Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed colleagues, over the past two days at WTIS 2024, we have heard many inspiring stories and learned of promising new approaches being explored. Today’s and tomorrow’s meetings of EGTI and EGH are opportunities to take what we’ve learned forward and use it to develop new standards.
As I noted at the opening of WTIS, if goals are not measured, they are rarely achieved, but it’s worth adding that measurement is only meaningful when we know what to measure! So the task of identifying the key metrics is an essential one.
EGTI and EGH have a vital role to play in achieving universal and meaningful connectivity by identifying the metrics to assess the various dimensions of connectivity and thus enabling us to track progress towards our objectives.
To remain relevant, ITU must not only develop a clear understanding of the issues that matter today, but also to anticipate those that will matter tomorrow. We must adapt to new technologies and evolving user behaviours.
To that end, the great merit of EGTI and EGH alike is your agility and flexibility, so it’s important that you keep updating existing standards and developing new ones to capture emerging trends, and avoid becoming overly formalised and captive to established ways of doing things. I urge each and every one of you to engage actively in that process by participating in discussions and proposing new themes for subgroups, so new standards can be adopted and rolled out quickly.
Of course, knowing what to measure is just the beginning. Once indicators are defined, data must be collected. Lack of data availability and quality remains a major issue. Most of you are data producers or users, and I would like to see you all advocating for data collection and mobilizing resources when you return to your respective regions.
At WTIS we heard about several country and regional efforts that are already yielding results, and I suggest you leverage and build upon those, collaborating wherever possible, rather than find yourselves reinventing the wheel in isolation!
The next two days are an opportunity to take stock of your achievements so far and set the direction for the coming year, so I wish you all a productive meeting.
Finally, I would like to thank you all for your hard work, and in particular the leaders of the different subgroups for your commitment to innovation. I especially want to thank Mrs Linah Ngumba, Chair of EGH from Kenya and Mr Bernard Banda, Chair of EGTI from Zambia for their leadership.
And on that note, I now hand over to Mrs Ngumba to get us started.
Thank you!
