Side event to the STI Forum - Industry 4.0 and Digital Strategies

Side event to the STI Forum - Industry 4.0 and Digital Strategies: Challenges and Opportunities to achieving SDGs

5 June 2018, UNHQ, USA

Good morning, everyone. 

I am quite pleased to be back in New York. The last time I was here was in 2015 for the WSIS+10 review held in December 2015. Back then I talked about the extraordinary potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve social and economic development, and how we all need to come together to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

Today, I will talk about the digital transformation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which as we all know, is having an unparalleled disruptive impact on society, on industry, on how we communicate and how we create value.  ICTs are a key driver and essential for Industry 4.0 and for the SDGs to be fully realized.

We are seeing this already, as industries integrate The Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, 3D printing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), among many other game-changing technologies into daily production processes, they are transforming our workforces and the industrial and manufacturing processes that drive economic growth.

Digitalization, in other words digital interoperability and the integration of smart products and services is making the global flow of information and data faster, cheaper and easier. This also provides the potential to create new business and employment opportunities.  For example, through e-commerce and online marketing which are helping small and medium-sized enterprises overcome logistical and geographical challenges and improve their access to markets.

Digital technologies are improving productivity and competitiveness, and also enhancing resources and optimizing energy efficiency and consumption. Digitalization has the potential to contribute to the transition to a circular economy, and in this way assist in protecting our environment and mitigating climate change.

These are just a few examples of how the digital transformation is and can contribute to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the achievement of the SDGs.

In many developed countries, Industry 4.0 and the use of ICTs are already quite advanced. Certainly, less advanced developing countries could benefit from the experiences of more advanced countries by leapfrogging into Industry 4.0.

However, there are key challenges that need to be addressed, especially true in many developing countries and economies in transition, which include lack of, obsolete or scarce physical and digital infrastructure; limited and affordable connectivity; non-existent local content; inadequate digital skills; an unapplied data standards. 

Strategic steps need to be taken at the policy and business level in order to respond to these challenges, and boost the kind of inclusive and sustainable industrial activity that leads to higher employment and economic growth.

This concerns, in particular, the achievement of Goal 9 “Building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization and fostering innovation” — which is central to the work of both ITU and UNIDO, as well as target 9c, to significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020. 

UNIDO and ITU recently made a commitment to strengthen collaboration in the areas of Industry 4.0, digital transformation and broadband infrastructure, capacity building, and the development of new international ICT standards in order to connect the unconnected, and to enable people worldwide to reap the benefits of the fourth industrial revolution.

The aim of this partnership is also to engage all stakeholders so that together we can advance on achieving SDG 9 and contribute towards achieving the other SDGs.

For this, we need public private partnerships, particularly for investment in reliable physical and digital infrastructure that is needed to be make connectivity widely accessible.

At the moment 3.9 billion people — which corresponds to slightly more than half of the world population — have no or minimal access to the internet. The huge digital divide between developed and developing regions needs to be addressed in order to reap the full benefits of Industry 4.0.

But connectivity and digital access alone are not enough. Improvements in development takes much more than improvements in ICT. I don’t need to remind anyone here that 85% of the world’s population is covered by at least 3G services, but less than 50% of people are connected. Why is this we may ask?

Well, we also need affordability, local content, content in local languages and the monetization of content as an incentive.  We also need to boost the aspects of trust and cybersecurity. Efforts to improve access connectivity will be undermined if people cannot afford the service, don’t understand it, don’t trust it, or see no benefit to them.

So we have to work on changing perceptions, like ending the misconception that the Internet is only useful for entertainment.  We have to provide people with incentives.  And that means: subsidizing the cost to the poorest; educating people on how to make best use of the technology; and developing the local content and services in local languages that people can relate to and see the benefit of.

As G20 Members emphasized in the recent Digital Economy Declaration, and I quote, “Connectivity and digital access alone are not enough to create an inclusive, sustainable digital future for all.”

For Industry 4.0 in particular, we need new skill sets. Digital literacy is a key part of the equation, which we cannot be created overnight. They require changes in education and vocational training, for instance, in mechatronics, digital medicine, precision agriculture, robot design, and smart grid design, management, to mention just a few. 

Agreements on new standards for the exchange of data pertaining to Industry 4.0 need to be applied, found or established. These will likely be demanded by consumers and other stakeholders and might be related to the exchange and storage of big data, security and privacy, as well as to ethics guiding the relation between machinery and the work force.

That’s a big priority for ITU.  And it is a precondition for achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

In 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society entrusted ITU as the sole facilitator for building confidence and security in the use of ICTs.  Our role has been to bring all the different organizations and stakeholders in this sphere:

• To forge meaningful partnerships to develop security standards,
• To help countries define their national cybersecurity strategy,
• To set up their computer incident response teams,
• To deploy international security standards in their infrastructure,
• To protect children online, and
• And to build the necessary human capacity and skills.

Our mission at ITU is to help the world communicate, leaving no one off-line. I want to insist on that point: we cannot leave anyone behind.

As we have heard in the past, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has the potential, like the revolutions that went before it, to consolidate power asymmetries, increase inequalities, and advance technologies that fail to embody human-centred values.

This is why we need to ensure that we build a people-centred, inclusive and development oriented society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge. That’s how we’ll allow everyone to achieve his or her full potential.

Clearly here, let me also bring to the forefront the important role women and girls play. We can no longer accept the current gender digital gap, a situation where there are so many more men online than women, and the situation is worsening. We went from an Internet user gender gap of 11% in 2015 to 12% in 2016, which equates to 257 million more men online in the world than women. To address this issue, ITU has co-founded the EQUALS initiative, which is a network of organizations working together to ensure that women are given access to ICTs, are equipped with ICT skills, and develop the leadership potential to work in the ICT sector and contribute to the innovation ecosystem.

People, countries, cannot be late to this revolution, they cannot afford to be left behind.

To empower stakeholders to accelerate digital transformation towards Industry 4.0 through innovation, ITU has launched a toolkit: Bridging the Digital Innovation Divide, which we launched last year during WSIS Forum 2017.

ITU also plans to expand its collaboration on the country implementation of innovations policies and projects, with international partners including UNIDO, in both public and private sectors.

ITU will continue to strengthen its initiatives to enhance Member States’ capacity to integrate ICT innovation in their national development agenda.

One thing seems certain: Progress on SDG 9 will require all stakeholders working together.

For both ITU and UNIDO, this is of paramount importance, as we leverage our core competencies to maximize our unique contribution to the UN’s efforts to achieve the SDGs.

ITU stands ready to work with international fora, governments, and businesses to… realize the potential of ICTs for Industry 4.0 and the achievement of the SDGs.

Thank you.