Distinguished colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen.
It is my pleasure to join you today to discuss how we can strengthen the resilience of telecommunications networks before disasters strike.
As you know, when natural hazards damage telecommunications infrastructure, the resulting loss of connectivity can be devasting.
It delays humanitarian response efforts, with serious consequences, including the avoidable loss of life. The entire communications chain is disrupted: from early warnings and emergency calls to coordination among stakeholders, first responders and humanitarian partners. This is why effective emergency telecommunications save lives.
On 23 June, my office launched ‘A guide to developing a national emergency roaming framework’, a practical resource for governments, regulators and mobile network operators, helping them establish clear regulatory and operational arrangements for emergency roaming.
The guide responds to a very practical challenge:
when one mobile network is unavailable during a disaster, people should be able to connect to another national network, so they can make emergency calls, receive alerts, access essential information and communicate with their loved ones.
For first responders and humanitarian actors, continuity of connectivity is equally critical to coordinating life-saving operations. Reliable access to national emergency numbers is also essential, ensuring that people can quickly reach emergency management services even when networks are under stress.
National emergency roaming frameworks thus provide an additional layer of resilience, helping ensure continuity of voice, SMS and data services during critical network failures, while strengthening coordination among regulators, operators, emergency management authorities and other stakeholders.
But emergency roaming requires preparation.
This is where National Emergency Telecommunication Plans, or NETPs, play a critical role, enabling countries to define clear roles and responsibilities, establish coordination mechanisms,
and set out the regulatory and operational arrangements needed to activate emergency measures when a crisis occurs.
Consequently, my office has been developing NETPs for numerous countries, including seven in Africa alone, and we recently reached an important milestone in handing over Haiti’s NETP to the national agency, CONATEL.
Today’s discussion will consider the wider measures needed to build fit-for-purpose networks, including infrastructure protection, backup power and redundancy, rapid restoration planning, and stronger collaboration among governments, regulators, operators and humanitarian partners.
At the Development Bureau, we remain committed to working with Member States, regulators, industry and humanitarian partners, as well as the broader international community,
to strengthen emergency telecommunications, and help ensure that communications remain available when they are needed most.
I wish you a productive discussion.
Thank you.
