36th CANTO Conference & Exhibition
Feature Address
Digital Recovery
Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Director, ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau
29 July 2021
Dear colleagues,
It is a great pleasure to deliver this morning's opening keynote at the 36th session of the CANTO conference and exhibition, which is such a key event for the Caribbean region.
I've been invited to speak today on the theme of 'Digital Recovery' – a topic that is uppermost in the minds of all of us, as we struggle to respond to economic and social disruption on a scale far beyond anything the world has ever faced.
The past 18 months have been a watershed in the way we look at connectivity.
For those of us who enjoy a fast, affordable connection, access to the internet has quite literally been a lifeline.
But let us never forget that the majority of the world's people are not so lucky. 3.7 billion have still never, ever, been online. And for far too many more, getting online remains too expensive, too slow or simply too inaccessible to play any meaningful role in improving their lives.
To exacerbate matters further, the COVID pandemic is dramatically accelerating the digitization of services, as companies seek to harness digital transformation to assure ongoing business continuity. On a practical level, that means that the divide between digital haves and have-nots will get ever-wider, amplifying its impact on quality of life, and equality of opportunity, for the billions who remain offline, or poorly connected.
COVID has not proved the short-lived health crisis we had all hoped, this time last year. Instead, it has emerged as a powerful game-changer – and one whose enduring effects on the ICT sector will perhaps be felt most keenly of all.
There can be no doubt now that digital will be at the heart of every nation's social and economic recovery.
Digital builds resilience.
Digital sustains economic performance, facilitates social cohesion, and drives new growth.
So what active steps can we take to promote a digitally-led recovery and ensure that we all 'build back better with broadband'?
I believe we need to focus our actions in three key areas:
- Next generation digital regulation
- New kinds of partnerships for development, and
- A much more holistic approach to digital transformation.
The Caribbean is, of course, an extremely diverse region, with its own very special needs. Connecting widely dispersed island communities will be a constant challenge, as will the need to mitigate the ever-present threat posed by extreme weather events.
Encouragingly, it's great to see that the region overall has been making steady and impressive progress, and is now reaping the rewards of many years of hard work, investment and political commitment to extending access to high-quality networks and services to all of the region's communities.
Focusing on those three key action areas I just mentioned, in terms of ICT regulation, the Caribbean single ICT zone is an excellent example of a forward-looking, next generation policy initiative. This digitally-enabled borderless space will play an important role in fostering economic, social and cultural integration, and driving region-wide digital recovery.
To further streamline regulatory effectiveness and promote 'gold standard' 5th generation regulatory practices, ITU is supporting CARICOM Secretariat and a number of regional organizations, including the CTU in exploring the feasibility of establishing a Single Regional Telecommunications Regulator for the Caribbean.
Many Caribbean countries can take pride in having notched up solid achievements in extending broadband quality and reach.
One of the most formidable of these challenges will be finding the money to promote greater digital inclusiveness. COVID has injected new urgency into our search for innovative financing models to support faster network roll-out and help countries upgrade to 5G.
Which brings me to my second focus area: innovative partnerships for development.
The UN Secretary-General's Roadmap for Digital Cooperation calls for universal affordable connectivity by 2030.
Achieving this goal will be no mean feat. A recent study by ITU estimates that connecting all unconnected people aged 10 years and older by our 2030 deadline will require global investment in the vicinity of $428 billion.
So, as we look to how to achieve our vision of digital recovery, one thing seems certain – no-one can do this alone.
That's why, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month, I launched a bold new ITU partnership initiative, called the Partner2Connect Digital Coalition.
This new coalition aims to harness the energy of traditional partners while bringing new partners from other sectors into the mix; partners who understand that 'building back better with broadband' will open up huge new opportunities.
The Partner2Connect Digital Coalition will place a strong focus on the hardest-to-connect communities, including Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries, and Small Island Developing States.
I look forward very much to working with CANTO and many of its members on this new venture, so that, together, we can review the first fruits of our work at ITU's upcoming World Telecommunication Development Conference, in June 2022.
