Speech by Malcolm Johnson, ITU Deputy Secretary-General

UNESCAP Committee on Information and Communications Technology & Science, Technology and Innovation: Speech on the Regional review of the World Summit on the Information Society action lines

5 October 2016, Bangkok, Thailand

Excellencies,
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen,

As the lead UN agency on information and communication technology (ICT) it is an honour to speak to you this afternoon on the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) process and how ITU intends to work closely with ESCAP and its Member States on implementing the WSIS Action Lines.

Since 1998, when ITU first proposed the World Summit on the Information Society, there have been incredible advances in ICT development and there is no doubt that ICTs have an extraordinary potential to improve social and economic development, and are essential in helping achieve the Paris Agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the WSIS goals.
In this regard, it is important to note that the Outcome of the UNGA Overall Review of the implementation of the WSIS called for a close alignment between the WSIS process and the SDG process, recognizing that ICTs will play a crucial enabling role for the achievement of all 17 SDGs.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, acknowledges that “the spread of ICTs and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate human progress and to develop knowledge societies, and to bridge the digital divide”.

To that end, the WSIS-SDGs Matrix, which was coordinated by the ITU in collaboration with the UN Action Line Facilitators, clearly shows the linkage between each WSIS Action Line and the 17 SDGs and provides rationale for each. This matrix is available on the ITU website.
In the outcome of the UN General Assembly overall review on the implementation of the WSIS, a strategic regional focus for implementation of the WSIS outcomes was emphasized.

The ITU in its capacity as lead facilitating agency for implementation of WSIS Geneva Plan of Action, is working in close collaboration with all the five UN Regional Commissions towards this strengthened focus on implementation at regional level.
I would like to congratulate ESCAP membership for mandating the secretariat to support the Member States and relevant stakeholders in the implementation of the WSIS action lines, and in particular, to hold a regional review of the implementation of the Summit action lines as part of this Committee session.

In this regard, ITU was happy to jointly co-organize the WSIS Regional Review meeting yesterday, with ESCAP. This meeting was accompanied by almost all regional representatives of UN agencies facilitating WSIS Action Lines.

We are pleased with the outcome of the meeting, and will continue to work closely with ESCAP on the WSIS implementation and its alignment with 2030 Agenda.

This will also help in building awareness on the enabling role of ICTs in sustainable development and programming of future UN Development Assistance Frameworks (UNDAFs).

We need to work together in order to ensure that the ICT component becomes ubiquitous in the national sustainable development plans, and to collaborate and cooperate to avoid duplication and to pool our resources.

Yesterday, we had some WSIS Prize winners from the region showcasing their winning projects, which provided real examples of the impact of ICTs in achieving the SDGs. It was particularly gratifying to learn that the award of the WSIS prizes greatly assisted the development and success of these projects.

So let me encourage you to nominate projects for the WSIS 2017 Prize contest, which is open until February 2017.
The outcome of the meeting will feed into the global WSIS Forum 2017 Open consultation, which will bring the regional perspectives into the global context. 

The open consultation will develop the programme and agenda for the WSIS Forum 2017, so in conclusion, I take this opportunity to invite you to contribute to the consultation. We wish to see many of the new stakeholders in ICTs participate in WSIS, in particular the growing number of different government ministries and industry sectors now dependent on ICTs – health, education, environment, transportation etc.

I look forward to welcoming you to Geneva for the Forum which is scheduled to be held from 12-17 June.

Thank you very much. 

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