BDT Director Doreen Bogdan-Martin addressed the opening and closing plenary sessions of the fourth meeting of ITU-D Study Group 1, on 22 and 26 March respectively.
ITU-D Study Groups provide an opportunity for the membership to share experiences, present ideas, exchange views, and achieve consensus on appropriate strategies to address telecommunication/ICT priorities. Study Group 1 particularly considers "Enabling environment for the development of telecommunications/ICTs." The meeting welcomed close to 140 participants from member states, sector members, and academia.
While opening the plenary, Ms Bogdan-Martin commended delegates' adoption of seven reports and cost modelling guidelines. She noted that over 450 contributions were submitted by ITU-D Members to Study Group 1 during the current study cycle, which has enabled fantastic output reports for each study question.
She emphasized that the need for an enabling environment as a precursor to telecommunications/ICT development has never been so critical. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the world the vital importance of connectivity, and enabling environments are an absolute must to deliver meaningful connectivity to populations worldwide.
''This is why the findings, lessons learnt, and guidelines contained in these reports need to be disseminated widely, and more importantly put to good use by member states, regulators, telecom and ICT players, academia, SMEs and of course our UN partners,'' she underscored.
Ms Bogdan-Martin encouraged delegates to take promote the outcomes of the reports they so skillfully produced, to help other stakeholders benefit from them and to turn their recommendations into concrete actions. She mentioned that the reports' findings would be incorporated into a number of areas of BDT's work.
Thanking the Chair Ms Regina Fleur Assoumou-Bessou for her steadfast leadership of the meetings, Ms Bogdan-Martin invited delegates to continue their active participation in the work of ITU-D, especially in the preparatory processes for the 2021 World Telecommunication Development Conference.