For ITU, Partner2Connect offers a powerful opportunity to engage with new and existing partners to strengthen and accelerate the many regional activities already underway.
As the UN specialized agency for digital technologies, we are committed to providing every Caribbean country with the technical support it needs to get to grips with complex issues like spectrum management and 5G deployment, and to help all countries extract maximum value from existing networks, while seamlessly integrating new infrastructure.
Many of you will know that ITU has been working with 22 Caribbean states on a regional technical assessment, complemented by workshops to train young engineers to meet emerging challenges.
In the all-important area of digital skills development, the Office of Eastern Caribbean States has become a lead organization for our flagship Giga initiative with UNICEF and others to connect every school on the planet to the internet, and every young person to information, opportunity and choice. Through Giga, we are now working with the OECS to connect more than 1,100 schools and improve learning outcomes for more than 180,000 students and teachers.
To build greater regional capacity around emergency telecommunications, we are also working steadily to install equipment across the Caribbean through the WINLINK Project, supporting countries in boosting their disaster response capabilities. The Barbados and Dominica systems are already up and running, and full deployment is imminent in Antigua and Barbuda, and St Kitts and Nevis. Meanwhile, we've completed work with St Lucia on its National Emergency Telecommunications Plan, are currently working with Dominica and Grenada on their plans, and are in talks with two other Caribbean countries seeking assistance to develop their own plans.
In addition, through our Connect2Recover initiative, we are working with Haiti to boost digital literacy though the development of 'tech hubs' in two of the country's most disadvantaged communities. Each hub will provide classes on digital basics, robotics, personal knowledge development and more, fostering digital skills in the community, and opening new career opportunities for participants.
Ladies and gentlemen,
ITU is involved in many more projects and partnerships across the Caribbean region, from actions to strengthen cybersecurity, to our SmartSeas project to use technology to protect small fishing vessels from dangerous weather conditions, to the regular direct deployment of emergency equipment in the aftermath of a catastrophe – most recently, to the Bahamas after the destruction caused by Hurricane Dorian.
All of these actions are important. But they must be underpinned by national frameworks that more effectively realize the power and potential of digital transformation.
Which brings me to my third focus area: new governmental approaches.
In the spirit of the UN SG's Roadmap, developing impactful, forward-looking policies that meet the needs of local people will mean bringing a more diverse range of voices to the table, particularly traditionally marginalized groups such as women; youth; indigenous, rural or remote communities; people living with disabilities; and the elderly.
Most critically, it will also require governments to embrace a much more holistic approach to digital transformation, moving away from siloed implementations and bespoke systems towards a true 'Whole of Government Approach', that views digital platforms as the underlying bedrock for every type of government service and interaction.
Past experience has shown us that digital silos are not just costly, they also fail to leverage the true transformational effect of new technologies.
To help countries implement this new approach, ITU is working with Estonia, Germany's GIZ and the Digital Impact Alliance to accelerate the digitization of government services in support of the 17 SDGs, through shared Digital Government Service Platforms based on reusable, interoperable digital 'building blocks' that can be deployed by any agency to rapidly build new services.
Dear colleagues,
Whatever the shape of our world, post-COVID, there is no doubt that digital is going define every single aspect of that 'new normal'.
As we look towards ITU's upcoming World Telecommunication Development Conference, it is clear that we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to translate the focus every government is now according connectivity into unprecedented progress in digital inclusion. I am grateful for the very active collaboration we enjoy with regional organizations including CANTO and the CTU, and thank them for the instrumental role they have played in shaping the region's initiatives for the WTDC through our preparatory meetings.
So let me close by reiterating ITU's commitment to continuing to work productively together, and to partnering with all of you on projects that address your most urgent national and regional priorities, as well as on longer-term initiatives aimed at building regional recovery and resilience, to help the Caribbean region capitalize on tomorrow's exciting new digital opportunities.
Thank you.
