Honorable Chairman,
Secretary General,
Deputy Secretary
General,
Directors of the ITU
Bureaus,
Excellencies,
Professionals,
Ladies and Gentlemen
A very good afternoon
While extending my
facilitations to Mr. Chairman for appointment as the chair of this
Plenipotentiary Conference’ PP14”, I am honored to be making this policy
statement on behalf of the Government of Pakistan at this highest
telecommunication policy setting forum of the ITU. I would also like to
congratulate his Excellency Secretary General Dr. Hamadoun Toure for his outstanding
achievement and committed work over these past eight years. We extend our
heartfelt facilitations to Secretary General Elect Mr. Houlin Zhou on his
brilliant unanimous election bestowing confidence in his ability by all the
countries. We wish him success with his new endeavors as Secretary General ITU.
I also want to thank the Government of Korea for hospitality and continued
commitment to supporting development of innovative technologies and for getting
the ICT thought leaders under one roof getting them to all work together on
this critically important project of setting the agenda of the Union for the
next four years.
The gathering of world
leaders, dignitaries, and professionals here exhibits the commitment the global
community has always carried to connect the un-connected of the world and is
now renewing to take us to the next level of economic growth and empowerment of
all human beings. As we all work together here in this wonderful city of Busan
to achieve a common outcome and to set a vision for ICT sector from now through
the year 2020, I have full confidence that we will exceed the targets. The
proposed ITU framework, Connect 2020 comprising of four pillars; growth,
inclusiveness, sustainability and innovation & partnership captures
complete ecosystem of ICTs from the development of application and services to
the provision of access and delivery of the services and applications to all.
Ladies and Gentlemen
The Government of Pakistan is fully
appreciative of the recent developments in the field of Information and
Communication Technologies and opportunities embedded therein for the people.
As the role of the ICTs has evolved as an enabler of growth, our policy focus
is to provide universal, affordable and equitable access to the people so that
they can reap maximum benefits from the vide-ranging available opportunities
worldwide. We believe that proliferation of broadband is the modus operandi to
achieve all these goals.
As we are currently engaged
in the process of reviewing our ICT policies and let me share with you that our
vision for the policy is very much aligned with Connect 2020 theme of ITU. In
fact, we have already started practical implementation of some of our plans
that are entirely aligned with this joint vision. As
we embark on the next stage of our ICT journey the vision of our government is ‘Accelerated
Digitization Ecosystem’ with special emphasis on ‘Bridging Broadband Divide’ to
enable socio-economic development across the length and breadth of the country
expanding the knowledge based economy and to spur economic growth. The
government has accorded its highest priority to the development of ICT
infrastructure and applications for the provision of quality services,
education, employment opportunities, and women empowerment.
We have recently granted next generation
mobile broadband licenses to operators after a transparent spectrum auction
process and have adopted policy focus on transparent and optimal availability
of spectrum for the future. We are
expecting to achieve faster deployment of mobile broadband infrastructure
through the roll out of 3G/4G services on the access side. The government is
fully aware that continued availability of appropriate spectrum is critically
important to further ICT development and therefore as a policy priority the
emphasis is on further spectrum availability for facilitating mobile broadband
penetration. We have always contributed to ITU’s work on harmonization of this
important resource and will continue to do so. To facilitate the backhaul
connectivity, which is an equally important component of the broadband value
chain, Universal Service Fund is being used to complement deployment of
extensive network of optic fiber cable across the country.
Another policy objective we are pursuing
is to address the issue of access to ICT services to all regardless of
geographic area. In urban areas where there is a business case for operators,
the competition is driving infrastructure deployment; however, considering the
digital divide between rural and urban areas, government itself, through
Universal Service Fund, has taken an initiative to establish Universal
Tele-centers powered by fiber optic cable in un-served, underserved and rural
areas of Pakistan. Universal Tele-centers will act as a hub to provide
e-services to the communities. The Universal Tele-centers will be utilized by
telecom operators, provincial governments and federal government organizations
to provide citizen centric services. Projects
of rural telephony aimed at providing basic telecommunication services to
people of even the most remote areas are also underway.
With our e-government plan, the
government is stirring a demand of e-services in Pakistan. Thus, government is
going to be an important stakeholder in “e” ecosystem and playing its role in
growth enabling ICT diffusion in the country. Through e-government platform,
the aim is to provide e-services to the people while ensuring transparency and
accountability in the public sector.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Building
innovation and entrepreneurial capacity in our massively talented youth is
another integral component of value chain which requires special focus to run
the ICT ecosystem effectively. We appreciate that ‘Innovation’ is directly
linked with the quality and skills of HR. The Telecom industry funded ‘Research
and Development Fund’ of the Government is setting up scaled up program to
nurture innovative ideas and to incubate entrepreneurial attitude and viable
business around these ideas. The R&D Fund is encouraging the ICT industry
to bring out proposals that facilitate e-agriculture, e-health, e-learning, e-security,
e-connectivity and e-commerce. The 60% population of Pakistan composing of
youth under age 25 are at the heart of all ICT related policy activity that we
are undertaking be it awarding of free laptops and tablets to hundreds of
thousands of bright young students, subsidizing top class IT education for
enterprising students of disadvantaged areas or support of innovation and
entrepreneurship for young Pakistanis through startup incubation or seed
funding.
Being
one of the few women ministers around this august house my statement would not
be complete without a reference to my country’s commitment to development of the
opportunities for women empowerment that ICTs have enabled. It is encouraging
that ITU is coming out in a big way to institutionalize work in this arena as a
core part of strategy. It is a proven fact that greater involvement of women
can deliver better growth, more competitiveness, and greater human development
in our economies. I believe policymakers, businesses and institutions should focus
on the best methods for achieving women participation and we should move from
‘why’ to ‘how’. Very few things indeed are really impossible and everything can
be accomplished particularly if we act in unison together. Carrying forward our
previous commitment to the cause, Pakistan renews its focus to make ICTs major
source of empowerment and development for women in coming five years. We will
continue to actively participate in Union’s activities in this space.
Ladies and Gentlemen
Since 1947, Pakistan
has a long history of significant contribution to the work of ITU to promote
the mandate of this specialized organization of the United Nations. Pakistan has
been a member of ITU Council and the Radio regulation Board for several tenures
and effectively contributed towards achieving ITU goals. Pakistan believes in
continuing its efforts and commitments to the ITU objectives. We are therefore taking
this opportunity to request membership’s support for the candidature for the
Council member position. Pakistan believes that we have more in common than
differences and the spirit of collaboration in ICT can help bring us together
for the welfare of humanity. This Mr. Chairman is the spirit with which
Pakistan wants to play its role in the ITU process.
I would
like to conclude by congratulating the outgoing Secretary General Dr. Toure and
his team at the International Telecommunication Union for building a network of
cooperation amongst member countries, which this Plenipotentiary Conference
epitomizes. I wish everyone a successful conference and the will and energy to
take the future of the world forward together under the spirit that’s the hallmark
of the ITU.
I thank you Ladies
and Gentlemen.
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