 Thanks for joining us at ITU's Headquarters for WISIs Forum 2019, where I am joined by Atsuko Okuda, who is Chief of the ICT and Development Section of ESCAP. ESCAP is the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you for inviting me. You're very welcome. And of course you are also Chair of the WISIs Regional Commissions and the Vice-Chair of UNGIS. So tell us about the challenges and opportunities you are facing in what is a very large region with very different cultures and problems. Thank you for this very good question. Now as you can imagine, ESCAP covers 62 member countries, 53 geographically from Turkey to the Pacific. So as you said, it's a very diverse group of countries. And the level of ICT development in terms of the infrastructure, capacity, applications, and the ecosystem policy and regulations are quite diverse as well. So on the one hand, we have a group of developed countries which are using artificial intelligence, blockchain, Internet of Things in a diverse sector of society. While on the other hand, the other group of about one-third of ESCAP member countries still are struggling to develop these building blocks of information society. So our role is to analyze and identify where are those gaps and find the opportunities to narrow this widening gap between developed countries and developing countries in Asia and the Pacific. And because we are regional commission, our focus is really the regional cooperation to promote and to facilitate member countries working together. So one of the initiatives that we are developing and implementing is the Asia Pacific Information Superhighway, which is a regional broadband connectivity initiative trying to identify the missing links in terms of the physical infrastructure as well as looking at it from a soft aspect, broadband for all, as well as e-residence and internet traffic management. So that region as a whole will have this ecosystem to enable the development towards the information superhighway. Hence the role of the regional commissions. It's important to work on the micro level at times, isn't it? Yes. So this is where the importance of working together partnerships comes in because we are looking at Asia Pacific as a region and we may not necessarily go into rural areas but there are UN agencies working very closely with communities and NGOs. So we have this win-win situation and synergies. For instance if UNESCO or UNICEF has school connectivity initiatives, this is where we can provide a national and regional level connectivity which can support the local initiatives. So I hope that this whole ecosystem not only among the member countries but within the UN agencies conducive to move forward together. And why is it important for your agency to be here at WSIS Forum? Thank you for this question. It is very important because as you know WSIS has action lines which are theme-based. So we believe that regional commissions can provide a regional layer in whole discussion because as you can imagine Asia, the Pacific and Africa don't have the similar challenges and opportunities. So by our sharing the regional perspectives I hope that the discussion will be richer and we can learn from other regions as well but also to have a common picture or page in terms of what are the challenges in Asia and the Pacific and jointly we can come up with a regional solution. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for having me here.