Ms Fleur Regina Assoumou Bessou, chair of TDAG,
TDAG Vice chairs,
Doreen Bogdan-Martin, ITU Secretary General,
Fellow Elected Officials,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen.
It is a pleasure to see all of you here. I am reminded of the collegiate spirit of the World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-25) in Baku last November. And once again I would like to thank you for your participation and making the conference successful.
I also want to thank and to congratulate the Telecommunication Development Advisory Group (TDAG) Bureau on their election, our Chair, the Vice Chairs, and the ITU-D Study Group management team, most of whom are here present.
Back in 2023, we were here together for the first TDAG after the 2022 World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-22). At that meeting I outlined my vision which together with your advice has guided the work of BDT.
I outlined the convergence between my own vision and that of our Member States. The three points of convergence were closing the digital gap, closing the digital skills gap and accelerating sustainable digital transformation. These are aligned with the five priorities adopted by Member States at the in the WTDC-22 Kigali and retained at the WTDC-25 in Baku last year, because those gaps and challenges are still evident. Today, 2.2 billion people remain offline, and it is our obligation to work towards bridging that divide.
In my vision, I had pillars to the three goals. The first is investment in resilient infrastructure. The second is inclusiveness; no one should be left behind. And the third is innovation, which also turned out to be a cross-cutting issue across all the regions as reflected in the Regional Initiatives. And this fits into the ITU Strategic Plan, that calls on us to close the gaps while dovetailing with sustainable digital transformation and universal connectivity.
My vision has guided our road to a BDT4Impact, and this has strengthened and continues to strengthen a BDT that delivers results and impact people’s lives through digital development.
BDT4Impact began with a roadmap for 90 days and beyond. And we quickly reached cruising speed. In the years since then, we have held numerous events focusing on meeting our shared goals. And I want to thank all the Member States that have been hosting us, and our membership as a whole for participating, and contributing to our development agenda. Through partnerships with Member States and Sector Members alike, we have been able to implement impactful projects across the globe. Throughout the past years, we have shared our successes tangible results, and the impact we have made together. We have listened to your feedback and advice.
Let me share some highlights of what happened in the last quarter of 2025:
• We have had key events from the Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR) hosted in Saudi Arabia; World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium (WTIS); to Accessible Events in the Americas in Guatemala and Europe in Belgium;
• The Global Youth Celebration at the WTDC-25;
• Smart Villages and Smart Islands initiative digital literacy and skills trainings in Tonga;
• Third Meeting of the Digital Innovation Board;
• Cyberdrills held in Mongolia and Armenia; Cybersecurity workshops in ITU’s newest Member State – Palau;
• A series of national events to harmonize Broadband mapping systems in the 11 beneficiary countries;
• A national workshop on validation of a National Emergency Telecommunication Plan (NETP) in Mauritania;
• The first Arab Regional Forum on Early Warning Systems in Egypt;
• Workshops across the Asia Pacific, CIS and Arab States regions, to equip girls with AI as part of our project with EY, and soon we will release a report on older women and Artificial Intelligence;
• After Hurricane Melissa, satellite phones were dispatched to restore vital links and services in Jamaica;
• A subregional workshop for Portuguese-speaking countries on universal and meaningful connectivity was held in São Tomé and Príncipe.
We have also produced a plethora of reports, including the foresight reports coming out of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development.
We also released the Global Connectivity Report, the 3rd edition of the National Cybersecurity Strategy with Worldbank; the Global- DTC Initiative Review (2020 – 2025); and the E-Waste Tooolkit.
At WTDC-25, we broke a number of records, thanks to your participation and your contribution to a successful conference. We had a record number of participants, around 2,000 people from 152 Member States, with more than 150 VIPs in attendance. We had good representation of sector members, industry, academia who made great impact. I want to thank our host, the Government of Azerbaijan, for providing us with excellent facilities in Baku.
Now, here we are with a new roadmap - the Baku Action Plan. The final report of the Conference is now available on the website.
By my vision and your advice, we will continue to move forward to strengthen to build the work done.
