BDT Director Doreen Bogdan-Martin participated in a high-level roundtable discussion on “The Role of Digital Technologies in the Covid-19 Crisis: From Emergency Response to Resilient Recovery", co-hosted by the World Bank, ITU, World Economic Forum and GSMA.
Traditional emergency telecommunication frameworks normally focus on disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis, with sudden and possibly very significant, but generally short-term impacts. Ms Bogdan-Martin mentioned that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to ensure resiliency beyond these traditional frameworks, as this disaster has brought about a more sustained and longer-term impact. The pandemic has revealed ''the critical strategic importance of robust, resilient, and secure digital infrastructure to social welfare and the global economy'', she stated.
She also highlighted that recovery this time is not about rebuilding destroyed infrastructure, but ''about making sure that everyone has access to the meaningful broadband connectivity – necessary to survive this crisis, but also to live and prosper in the 'new normal' – a new normal that is posed to be more reliant on digital technologies.''
In order to achieve this, ITU is working to get the remaining half of the world connected; building regulatory expertise and stimulating innovation; supporting countries in their digital transformation strategies; tackling the digital gender divide and digital skills gap; and through ITU's Giga partnership with UNICEF, working to tackle the crisis in education and learning (that has impacted more than 1.3 billion learners), and connect every school on the planet to the internet.
Plans to “build back better with broadband" may not be easy given the economic impact of the crisis, but Ms Bogdan-Martin noted that there are bright spots- ''from a demonstrated political will at the highest levels, to a flurry of innovative financing approaches to private funds flowing into the broadband infrastructures, and soaring shares of some digital infrastructure companies demonstrating the potential we must harness.''
