Opening remarks
Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Secretary-General,
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.
I'm really delighted to see you all here today.
This is where it all started 21 years ago. And it's fitting that we have with us today Minister Albert Rösti (federal councillor since 2023, Albert Rösti heads the Swiss Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications).
Mr. Minister, it's really an honour to have you here today.
Your country has been a strong supporter of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) since day one. As the host of the first phase of the WSIS back in 2003, Switzerland has played a leading role in advancing our common vision of building a fair, just, and inclusive digital society.
We've reached another turning point — both the WSIS process and the unfolding story of digital transformation.
We may be stepping into the unknown, but I do believe that we're doing it from a position of strength. And let me explain why.
First, we have a strong foundation built on two decades of collaboration and innovation. That makes WSIS unique. Because it's filled with diversity … diversity of its community.
Let's remember that the WSIS Declaration of Principles begins with: “We, the representatives of the peoples of the world."
We, the representatives of the peoples of the world. That's who we are and what we stand for.
Bringing the private sector and civil society to the table — and making their voices heard in this process — was truly forward-thinking back in the early 2000s. It has allowed us to accomplish a great deal, from promoting digital inclusion to supporting capacity-building initiatives.
This multistakeholder approach to digital cooperation works, and we need to protect it because it's more fundamental now than ever before.
Second, we are laser-focused on what matters most, and that is development.
WSIS was born out of the imperative to reduce the digital divide between the richer and the poorer countries — and to use digital as a catalyst for development.
The recent Human Development Index report of UNDP (the United Nations Development Programme) shows that the two-decade trend of steadily reducing inequalities between wealthy and poor nations is now in reverse.
This calls for urgent action.
And this is why we have just entered into a partnership with the OpenWallet Foundation and the Swiss Government to establish the OpenWallet Forum, to close the gap between “haves" and “have nots" by developing and deploying globally interoperable digital wallets to help bridge digital divides and to advance digital financial inclusion.
Digital technologies can turn things around. They can accelerate progress to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and that's why it's so important to continue to align the WSIS process and the SDGs.
And that brings me to my third point: We can rely on, and we can draw from existing, well-functioning, and multistakeholder UN-mandated processes for digital governance.
The WSIS Action Lines have withstood the test of time by providing the WSIS process with the flexibility needed to keep pace with the rapid evolution of new and emerging technologies.
The entire WSIS process has demonstrated flexibility and adaptive governance, with the Internet Governance Forum solidifying its role as the forum for global digital governance issues, and the WSIS Forum complementing this process by focusing on grassroots digital development through the Geneva Plan of Action and its Action Lines.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
This High-Level Event comes at a time of high expectations for digital.
The outcomes of this event will be critical in the upcoming UN Summit of the Future in September and the WSIS+20 Review next year — both milestone occasions where leaders are being called upon to rebuild trust and reinvigorate a sense of global solidarity, including in the digital world.
As we look to the role of WSIS beyond 2025, ITU is more committed than ever to working closely with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), UNDP, UNCTAD (UN Trade and Development) and some 50 UN partners engaged in the WSIS process to implement the WSIS outcomes and the SDGs.
Now is the time to take stock of how far we've come, what's left to do, and the challenge before us.
Now is the time to understand how WSIS and other UN processes, like the Global Digital Compact and the Summit of the Future, can complement each other.
Now is the time to finish the job and bring online the 2.6 billion people that have never ever connected.
