Opening remarks - WSIS Forum 2017: Final physical meeting of the Open Consultation Process

 

Distinguished colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,

On behalf of ITU, the host of this meeting and the co-organizers, UNESCO, UNCTAD and UNDP, I welcome all onsite and remote participants to this final physical meeting of the WSIS Forum 2017 Open Consultation Process on the Thematic Aspects and Format.

The WSIS Forum 2017 will be held from 12 to 16 June in Geneva with the aim of enhancing cooperation, partnership, innovation, exchange of experiences and good practices in ICTs for the sustainable development. We expect more than 2500 stakeholders from over 160 countries, including more than 200 ministers, ambassadors, heads of international bodies, industry leaders and high level representatives from the civil society and academia.

 

WSIS Forum is now clearly the world’s leading ICTs for development (ICT4D) event.

During the Forum, the WSIS Prizes 2017 will be awarded and I sincerely thank all those that submitted projects – both for the WSIS Prizes and for the WSIS Stocktaking Database.

This meeting marks the culmination of the open consultation process and will be followed by a Final Briefing on the 10th of May one month prior to the Forum. I would like to thank everyone for your dedication and commitment towards this multistakeholder process which has led to the draft programme and Agenda of the Forum.

In order to ensure the widest participation and inclusiveness the Open Consultation Process was structured in six phases that began in September last year.

The many submissions received show the energy and commitment towards the Forum - over 200 contributions from Stakeholders worldwide during online discussions, face-to-face meetings and direct official submissions, all in the spirit of the theme of this year’s event: Information and Knowledge Societies for Sustainable Development Goals.

It is encouraging to note a substantial increase in the number of submissions this year. The highest number of submissions (32%) were from civil society organizations, and there was a substantial increase in the number from the private sector, which is also organising 8 different workshops during the Forum.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the confirmed partners of the WSIS Forum 2017: Government of Japan; Government of Poland; Government of Philippines; GeSI; Vimplecom; ICANN; ISOC; IFIP; CMAI; TEMA India and Swiss Engineering. WSIS Forum relies entirely on voluntary contributions and so we are very grateful for this support and would encourage others to contribute.

Thank you all for strengthening the multistakeholder and bottom-up spirit of the WSIS Forum by participating and engaging in this Open Consultation Process which I believe has been very successful.

We look forward to welcoming you at the WSIS Forum in June.​