In January this year, we hit the ground running, and we have already held events across the globe, and I must add that these have been rewarding and eye-opening. I am pleased to see young people at our youth-oriented events coming up with their own ideas in terms of start-ups, as we challenge them to show us how they will address local challenges with local solutions.
Growing our membership has been another primary focus for us. In 2025, we attracted 55 new sector members, and we now have a record total number of 540 ITU-D Sector Members. We recognize the importance of the private sector and industry in bridging the digital gaps.
We also have been growing partnerships. In 2025 alone, through the collaborative efforts of ITU memberships, partners and BDT staff, both in the regions and at headquarters, the BDT signed 76 partnership agreements out of which 53 included financial contributions. Since January, we have signed 14 more partnership agreements. Those partnerships are not just about dialogues. They come with the money we need to deliver on ITU-D priorities.
In the course of 2025, BDT was involved in the implementation of a total of 106 projects, valued at USD 103.7 million. 32 of these projects completed their activities in 2025, while the remaining 74 projects will continue their implementation as per the respective project documents.
We are continuously engaging with both internal and external stakeholders to drive our vision into action. I am grateful to everyone who has engaged with me, whether in formal meetings or simply over coffee. Internally, we have regular staff engagement, meeting colleagues in the regions and in Geneva to share ideas and to strategize together.
The UN ecosystem is also especially important element. We maintain regular engagement with the UN Resident Coordinator and have multiple projects together with other UN agencies to help them to achieve their mandates. This is in addition in our constant contribution to discussions at the UN level, including the Least Developed Countries conference (LDC5) in Doha, Small Island Developing States conference (SIDS4) in Antigua and Barbuda and Third UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDC3), in Awaza. This helps ensure that connectivity is at the centre of everything we do.
Looking ahead, I would like to say that we have a series of important milestones coming up in Geneva, including the Study Group 1 and Study Group 2 meetings immediately following TDAG-26. You will recall that during the last cycle, the two study groups adopted 15 reports, whose ideas we incorporate into our projects to make sure that these projects are meaningful and impactful at the same time.
As you may know, we have three mechanisms for delivering digital skills – that is, ITU Academy, which has 159 active courses with over 5,000 current participants, which are growing. Together with the Academy are 16 Digital Transformation Centres, across the globe and 14 ITU Academy Training Centres in which we train government officials, including parliamentarians and the judiciary.
On the 23rd of April 2026, we will have the ITU global celebration of the International Girls in ICT Day which will be co-hosted, by the Europe and Americas regions, featuring a live link between Tirana, Albania and Brasília, Brazil. I encourage all our members to celebrate at national level.
I thank the government of Türkiye, our host for the next Global Symposium of Regulators, an important forum that brings regulators, policy makers and private sector together, to help navigate the digital frontier. We look forward to being in Ankara in May.
We have also started a series of Regional Development Forums (RDFs). We just completed one for Europe, which was very well attended and featured very interesting discussions. At each Regional Development Forum, we run matchmaking roundtables within the framework of Partner2Connect Coalition to translate the pledges from commitments to implementation.
The next RDF will be in Africa in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, followed by the one for the Americas, Arab States, Asia and Pacific, and finally one for the Commonwealth of Independent States. Allow me to thank the host countries for these RDFs.
We would not be able to do this work without our Regional Offices and Regional Directors, who work very hard to make sure they bridge the last mile. I want to thank them and the teams in the region. We work in a seamless way, and we encourage them to keep up the mantra - everything for the membership - and to be responsive.
As I conclude, I want to thank Muath AlRumayh, Chair of Committee 3 at the WTDC-25. It was a challenging committee, but we know that he succeeded. I also want to thank all the chairs of the other committees, and chairs of ad hoc groups. Together we made it happen.
The challenge I want to bring to your attention is how we can work in such a way that avoids too many ad hoc groups at the WTDC. We need innovative ideas to ensure we are coherent in our approach, to avert overload of some committees.
Despite the challenges, WTDC-25 was a great success, and I am confident that the same will be true of this week’s Telecommunication Development Advisory Group.
Thank you for your attention.
