Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to this High-Level Political Forum side-event on ICTs for Well-Being, Inclusion and Resilience: WSIS Cooperation for Accelerating Progress on the SDGs.
This session is organized by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the United Nations Group on the Information Society (UNGIS), which ITU is currently chairing, and I am pleased to be joined by our Vice-Chairs from UNESCO, UNCTAD, UNDP and UNECA.
WSIS Forum is fortunate to have the strong support of all the 30 UN Agencies participating in UNGIS and I would like to thank them for their contribution to the objectives of WSIS - which are so important for the achievement of the SDGs.
We are honoured to have the chairman of WSIS Forum 2022 with us, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy of Nigeria, His Excellency, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), who will be chairman up until next year’s WSIS Forum and has agreed to chair a high level group to review the WSIS process in preparation for the UNGA review in 2025.
I am also pleased that we have a number of other key contributors to the WSIS process with us, many thanks to you all for being with us.
The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the emergence of digital technologies ranging from AI to 5G that promise to tackle humanity’s most pressing challenges and accelerate progress on the UN’s SDGs. The pandemic has been a catalyst for digital transformation especially in education, telehealth, teleworking, and virtual events like this.
The pandemic has also shone a light on the deep digital inequalities between and within countries at a time when overall growth is slowing and worrying gaps in connectivity and access persist, especially in rural and remote communities.
As the UN specialized agency for ICTs, ITU has worked on many initiatives in collaboration with multiple public and private stakeholders as well as civil society to bring the benefits of these new and innovative technologies to accelerate social, economic and environmental development.
The task is to ensure that the WSIS Action Lines help put us back on track to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This is dependent on the excellent multistakeholder cooperation we enjoy in the WSIS process as was evident at the recent WSIS Forum. The Forum brought more than 1,000 physical participants during the final week at beginning of June, with more than 30,000 remote participants since 15 March.
Over the years, the WSIS community has grown in diversity and strength providing a platform for an accurate representation of our increasingly digital society and economy. It is also more interactive and its agenda and programme more far-reaching, with new prizes, special initiatives, and special tracks on topics of key importance to our digital future. Initiatives such as the creation of the WSIS Stocktaking Repository of Women in Technology, the WSIS Multistakeholder Alliance on ICTs and Older Persons, and the WSIS Youth Campaigners embody the spirt that the WSIS Forum seeks to build on, ensuring that ICTs are distributed as widely and equitably as possible.
For two years the WSIS Forum was virtual, and this greatly benefited the drive to make it more diverse and inclusive. We retained the virtual participation in this year’s hybrid format so that those that can participate physically can do so, whilst those unable to travel to Geneva can continue to participate remotely.
WSIS stakeholders have continued to strengthen the alignment of the WSIS process with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
UNGIS is a great example of existing well-functioning digital cooperation in the UN system. Effective collaboration within the UN system is very important with so many UN organisations making use of ICTs to progress their goals. It will be paramount that we all contribute our specific competencies for the common good, pool our resources and make sure we avoid duplication of effort.
Before closing, I would like to thank UNESCO for its excellent leadership of UNGIS over the last year and we look forward to working with our colleagues to continue to make UNGIS every more effective in coordinating and promoting the use of ICTs in the UN system to the benefit of humanity.
This collaboration will be important to raise awareness of the importance of the WSIS process and the technology to make the world safer, stronger, more resilient and sustainable, and ultimately deliver the 2030 Agenda to improve people’s well-being without leaving anyone behind.
Thank you very much and I wish you an enjoyable session.