Kicking off the second in the high-level webinar series on Digital Cooperation, BDT Director Doreen Bogdan-Martin and UN Under-Secretary-General Fabrizio Hochschild stressed the need to look not just at the immediate actions needed to keep digital networks and services up and running, but also at medium- and long-term planning priorities that will help people, communities and countries recover from the unprecedented economic impact of the global shutdown.
Moderated by Sofie Maddens, Head of Regulatory and Market Environment, ITU, the second webinar in the 5-part series was joined by more than 300 participants from government, industry, the international community and civil society.
Featured speakers included H.E Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Minister of Communications, Ghana; Stephen Spengler, CEO Intelsat and Vice Chairman ESOA; Dr Craig Labovitz, Chief Technology Officer (Deepfield), Nokia; Jane Lim, Assistant Chief Executive, Sectoral Transformation, Info Comm Media Authority of Singapore; and Jane Coffin, Senior Vice President, Internet Growth at Internet Society.
Discussions in this second dialogue focused around best practices and effective actions for COVID-19 response - and, eventually, post-COVID recovery - leveraging the full power of digital technologies and platforms.
In her opening remarks, the BDT Director noted the huge impact of the current health crisis on digital infrastructures and traffic. COVID-19 is taxing global networks to the limit, with traffic surges as high as 800% as the world transitioned almost overnight to online working, schooling, shopping and socializing. "I want to take a moment to commend the outstanding spirit of camaraderie and collaboration of the digital stakeholder community that we have seen in this time of crisis," said Bogdan-Martin.
She went on to urge discussants to focus on a longer-term vision of how the digital community can leverage the recommendations of the Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation to get the world's economies and societies back on track, with the Agenda 2030 in focus.
"First-response actions will be just one part of the story of harnessing digital to help the world weather this shock," she remarked. "Our task today, therefore, is to look at what digital can do, not just to get us through this emergency, but to get the world back on its feet. Let's share our views on how we might leverage this crisis to create an environment that is less focused on profit, and more focused on protecting our planet, and its people."
