So good afternoon and good day to you all and to all those who are joining us online.
It is a great pleasure for me to be here in this beautiful city of Timisoara, the cultural city for 2023 Europe. For me, it is a great reunion with this great country, the great city and the great people of Romania.
I would like to say that Europe is leading the way in terms of holding the Regional Development Forum. You know every year we have to hold Regional Development Forums with all the stakeholders. Our constituents normally consist of Member States, private sector, regulators, and academia. But when we come to a forum like this, it is an open door. Everyone is invited to be part of the discussion.
The Regional Development Forum is important for us because then we interact with everyone and benefit from their intellectual inputs. And then we can roll out whatever impactful activities and projects that we have in store. This particular Regional Development Forum is very important in the sense that it is the first regional government forum that we are holding after the adoption of the Kigali Action Plan, which is our action plan that instructs us to undertake activities that are impactful for the next four years.
As you well know, you, the Membership, adopted five priorities for us to implement over the next four years. One has to do with meaningful connectivity. That we should not leave anyone behind. We have to make sure that everybody is connected, and they participate in a meaningful way in the information age. The second one has to do with converting and enabling environments to pave the way for the private sector in industry to invest.
So, the upcoming Global Symposium for Regulators, which will run from 5 to 9 June in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, is a typical example of that endeavor, engaging everyone. One, we must have the right policies. Two, we must have the right legal framework. And three, the right regulatory framework and enabling environment to create an enabling, equal playing field. And the third one is to do with the digital transformation, which is very, very important if we are going to move from where we are to where we want to be. And the fourth one has to do with resource mobilization and international cooperation. We know that no single entity, no single government, no single UN agency can do it alone. We need everyone to come and contribute to the development agenda. In a small way, in a big way, in a medium way, it doesn't matter. Together, we can go places. So that's what we are looking at so that we can implement viable and bankable impactful projects. And finally, cybersecurity, which is a critical element for us to keep everyone safe and give them confidence.
And child online protection is a great incentive because the next generation must have full confidence that they too can participate in the information age and still be safe. We know from some statistics that during COVID, young girls and women were harassed, and they fell victim in a big way because they had no choice but to embark on online activities. And that harassment went beyond online. It also translated itself to being physical. So, we have to make everybody feel comfortable, connect everybody in a meaningful, useful way.
And this is why, about a month ago I signed an agreement with the European Commission, and I thank them here, and I thank all the Member States, worth about 3 million euros for us to be able to measure meaningful universal connectivity. If you don't measure it, you don't know it. So, we collected statistics based on internationally agreed knowns methodologies and definitions, but we had never measured how meaningful that connectivity is to the people.
Many people out of the 2.7 billion people offline are within the reach of governments, but first maybe they cannot afford the service, so affordability is important. Second, they don't have the digital skills. We owe it to them to make sure that everybody has got digital skills. But third, governments too, have a role to roll out government services to stimulate the demand so that the population can participate in a meaningful way. And that way includes, of course, electronic comments to make sure that everybody participates evenly, even if they live in remote areas.
So, universal meaningful connectivity is important to bring digital dividends to everyone. Leave no one and leave no place behind. Even in Europe, there is a divide between urban and rural areas, we have to connect. There is a divide between those between the ages of 15 and 24 that are not in the UN circles as youth, but in ITU we call them digital natives because they were born with an iPad, they were born with a mobile phone in their hands. And we have to make sure that we bridge that gap with those who are elder. They too need to be connected.
As artificial intelligence comes, as robotics comes, every new technology, big data, Internet of Things, we have to make sure that the older generation also participates and pass on their wisdom to the younger generation. We have to engage in meaningful universal connectivity where there is a return on investment, which is tangible. The Sustainable DevelopmentG were adopted by the international community so that we can develop, eradicate poverty, deal with climate change issues, mitigation and adaptation, deal with natural disasters, make sure that the world can communicate.
Without digital, there is a threat that by 2030 the world might not be able to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and we should have a rescue package which is driven by digital. We are in Europe, and I congratulate you because those who are between 15 and 24, they are active and I think it's about 98% of them who are active online. We too are responsible for the other regions that have got the Least Developed Countries that are lagging behind. Some regions have got 26 least developed countries, others have less, but all the same. If we are a global village, we must have everyone to participate so that every region can benefit.
I want to thank Europe, GIZ, the Government of Estonia, the European Commission for your kind generosity. There are many others that I'm not going to mention, and the danger of mentioning others and leaving others behind is you create enemies in the process. But let me assure you that ITU stands to serve and to serve fairly and we want to remain accountable to account for the money that entrusted us to make sure that we make the best use of it. And the taxpayers see the reason why you are coming to us. We are both a specialized agency and also a project executing agency. We are happy to serve and to execute projects that are impactful, that will make a difference in people's lives.
This particular RDF is special in one thing. You know that in Kigali, at the WTDC 2022, we launched an initiative which we call Partner2Connect, which brings everybody who is involved and shares the vision with us that everyone deserves to be connected, every place is going to be connected. We launched Partner2Connect. To date, we have over 600 pledges valued at over $30 billion. Now, those are the pledges, we want to move a step further, as the Development Bureau, we want to be able to translate the pledges into tangible projects. We give tomorrow great importance because we'll be matchmaking. We will hear the needs of the Member States and we already know them, in the European Region and we are going to be having a conversation with those that made pledges so that they can pick and choose and say, I like this initiative, I'm going to invest in it. I made a pledge for 3 billion USD, I'm going to put 2 billion USD in this initiative, 1 billion USD in this initiative. That way we will be able to make a difference and make Partner2Connect a reality. Our target right now is to reach 100 billion USD, but that 100 billion USD is going to be translated into actionable actions and projects.
And I would like to thank you once again for having us here. The hospitality that we have received since our arrival, it's unrivalled, and then, of course, it is not a long time ago that we were in Bucharest, where the Government of Romania was kind enough to host the Plenipotentiary Conference, which I thank you. You had confidence and trust, elected me as part of the ITU management team for the next four years. I would like to thank Cristiana, I would like to thank Inga, I call them the glue that binds Europe and the rest of the world. They are very active in our work.
You are also invited to be part of our conversation. We have great Study Groups that you can participate in. We have an upcoming meeting in the Global Symposium for Regulators. You are cordially invited. We also have the Telecommunications Development Advisory Group, which is meeting in mid-June. Cordially invited. We are not afraid of criticism. We are not perfect. We can only do the best that we can. We stand guided by you. Your opinion matters, so feel free to join us.
