Speech by Malcolm Johnson, ITU Deputy Secretary-General
Inaugural Session : Plenary Remarks
27 October 2015, New Delhi, India
Excellencies,
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen,
Let me start by thanking the organizers for inviting me to be with you today and to address you at this Inaugural Session of the Global Summit on Digital India.
As always it is a real pleasure for me to be back in India with which I have had a long and happy association and where I have many good friends.
And as many of you will know, I have always been very keen to encourage greater involvement of India in ITU and especially increasing the membership of India's industry and academia in ITU. Currently we only have four industry members participating in ITU's technical work and only five academia members. Clearly with a youthful population of some 1.3 billion people, and a highly educated English-speaking workforce with a well-developed information technology sector, there is a huge potential for greater involvement in ITU and for India to take a leadership role in many of the activities of ITU.
Prime Minister Modi's launch of the Digital India initiative last July sets ambitious targets that will revolutionize government services and bring connectivity to the under-served rural communities, which according to the last census constituted almost 80% of the population. Bringing fibre and wifi to 2.5 lakh villages by 2020 will allow people to benefit from the information society for their education, health and employment. It will enable young entrepreneurs to start new businesses and enable a major renewal of the nation's essential infrastructure. It will provide the platform for the realisation of the Prime Minister's Make in India initiative and the Start-up initiative. With these far-reaching reforms the time is right for India to fulfil its potential and ITU stands ready to assist in anyway it can.
Today, world-wide there are more than 7 billion mobile phone subscriptions, almost as many mobile subscriptions as there are inhabitants on the planet, and 3.2 billion people are online, of which 2 billion are in developing countries. India has been at the epicentre of this tremendous growth, and has the world's second largest number of mobile phones in use at 960 million. It is the world's fastest growing smartphone market, and at around 240 million Internet users, the third largest Internet user base in the world after China and the United States.
The Internet is a global public good, but it is still far from being ubiquitous, with more than 4 billion still offline including two thirds of the people in the developing world, and even those online do not always have access to the same content, knowledge and opportunities.
The number of Internet users in India accounts for less than 20% of its population – demonstrating both the challenges and the opportunities.
It is estimated by World Bank that for every 10% increase in broadband penetration in the developing world, GDP will be boosted by 1.4% on average.
We need to ensure that all people – and especially the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people – have equitable access to this vital resource for sustainable social and economic development.
Dear friends,
This is a pivotal year for the global community in general as we move from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the newly agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and review the achievements of the agreements and commitments made a decade ago at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
It is clear that information and communication technologies have been and will continue to be an essential enabler and accelerator for sustainable growth and development for everyone.
The ICT community must continue working together so that the benefits of the technology are brought to all the world's citizens.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
ITU is committed to working with all stakeholders to bring the power of modern communications to all the world's people - wherever they live and whatever their means.
As the oldest member of the UN family - we celebrated our 150th Anniversary on May 17 this year - and the UN's specialized agency for ICTs, ITU will continue to play its part in bringing the benefits of secure and trustworthy ICTs to all – through the coordination of global resources, including spectrum and satellite orbital slots; through international standards; through developmental support; and by convening policy dialogue.
Towards this objective, at the ITU Plenipotentiary conference last year the ITU membership agreed the Connect 2020 Agenda for Global Telecommunication/ICT Development, setting out a shared vision and goals as well as universal, specific and measurable targets for the development of the global ICT sector.
The vision areas of the Digital India Initiative are all reflected in the 2020 Agenda and we hope that ITU can work closely with India to achieve these objectives.
With 80% of India's population living in rural areas clearly the provision of these services through wireless technologies will be key, and providing the necessary spectrum will be essential, which is why the topic of this conference is of great interest. Recent innovative radio techniques such as Dynamic Spectrum Access, Cognitive Radio and Database Radio systems amongst others, promise smarter and more efficient utilization of the scares spectrum resource, opening the door to new applications in TV White Spaces that can offer very low cost solutions to connect rural and remote areas and provide the broadband connectivity necessary for people to take advantage of the digital world.
This will be essential to meet the objectives of the Digital India initiative and the Make in India initiative: to encourage entrepreneurs, create new jobs and new start-up companies. Some estimate that India has the second largest number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the world, at 48 million, just behind China. These SMEs employ close to 40% of India's workforce and contribute 45% to India's manufacturing output. Clearly SMEs will play a critical role in meeting the Make in India objectives.
At the recent ITU Telecom World, held in Budapest, Hungary, a couple of weeks ago, the ITU Secretary- General launched ITU's new Emerge Initiative, creating an international platform for supporting and promoting SMEs, in particular those from emerging markets and with social impact. The Emerge Partnership brings together a network of stakeholders that are working to support local, regional and international innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems, to increase dialogue with government policy-makers and regulators to provide a vital enabling environment for private enterprise.
I encourage India to actively participate in the Emerge initiative with ITU, and I very much hope to see increased private sector and academia participation from India in ITU's work so that ITU can contribute more to India fulfilling the bold objectives the government has laid out.
Dear Colleagues,
There is no single entity, or organization, that can alone address all the challenges faced by the ICT Sector. These are global issues, requiring global dialogue, cooperation and collaboration. It is imperative that we all work together. ITU is ready and willing to do so !
I wish you a very enriching and successful Global Summit. Thank you for your attention.