Briefing for Ambassadors of LLDCs in Geneva
Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Director, ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau
22 July 2021
Excellencies, a warm welcome to you all.
It's great to be able to meet virtually today, and to have a chance to share with you our work to help every Landlocked Developing Country dramatically improve its connectivity.
Let me take a moment to express my sincere gratitude to the Permanent Mission of Mongolia for coordinating this important and timely Ambassadors' Meeting.
For those of you unfamiliar with the work of ITU, we are a rather unique UN specialized agency.
For a start, we were founded more than 155 years ago – so we are actually much older than the United Nations itself.
Our long history as a multilateral convenor means that we have an unusual membership structure, with not just 193 Member States, but more than 900 members from the private sector, civil society, and academia.
Our membership list reads like a who's who of the global technology sector, and includes virtually all the big names, along with a host of innovative smaller companies.
Our slogan perfectly encapsulates our mission: 'Committed to Connecting the World'.
We do this through three organizational sectors –
- Our Radiocommunications Sector, which deals with the technical side of all things wireless, from mobile phones to satellites and television broadcasting;
- Our Standardization Sector, which creates the globally agreed technical norms that ensure the many complex components of today's modern networks seamlessly interoperate;
- And of course the Development Sector, which I lead, as Director of the Bureau of Telecommunication Development.
Our work in BDT is entirely geared to helping countries promote universal digital inclusion, through projects and initiatives that help countries: optimize regulatory frameworks to attract investment; develop digital skills programmes to empower their populations; connect their young people through projects like our Giga school connectivity initiative and Generation Connect network; and reach out to communities in hard-to-connect areas with technical resources addressing last-mile connectivity.
I think you will all agree with me that the COVID pandemic has only served to further reinforce the vital importance of getting these unconnected people and communities online.
For those in the world already lucky enough to enjoy a fast and affordable connection, the internet has been a lifeline to continued employment, online learning, digital financial services, social support, and essential government services, including health care.
Over the past 18 months, we've also seen that countries equipped with robust and resilient digital networks have been better able to weather the ongoing crisis.
For ITU, the urgent need to connect the unconnected to build national resilience against future crises has meant redoubling our efforts to help countries rapidly expand connectivity, to reach the 3.7 billion still offline and the millions of communities around the world where connectivity is still too poor to offer any meaningful benefit to local people.
Naturally, LLDCs are a key focus, because our data show that, on average, only 27% of the population in LLDCs is using the internet.
Together, we need to find new ways to overcome chronic connectivity barriers, to dramatically level-up affordable access to technology and empower local people with the digital skills to use that technology, so that everyone, everywhere, has access to life-changing, enabling, digital platforms and services.
I'll be sharing a presentation on the many initiatives underway at ITU aimed at leveraging ICTs for development and harnessing digital to re-energize progress towards the 17 SDGs.
We believe that ICTs can play a powerful role in helping you meet the goals and aspirations of the Vienna Programme of Action for Landlocked Developing Countries for the Decade 2014–2024.
Recognizing that a number of LLDCs are also LDCs, we are also determined to ensure that the outcomes of LDC5 next January recognize digital as the critical component needed to get us back on track to meet our global goals.
Turning to the presentation, I do hope you will find this informative and that it will offer you new opportunities to partner with us to drive your national digital transformations.
