Speech by Malcolm Johnson, ITU Deputy Secretary-General
Informática 2016 : Opening Speech
14 March 2016, Havana, Cuba
Español
Maimir Mesa Ramos, Minister of Communication
Wilfredo González Vidal, Vice-Minister of Communication and Executive President of Informática 2016
Distinguished Members of the Presidency
Excellencies
Ladies and gentlemen
It is a great pleasure to be with you today here in Havana at the opening ceremony of Cuba's 16th International Convention and Fair, Informática 2016. I had the pleasure of participating in Informática 2009, and it is very nice to be back in this wonderful country and to receive once again such warm hospitality and friendship. Thank you for inviting ITU and greetings from the Secretary-General and all my colleagues. We wish you a very successful event.
Informática 2016, with the theme of 'Connecting Societies', reflects the increasing importance of information and communication technologies – ICTs – in the world we live in today – both for economies and for societies.
Across the globe, ICTs help to improve farming practices, assist entrepreneurs large and small, promote equality for women, improve healthcare, and help to protect the environment.
ICT-based systems and services – such as electronic commerce, distance learning, telemedicine and e-government – are improving the quality of life for countless people around the world.
ICTs help reduce poverty and empower people through reducing transaction costs; integrating local and regional markets; and increasing the potential value of human capital.
Over the past decade there has been quite extraordinary progress in ICT development.
According to the latest data from
ITU's Measuring the Information Society Report 2015 – published last December – the number of mobile-cellular subscriptions worldwide grew from 2.2 billion in 2005 to an estimated 7.1 billion in 2015.
The number of mobile-broadband subscriptions has grown even faster, from under a billion in 2010 to 3.5 billion in 2015. More than 3.2 billion people, or more than 40% of the world's inhabitants, are now online.
Here in Cuba, despite all the difficulties significant progress has been achieved in the deployment of networks and telecommunications services across the country, transiting from analogue to digital broadcasting, and launching several oinnovations in the mobile sector and ICT applications, in particular e-health, e-learning, e-government and teleworking, to name just a few, as can be seen from the many exhibitions in the fair.
By the end of 2015, there were more than 3.4 million mobile cellular subscriptions in Cuba, and there are plans to increase fixed and mobile penetration as well as establishing many more wifi hotspots in public areas throughout the country and new navigation rooms for public access to the Internet.
On behalf of ITU, I congratulate the Cuban administration for its constant commitment towards the development of an all-inclusive and equitable Information Society, as well as the progress achieved towards an effective ICT ecosystem.
This includes the INFOMED Portal, the Portal of the Citizen, and the Entumovil Portal, among many other initiatives, together with the development of the Cuban Software industry, and advanced work on cybersecurity, which has established solid foundations for a globally-integrated Cuba.
I would also like to congratulate Cuba on the formal creation last week of the Computer Users Union of Cuba, the UIC, which marks an important step forward in the development of the Information Society here.
Cuba has been a valued member of ITU since 1918, almost one hundred years ago, and we are grateful for Cuba's active support to the work of the Union, and Cuba's re-election to the ITU Council at every Plenipotentiary Conference since it was first elected to Council in 1989.
ITU in turn is committed to assisting Cuba in building an even stronger ICT ecosystem, for example we are currently making efforts to support a radio spectrum project for Cuba aiming to increase its spectrum management capability.
There have been tremendous advances in ICT development both here in Cuba and around the world, but with well over half the world's population still offline, it is much too early to talk about the Information Society in any kind of global sense.
That said, I think we can all agree that ICTs will be absolutely essential to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that were adopted in New York in September last year, as well as the targets set by the COP-21 Climate Change Conference in Paris in December.
The United Nations General Assembly high-level review on the World Summit for the Information Society, also held last December, called for close alignment between the WSIS and SDG processes and decided that the WSIS Forum should continue to be held on an annual basis.
The WSIS Forum has been widely commended by all stakeholders as an efficient mechanism for the coordination of multi-stakeholder implementation activities, the sharing of best practices, and for acting as a uniquely important platform for information exchange and creation of knowledge.
Starting this year, the WSIS Forum will concentrate on strengthening the synergies between the WSIS Action Lines and the SDGs.
Let me therefore call on your support to the next WSIS Forum, which will be held in Geneva from 2 to 6 May. We very much hope to welcome you there.
The Forum will see the launch of a new report that ITU is currently developing with GeSI, the Global eSustainability Initiative, and Accenture, which will provide evidence-based updates on the potential of ICTs to accelerate social progress and deliver economic benefits across all 17 SDGs.
The report will make recommendations on the partnerships needed, as well as new business models and policy interventions that will provide secure, safe and equitable access to ICTs for all.
So let me close by once again reiterating ITU's support for Cuba, and for important awareness-raising events such as this convention and fair – and let me thank you once again for your invitation here. I wish you all a very enjoyable and productive convention and fair.
Thank you