Speech by Malcolm Johnson, ITU Deputy Secretary-General
WSIS Forum - GeSI Information Session: Welcome Remarks
2 May 2016, Geneva, Switzerland
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good afternoon and thank you for joining us.
Welcome to this information session From Bits to Bytes – Scaling Sustainable Development - part of the pre-launch of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative's report entitled "System Transformation: How digital solutions will drive progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals".
ITU is a proud sponsor of the report and collaborated with GESI on its elaboration.
We believe it is a very important and timely report, and it is particularly appropriate it is launched here at WSIS Forum 2016, the first Forum after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the ten-year review by the UN General Assembly of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognizes that "the spread of information and communication technology and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate human progress, to bridge the digital divide and to develop knowledge societies", while the WSIS review highlighted the crosscutting contribution of ICTs to the Sustainable Development Goals.
As this report shows, ICTs are vital in driving progress towards achieving each and every one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The report highlights this in a very clear, evidence based way, and with deep dive analyses I am sure you will find interesting.
ICTs are already empowering billions of individuals around the world – by providing access to education, healthcare, mobile banking, e-government and social media etc.
The challenge is to bring this to the rest of the world – the other half of the world's population still with no access to the online world - and particularly in the Least Developed Countries – so that everyone can benefit from ICTs in terms of social and economic progress.
ITU Secretariat is developing a roadmap of how the activities of all three ITU sectors of the: Radio, Standards and Development, can contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, linking these activities closely to the ITU Connect 2020 Agenda, and the WSIS Action Lines. It will be a main focus of ITU's work for the following years. ITU is working toward the necessary spectrum allocations, especially for future mobile services, technical standards for interoperability and interconnection, and the policy and regulatory environment that will promote innovation while avoiding market dominance and ensuring consumer protection.
The ITU Connect 2020 Agenda sets out an ambitious vision for the telecommunication/ICT sector, highlighting the role of ICTs as a key enabler for social, economic and environmentally sustainable growth and development. The Agenda includes a set of four goals and related targets to be achieved by 2020, covering the areas of Growth, Inclusiveness, Sustainability and Innovation and Partnership.
To achieve these goals we will need to continue leveraging the power of public private partnerships, as well as the huge potential of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) – we need their expertise, innovation and investment.
I am pleased that this month's ITU Council will consider creating a new ITU membership category for SMEs and non-profit making bodies to facilitate their participation in ITU.
With ITU's diverse and broadening membership, and the support and commitment of the thousands of experts working in ITU, and in close partnership with other bodies such as GeSI, I am sure we will be successful.
So let me hand over to Joan Kralejewski GeSI Board Member, and thank her again for being here, and for GeSI's excellent collaboration with ITU.
I wish you an enjoyable and very informative session.
Thank you.