Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen
Welcome and thank you for joining us today at the Industry Advisory Group on Development Issues and the Private Sector Chief Regulatory Officers’ meeting.
This important meeting will focus on discussing the regulatory and business landscape defining the digital future.
Firstly, I have the pleasure of announcing the appointment of the new Vice-Chair. Ms Lele Modise, Group Chief Legal and Regulatory Affairs Officer at MTN Group will take over the duties of Ms Oyeronke Oyetunde.
Please accept my thanks and appreciation!
For those new to this initiative, this is the platform for ITU-D Sector Members to exchange experiences and make recommendations from the industry and private sector perspective for the enablement of a sustainable digital future.
Let’s review recent work to date.
In terms of this group's contribution to digital development, in 2022 we convened a special meeting focused on Partner2Connect. Several commitments were launched at that meeting and awareness raised.
Today we have over 120 pledges with an estimated value of over USD 8.8 billion from our Sector Members.
Having said that, pledges should not remain promises. We have started to match and convert these pledges into concrete projects on the ground to address the countries needs with the aim of advancing digital development as defined in the Kigali Action Plan which mandates our work.
Your contributions to the Regional Development Forum for Europe have been key and brought new ideas for collaboration to the table and initiatives at the national level both from the Member States and our Sector Members.
In addition to projects on the ground, the industry and private sector members have increased the number of contributions to the Best Practice Guidelines consultation.
All this has been impressive. This year’s consultation brought comparable numbers of contributions from Sector Members and ITU Member States.
Your engagement in our work continues to grow. Your unique expertise is certainly needed!
With this in mind, I ask you to investigate one of our newest initiatives: the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development.
This is a major initiative I launched in January. It is deliberately designed to kick start development in bringing digital innovation and entrepreneurship together. Local enablement is key. And so is private sector participation and an enabling policy environment.
The Alliance is deliberately designed to create co-located conditions for success. I believe that, in doing this, we are adding new, rich, favourable flavours to development work. The result is something that is multi-stakeholder, multilateral, multi-contextual, and multi-sectoral.
All this needs one other component. When I look out at the meeting today, I see leadership on the innovation frontier.
You are key enablers in the digital innovation ecosystem. You have a key role in unlocking these local capabilities in innovation and entrepreneurship. More than that, as leaders, you are the very people who can accelerate it.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In this meeting, we will discuss the main regulatory challenges and opportunities of this decade and how they are expected to impact the way industry operates.
It has been my consistent experience that this roundtable provides a solid foundation for knowledge exchange amongst peers. It continues to make sound recommendations for our joint work.
In a world of digital transformation, these discussions—and their output to GSR-23 as a whole—really matter.
We deeply appreciate your participation, your insights and the discussions from them. This creates active learning for everyone.
I now hand the floor to Mr. Bocar Ba, the Chairman of this group and look forward to fruitful discussion on the regulatory, policy and business landscape which is shaping our digital future.
Thank you!
