Commonwealth ICT Forum'18 - Opening remarks

Commonwealth ICT Forum'18 - Opening Ceremony

1 October 2018, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

Excellencies
Acting Secretary-General CTO, Gisa Fuatai Purcell
Distinguished delegates
Ladies and gentlemen

Good morning!

It is a great pleasure to join you here at this Commonwealth ICT Forum 2018, thank you for the invitation, and of course I bring greetings from ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. It is very nice to be back in Trinidad again where we always have a warm welcome.

I have had a long association with the Commonwealth, and CTO especially, going back to when I was the UK representative on the CTO Council.

During the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in 2002 I initiated the coordination of Commonwealth preparations for ITU conferences. This proved very successful. Commonwealth countries are key players in four of the six ITU regions, so agreeing on common objectives to be pursued in the regional groups, not only helps Commonwealth countries but helps the ITU conferences reach consensus more quickly. Commonwealth countries are very diverse in terms of development and geographic spread, so consensus building in the Commonwealth is a good basis for consensus building in ITU.

Since joining ITU in 2007 I have continued this close association. Even though ITU is 153 years, and CTO was founded 117 years ago, it was not until the Forum on Next Generation Networks in Sri Lanka in 2009 that both organisations held a joint event. I am pleased to say quite a few joint activities have followed since.

CTO has done excellent work, often in partnership with ITU, in a wide range of Commonwealth countries especially on cybersecurity capacity building.

Commonwealth countries benefit from and a common language, shared values and similar legal and administrative systems which means there is great scope for collaboration of this kind and learning from each another.

Commonwealth countries make a significant contribution to the ITU, and it is important to have their voice hear on the ITU Council for example, particularly speaking up for the importance of ITU’s work on the sustainable development Agenda. It is good to many candidates from the Commonwealth standing for Council this time.

With a Commonwealth population of over two billion, of which 60% are under the age of 30, the CTO working together with ITU, is uniquely placed to help connect its citizens and bring them the social, economic and environmentally sustainable development that ICTs can offer. CTO and ITU have common objectives and common membership so it makes sense to work together for the common good and we look forward to continuing this partnership.

I won't take more of your time as we have a full and very interesting programme, and I will be speaking later this morning in the session on broadband, and again on Wednesday in the session on spectrum.

Let me end by wishing acting Secretary-General Gisa Fuatai Purcell every success this week, and in the challenges facing CTO. I assure you of my support and help in anyway I can.

So I wish you all a very enjoyable and productive Commonwealth ICT Forum, and also a very successful CTO Council later in the week.

Thank you for your attention.