BDT Director Doreen Bogdan-Martin delivered opening remarks to ITU's Regional Development Forum (RDF) for the CIS region. This was the final virtual RDF that the ITU organized for 2020, following RDFs in Africa, Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Arab States.
Annually, the RDF is a platform for regional dialogue between ITU and its Member States, Sector Members, Academia and other interested stakeholders aimed at strengthening cooperation and partnerships to promote the activities carried out at the regional level. During the RDF-CIS, ITU membership presented ongoing projects being implemented within the World Telecommunication Development Conference 2017 (WTDC-17) Regional Initiatives framework. ITU Member States also shared their national priorities on telecommunications/ICT development, as well as made proposals on ITU activities in the CIS Region.
Ms Bogdan-Martin highlighted progress made on the connectivity agenda in the region in 2020: the International Research, Development and Testing Center for ITU Member States and Sector Members in the CIS Region was successfully established through a project between ITU and PJSC “Rostelecom", and is hosted by ITU academia member, the St Petersburg University of Telecommunication. Along with the successful regional launch of new Child Online Protection guidelines in October 2020, the CIS Regional Office updated a course on the safe use of the Internet. The CIS Regional Office also expanded its engagement with the countries of the region to promote digital skills, especially for women and youth.
Looking forward, Ms Bogdan-Martin considered priority areas for work in 2021.While digital transformation and digital skills will continue to be overarching objectives, there will be more initiatives aimed at improving connectivity and affordability. She mentioned that ITU's Last Mile Connectivity Solutions Guide will provide Member States with clear and comprehensive guidelines for selecting and customizing appropriate last-mile connectivity solutions to match their own unique environments and digital targets. Cybersecurity will be another important area of focus, given the high level of membership demand for training and drills; ITU will be providing targeted assistance by leveraging important new partnerships with the World Bank and the OSCE.
In the area of youth empowerment and digital skills training, Ms Bogdan-Martin announced that having successfully completed high-level engagement and preparatory work over the course of 2020, ITU will be embarking on the practical implementation of Giga activities to expand school internet connectivity in the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
With a view towards the new year, she stated that as we ''strive to accelerate momentum around this final Decade of Action, the COVID crisis has made it abundantly clear that this needs to be a Digital Decade of Action''. She encouraged ''all stakeholders to join with us as we strive to digitally transform our societies, and leverage the power of ICTs to meet the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.''
