HLPF Webinar Side event - Digital with Purpose

HLPF Webinar Side event - Digital with Purpose: Accelerating action and transformative pathways for delivering on the sustainable development goals and recovery from COVID-19 Pandemic

Co-organized by ITU, GeSI & UNOSSC

8 July 2020 - Virtual Meeting

Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to you wherever you happen to be.

Thank you for joining us for this HLPF side event on Digital with Purpose: Accelerating action and transformative pathways for delivering on the sustainable development goals and recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic.

ITU is very pleased to co-organise this event with GeSI and the UN Office for South-South Cooperation. Mr Jorge Chediek was kind enough to host a side event for us during last year’s HLPF at the UNOSSC office in New York and so we are pleased to continue this collaboration. Hopefully we will be able to meet physically next year but one advantage of these virtual events is that participants can join from around the world at no cost so they are more accessible and inclusive than physical events.

ITU has a long history of collaboration with GeSI, we have organised many joint events in New York and around the world and I am sure you will be very impressed with the presentation of the Digital with Purpose initiative that the GeSI CEO Luis Neves will present shortly.

We are very grateful to the ambassadors of Montenegro and Bangladesh for their welcome remarks at this event and the Hon. Minister from Niger, who is doing such great work in his country to connect schools and villages, to join the panel with another excellent example of what can be achieved by ICTs given by Argentina’s Under Secretary for ICTs Mr Martin Olmos.

The COVID-19 crisis has illustrated the power and promise of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as never before. Never has there been so much reliance, appreciation and emphasis placed on the important role and capacity of ICTs. During lockdown, ICTs have given billions of people around the world the ability to continue their work, studies, care of others and remain connected to loved ones. We must give credit to the network operators and platform providers that have been able to respond successfully to the huge increase in demand over the past few months. It has been an incredible demonstration of the resilience of this digital technology.

But of course not all have been able to benefit. Let’s remember that 3.6 billion people around the world are still not connected to the Internet, mostly those living in rural areas and remote communities, which is why our collaboration with UNOSSC is very welcome.
However, I believe that the increased recognition of the importance of being connected, as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, will hopefully make it sooner rather than later that everyone, everywhere is connected. It is now clear that leveraging ICTs to connect everyone everywhere, will be essential to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the fundamental importance of  ICTs to economies and societies everywhere – from fighting the spread of the virus through continued access to healthcare, teleworking, remote-schooling and access to essential goods and services, and keeping family and friends connected.

With COVID-19 nobody will be safe until everyone is safe. International collaboration, cooperation and coordination between all stakeholders, public and private, is essential to fight this virus. And such collaboration will also be necessary to deliver the sustainable development agenda. Only when we all work together, bringing our own specific competencies to the table and avoiding duplication of effort and pooling our resources for the common good will we succeed.

It is at times like these that we need to ensure that the digital infrastructure, services, and applications that have proved fundamental in this crisis are beneficial to all, so that we leave no one behind as we recover from the pandemic.

ITU is fortunate to have a diverse membership of over 900 sector members, mostly private sector companies in the telecommunications and Internet sectors, along with our 193 Member States. We are committed to working with our membership and many other organisations to leverage ICTs to help defeat COVID-19 and accelerate progress in the attainment of the sustainable development goals.

As an optimist, let me conclude by saying I believe some good will come from this Covid-19 experience. It has brought home to everyone the tremendous benefits of digital technologies to transform our economies and our lives for the better and create a more sustainable world. We don’t have to commute to our office every day, we don’t have to travel the world for a business meeting. We can be efficient and effective working from home, and at the same time benefit from a better work life balance.

Digital technologies with purpose are absolutely vital to meet our ambitious development targets. Collaboration and cooperation are key. No single entity can do it alone. All stakeholders: government, civil society, academia, the UN system and the ICT community need to rise to the challenge and strengthen the collective digital response to these unprecedented challenges, so as to promote the sustainable development of society, the environment and economies.

Thank you.