 Good afternoon, good evening and good morning from wherever you're following us today. We are live from the WISIS Forum 2023 in Geneva. As you're aware, WISIS is a UN process and we work with more than 32 UN agencies to implement the WISIS framework of the WISIS Action Lines for achieving the sustainable development goals. I'm here today with Halima from the International Telecommunications Union who actually facilitates the Action Line C4 on capacity building. So Halima welcome and could you please share with us how your Action Line has evolved over the years and give us some concrete examples, maybe country examples and from diverse stakeholder types on how you're implementing it on the ground. Thank you very much Gitanjali. Very interesting question that you are asking this year with the evolution of this Action Line. If you recall we started mostly with the need for digital skills that was created by a proliferation of e-applications and that changed when we then moved into accelerated delivery of trainings online because then we had to start looking at design and development of online learning engagements. This has now evolved to another level where we are now looking at discussing emissive technologies and data and how these can be used to facilitate training design of customized training interventions and even developing lifelong learning pathways for our learners. So it has been an exciting journey for us and we are currently engaging with ITC-ILO. The discussions of course are still at a very early stage but we are discussing how they are operating and what they are doing in this space of the future of e-learning. They have a very exciting model of using holograms to facilitate visual interventions of experts across the world into training interventions. So yeah, it's a very exciting period that we are in right now. Thank you Halema. We have more than 250 sessions here at the WISIS Forum and everybody was mentioning capacity building, the essence of capacity building, the right trainings, access to capacity building. So congratulations on all your efforts and we hope to hear more about a few country examples when I get back to you in the second part. Definitely, definitely. It's Anjali. I'd like to move on to our next guest, Mr. Jean-Paul Adams from the Economic Commission for Africa. So Economic Commissions, the UN Regional Commissions have a very, very important role in the WISIS process because you're implementing them at the regional level. So Jean-Paul, what were your key takeaways this year at the WISIS Forum? It's your first WISIS Forum. So first of all welcome. First impression. Your first impressions and we heard about, you know, LDCs developing countries to engage them better in UN processes. How can we work better together to make this possible? Well, firstly, I think one of the big advantages of the WISIS process is learning from each other's experiences and bringing everything into one space and therefore helping to maximize the efficient use of resources. And from the regional perspective, it also aligns, it allows alignment of some of the regional strategies in the context of Africa. There's the African Union Digital Transformation Strategy adopted in 2020. And a lot of the areas of implementation of that strategy link in extremely well with the action lines under WISIS. And a few of the areas where I think, you know, we have really seen progress and where we have been demonstrating that. So for example, building the opportunity for African countries to make use of artificial intelligence. We launched in 2021 the regional center on artificial intelligence in the Republic of Congo in Brazzaville as part of the Denis Sasugueso University. We have also recently been reinforcing the capacity of African countries on cybersecurity with the launch of a model law on cybersecurity at last year's IGF in Ethiopia. And we are addressing the needs of countries, for example, on digital identity, where countries such as Ethiopia have recently passed laws on digital identity and working with them on the capacity to roll out these types of interventions. And the linkages that these types of interventions then have, for example, linked to the implementation of the African continent of the trade area. So really how we can maximize e-commerce opportunities and link that with the productive capacity across the continent. How do we get agricultural producers to better be able to send their products across the continent, but also tap into international markets? And I think during the pandemic, we saw some very interesting examples of how this can be upscaled. And I think the wisest process is allowing some of those best practices to be shared and then working with developing countries and LDCs in particular to be able to tap into those opportunities. Thank you very much, Jean-Paul. And as we discussed, there are various ways we can work together to strengthen this collaboration. A special price focused on LDC countries could be a great idea. And we look forward to working with you on implementing that. Thank you very much. Thank you. We would now like to move on to FAO. So welcome, Tembani. Tembani is working towards implementing e-agriculture. Such an important topic. And Jean-Paul talked about it. Halema talked about it, that without food security, ensuring that agriculture gets the benefits of technology, of the digital transformation, and is not left behind. So can you give us some key takeaways, Tembani, of