Ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
It is my pleasure on behalf of ITU to add my welcome to this 15th Annual Session of the Global Forum on Human Settlements - the first virtual session due to these extraordinary times.
ITU is very pleased to once again joining forces with GFHS and the other co-organizers of the event. Last year, we had the opportunity to organise and participate in multiple panel discussions dedicated to smart sustainable cities at the 14th Annual Session of GFHS in Addis Ababa.
Unfortunately, the circumstances are very different this year. But we are still happy to build on the success we had in Addis Ababa and to continue to draw attention to the important topics that can benefit the global community, including during these difficult times as well as in the post pandemic recovery, but especially on the challenges of sustainability and climate change which will remain with us long after COVID-19 and are very worrying - as we have seen from the Secretary-General of WMO’s slides.
The pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges for cities and citizens around the world. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been playing, and will continue to play, a crucial role in mitigating these challenges.
During the pandemic ICTs have given millions of people the ability to connect with their family and friends, continue to work or study from their home and access essential public services such as healthcare. ICTs provides the backbone for delivering crucial healthcare information, locating critical health assets and allocating resources based on real-time information. It is not surprising that the demand for broadband and digital traffic has increased exponentially during the pandemic.
However, as we know almost half of the world’s population, about 3.6 billion people, remain offline. Having access to affordable Internet remains a huge challenge for many. The lack of digital skills and awareness are key barriers to the lack of Internet uptake, particularly in developing countries, together with lack of relevant content in the local language.
The experience of this pandemic has made it evident to all that digital infrastructure and connectivity are crucial to building social, economic and environmentally sustainable cities that are more resilient to pandemics and similar crises and can accelerate post-pandemic recovery efforts, and the full implement the Sustainable Development Goals.
As the United Nations specialized agency for ICTs, let me tell you a bit about ITU’s contribution. We are working closely with our membership and partners to ensure the development of international standards, harmonized spectrum and coordinated satellite orbits that can handle the huge increase in digital traffic driven by the pandemic, help cities to future-proof their digital capabilities and infrastructure, and ensure that digital services are accessible to all. International standards and harmonized spectrum ensure interoperability of equipment and services provided by different vendors and operators and reduce costs through economies of scale, and they protect essential services such as the meteorological service and earth surveillance satellites.
Early this year, ITU launched the
Global Network Resiliency Platform which brings together regulators, policy makers and other relevant stakeholders to share information and insights on initiatives and measures that have enabled networks operators and platform providers to cope with the huge increase in demand as a result of COVID-19.
Thanks to them, like so many other organizations, ITU has been able to continue its activities through working from home and virtual meetings and conferences. The introduction of flexible working methods have proved to be highly effective. Virtual meetings have enabled much more of our membership to participate in our meetings, making them more inclusive with better geographic balance.
In ITU, we are fortunate to have a diverse membership of 193 governments and over 900 sector members mostly companies from the telecoms and Internet sectors, plus academia, civil society and a range of other regional and international organizations. Our membership is our unique strength, so their increased participation is an important benefit to the organization.
We also work with an increasing variety of partners, none more so at this critical time that the WHO with whom we are developing standards on e-health, including the use of
AI for health.
These digital technologies are key enablers for enhancing operational efficiency of urban complexities and infrastructure and improving access to essential services for city dwellers.
To support cities in their digital transformation, ITU has a suite of international standards that promote a global transition towards a circular economy through emphasis on energy efficiency and recycling.
ITU initiated the
United for Smart Sustainable Cities collaboration with UNECE and UN-Habitat which is now supported by another 13 United Nations agencies and programmes working to help achieve Sustainable Development Goal 11: "Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable".
Known as U4SSC, part of its work is the development of benchmarking tools to allow prospective smart sustainable cities to measure their progress. The latest deliverables include
“A Guide to Circular Cities” and
“Accelerating cities’ transformation using frontier technologies”. Most recently, the U4SSC has created a thematic group that focuses on examining the economic and financial measures taken by cities in response to COVID-19. I encourage you all to reach out to the U4SSC and learn more.
Being an optimist, I like to think that something good will come out of this pandemic. Among the silver linings, we have seen that global carbon emissions are projected to be 7% less in 2020 than in 2019 due to the global lockdown. There are also reports of nature coming back in some cities, and huge improvements in air quality.
Yet, we know that this dramatic fall in carbon emissions is not going to have any lasting impact on climate change if we do not act on the lessons learned from this pandemic and build back better.
That is why it is important that we do not lose sight of the climate challenge, the Paris Agreement, the post-2020 Global Bio-diversity Framework and the Sustainable Development Goals.
In the next two days we will have the opportunity to learn more about how cities can be made more resilient and achieve a green recovery after the pandemic.
International collaboration, cooperation and coordination will be the key to ensure that cities achieve these goals by making the best use of the technology available.
I wish you a very enjoyable and fruitful two days, and once again thank GFHS and all the co-organizers for bringing together this amazing event. It is an honour and pleasure to be with you and I look forward to moderating the panel looking at the importance of standard later today.
Thank you.