U. to support the humancentric approach to digital affairs across the E.U.

Now I have seen a lot of discussion also on 5G and AI, I also wanted to flag that we have also a new proposal for regulation of artificial intelligence that was published in June and that may be worth also looking into. There will be many challenges probably in the implementation as well so it brings me also to the challenges that we were sharing here.

We take the riskbased approach to artificial intelligence and we have classified AI use, depending on how highrisks of the use we see and there are levels of approval for their use.

I'm also available for any questions and very happy to explore opportunities for cooperation. We're currently in the middle of exploring our new priorities for the seven multiannual budget of the European Union and as one of the largest donor to ITUD obviously it is also part of the discussion.

Thank you.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you very much. Thank you very much for this intervention. Also for the ongoing dialogue on the collaboration and looking forward to the future.

Dear colleagues, also I will say it is very important for us that all efforts undertaken at the regional level are synchronized to that dialogue between the U.N. and ITU is quite important as I mentioned and we'll continue doing so.

One more time, thank you very much.

Dear ladies and gentlemen, I'm raising the I'm asking if somebody has raised their hand.

I don't see.

I don't see that anyone is raising a hand unless it is the case, then please let me know now.

I don't see anyone.

Dear ladies and gentlemen, I think we're arriving at the end of this meeting.

I have depicted a bit the next steps, what's in front of us. In closing that meeting I thank very much the ministry for supporting us in these very important efforts of coordination of our activities across the region.

Let me invite the ministry to say a few word foreclosing. I'm handing over to you.

>> Thank you very much.

Of course, it was a pleasure to meet you today and once again, I would like to just express our gratitude to the ITU again and to give us this possibility to host this ITU regional engagement, roundtable meeting for Europe, 2020/2021, of course we continue our cooperation, close cooperation with ITU and I would like to highlight the outstanding role of the ITU regional office for Europe and personally, you, Jaroslaw Ponder, and I would like to thank all participants, speakers, persons that was involved in the organizing of this today's meeting and wish you success in your other activities.

Thank you again.

>> JAROSLAW PONDER: Thank you very much.

I would just join you in the thanks. Thank you very much.

I would also be selfish. I would like to thank very much my team for all coordination related to making this exercise happen. Thank you very much, Julian, Sarah, Ana, many others who we have asked today for adding the necessary efforts in order to make this consultative process exhaustive.

Thank you very much for that.

Ladies and gentlemen, this brings us to the end of the meeting, and we hope that many of you, coming from administrations, will be joining us also at the CEPT meeting in line with the call which was expressed by our CEPT President. Thank you very much.

With this, I would like to wish you a pleasant rest of the day and also Bon Appetit! Thank you and see you soon in the new set up.

Thank you.

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