 We're here at ITU Telecom World 2014 in Doha in the state of Qatar and I'm very pleased to be joined by Minister Amabla Johnson who is the Minister for Communication Technology for Nigeria. Minister, very nice to see you again. Thank you very much for having me. It's good to be here. Thanks for being in the studio with us. Now, I wanted to talk about the central theme here at ITU Telecom World 2014. It's future in focus. What developments in technology policy or business do you see as key to the near future? I think if you look at it from the Nigeria context, all over the world the future means different things to different people. And for us, having the future in focus is really three things. First of all, it's about infrastructure, making sure that we have the right technologies in terms of building out our broadband infrastructure, the combination of microwaves, satellites, fiber and all of that and ensuring that it's the right technologies that we have given the differences in the terrain of a very large country like Nigeria. But I think also we need to look at the future in terms of services and that is ensuring that we have, if the internet or the broadband and telecommunications is going to be part of the future that we see for ourselves, then ensuring that as we build this infrastructure, we have the appropriate kind of content that will actually attract more Nigerians to this infrastructure. So that's around the services, what kind of services that we provide in, what kind of content is available on the internet. And then finally, the future when I listen to a few of the debates that I've gone on over the last two days, one of the big things that's going to happen is jobs and skills. The skills that are required for the future are very different from the skills that we have now. So how do we as countries, as sectors, begin to prepare more people to be engaged effectively in this new digital economy that we're all building. So the skills or the jobs that existed today don't exist tomorrow. So how do we ensure that we have the right kind of data scientists, network engineers, people that will help us to ensure that this digital economy and this future actually comes to pass? Now our motto, let's call it, ITU is connecting the world. I just wanted to talk to you about broadband. Obviously it's a very important part of your communications strategy, I can imagine. How can universal broadband in your opinion be best achieved? Well, I don't know if I can answer best, but I can talk a little bit about what we're doing in Nigeria, which I hope that, you know, by the time we're done, other countries will emulate this and see this as best practice. As you know, the industry is liberalised, so we don't have any government intervention per se in the telecoms industry. So what we're doing first of all is to ensure that the telcos are covering as much of the country as they can. And clearly they're only interested in the commercial parts of the country where they can make a profit. What we're also doing is that with the Universal Service Provision Fund, we have just funded a big access gap study and today for the first time we know exactly where we have pockets of poor connectivity or no connectivity at all. We've actually costed what it would be for us to put voice and data in those particular communities, which are communities where the telcos may not make money, but they're communities all the same that we need to bring into this new digital economy because it's all about inclusiveness. So using the USF funds to really support the development of broadband in those areas. The third thing we're doing, which is actually quite important, again working with the telcos, is that we find that when you look at Nigeria they focus on a few pockets, so the big commercial nerve centers. We are licensing what we call infracos, which are infrastructure companies that will have the mandate or the license to roll out fiber. But we've made it on a regional, on a geographical basis. So we divided the country into seven geographical areas and we will have one license for each of those geographical areas and the company that wins the license will basically have the mandate to build fiber, metro fiber particularly in that particular region. So by these three things we will ensure that we cover the country, both in terms of the commercial areas, which are really not a problem. Secondly, in terms of making sure that we have a geographical balance, even for those areas that are commercial, but somehow the telcos aren't interested in them. And thirdly, for the areas that are not commercial at all, but there's still a need to bring in the millions of Nigerians, because as you know, or as you may not know, about 50% of our population lives in the rural areas and these are areas that are seen as unserved or underserved. So we need to use the USP funds to bring those people into the internet economy. I want to talk to you about partnerships. What role do partnerships have in this new disruptive age? It's a really important role, because like I said, you know, government, yes, we're seen as the regulators, the policymakers, the telcos are seen as the implementers, but it's not really a regulator-regulator relationship. It really has got to be a partnership relationship. So, you know, we developed the broadband plan together with the industry. It wasn't something that we did by ourselves. We did that together with the industry. And as we're implementing, it's a partnership in implementation. And the way that government comes in in this partnership is that we see ourselves very much as a catalyst. So for instance, we will be the catalyst to say we'll give a subsidy in these particular areas and then we hope that the telcos will come in. We've used that also in our innovation, incubation, ideation space. Government has come in as a catalyst. We've built a number of innovation hubs we've put in the infrastructure, the fast broadband, the computers and the physical infrastructure. But then we've more or less handed this over to the private sector to run on our behalf. So that's where partnerships come in. It's very important. And even within governments, and I think that's what we're seeing in the discussions we're having, Ministers of ICTs should not really be seen as the only people that are developing this digital economy. There's a need to partner with the Ministers of Finance, of Health, of Education and of Agriculture because ICTs cut across all of these areas. And we're very used to working in silos, in our little portfolios, but there's a need to actually partner within government as well as partner with government and the private sector. And Nigeria's got a great pavilion here. It's been making a lot of noise. A lot of people have been attending. I know there's been a lot of conversation going on there. We just wanted to find out from your own perspective, what's the value of attending events such as ITU Telecom World? You're right. Nigeria has got a big pavilion. We have a very big presence at ITU every year. But the real value that we see, it's in two ways. First of all, when we come here, and I speak with other Ministers of ICT and I hear what they're doing, and we have these conversations where you bring in experts from all over the world to talk about the future, whatever it is. In a sense, it validates what we're doing. So if you're completely on the wrong track from what the rest of the world is doing, you know that you've got to come back in line. But what it's done for us is that it really has validated what we're doing. So broadband is important, digital skills are important, and that's what everybody around the world is doing. So it validates. I think the second thing it does for us is that it enables us to learn. So the number of countries that are ahead of Nigeria, you know, they've gone past the broadband infrastructure. So they're looking at content development and ideation and all of that. So we can learn. I mean, like yesterday we were talking about future technologies, nanotechnology, biotechnology, augmented reality. These are things that you don't usually think about in your day-to-day job. But just being here in this space and being able to speak to experts, again, you go back and you think, well, how does this impact my present context? Or how do I bring this into my context? So it does two things. First of all, validates what we're doing. And then secondly, it helps us to think ahead and see what we should be doing in the very near future. It's been great to see you here again. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.