how your action line has evolved? And what are some of the real projects that have stayed with you? And can you share some examples? Thank you very much, Jitand. I'm very happy to be here and very nice to have, to collaborate with colleagues here in the WISIS process. For sure the digital transformation has been very much alive in the agricultural sector. COVID has really exacerbated the need or increased the need for digital transformation. For example, to get the food from the farm to the fork, as we say it. A number of initiatives have really, really been very, very important for us. I will mention key ones that have been highlighted before, such as the ones that assure data, the ones that assure digital solutions that are reaching to the farmers, the ones that assure compliments. There are three key flagships I will mention. One is what we call hand-in-hand initiatives. We have this is an in-country-based platform where we collect data that is useful to help the countries transform their digital agri-systems. And the second one we call the digital village initiatives. We are rolling out a program across the world on digital villages to ensure that we provide solutions at a country level. This has been very, very successful and is rolling very well. Another third one that is actually putting innovation to e-agriculture, the digital agriculture in innovation hubs. In four countries I will mention, in Ethiopia, Morocco, Dominica, and Grenada. And those countries were setting up innovation hubs to allow the countries to assimilate data from FAO, expertise from FAO, and from their partners to solve the agri-food systems that challenges that they have. And these are supposed to be engines where solutions are made. So taking into advantage what we have from FAO and what we have from the ecosystems in agriculture to solve these problems. You mentioned a very good statement that we mentioned a lot in FAO, leaving no one behind. So our strategic framework thinks about what we call four betters and then leaving no one behind. In this way we are trying very much to ensure that the solutions that we discuss here in the WISIS process go to the aggressive levels. So the digital device that we always mention, we should be very inclusive. We should make sure that the farmer is at the center. We should ensure that the technologies don't create a gender gap. All these are the aspects that we saw coming out from this WISIS discussion. And also the capacity development. We are also thinking on how to build capacity of our farmers, smallholder farmers, our different stakeholders to assimilate these technologies so that they can improve the agri-food system transformation. And also that we can ensure that no one goes hungry by ensuring that the technology is put on the farm. Also in the agri-food system, so in the value chains, straight to the market, straight to the table, everyone has to be able to benefit through assimilating these technologies. Thank you, Timbani. We have heard that how e-agriculture practices have also led to stoppage or wastage of food, which is really a big problem in so many countries that there is ample food. It is wasted because of no proper value chain that you just described. So thank you so much. I'll do another round with our speakers. And I would just now like to highlight the key challenge in one sentence, please. What is the key challenge for capacity-building implementation? Thank you, Gitanjali. The key challenge in one sentence is a steep one. But let me try. Let me give it a shot. When Timbani was speaking, one of the things that came to my mind was one of the activities that we have in ITU. It's actually an initiative that we call the Digital Transformation Centers Initiative, which is focused at digital skills development at the grassroots level. And we have seen a lot of strides in the space. In the three years that we have been running this initiative, we've managed to reach about 160,000 citizens. And this is people in remote areas and very, you know, hard to reach areas around the world. In the case of Ghana, for example, in just one country, we've been able to reach about 45,000 individuals from different categories. Women entrepreneurs, youth, out-of-school youth, some graduates here and there. But mostly we are trying to get to the digital literacy level and build capacity there, which I think is nicely linked to what you mentioned, Timbani, in relation to agriculture. We find this is the space where there's a lot of need. And this is where our challenge is Gitanjali, reaching this hard to reach community. So the challenges we are facing in this space include the normal ones that we hear, requirement for resources, you know, the technical ability, you know, the technophobia to start with. You know, people in these rural, I don't even want to use rural because rural can be urbanized in some instances, but, you know, this hard to reach areas, they shy away from the use of technology for a lot of other reasons. So managing this, dealing with the behavior change, before we even introduce the basic digital skills is a big challenge. It's resource intensive. It requires a lot of collaboration and networking. And we believe forums like the WISIS provides us a platform for dialogue to begin these discussions and to see how we can collaborate with like-minded organizations to be able to reach these communities. Yes, Halima, indeed, even, you know, localization is really important. Definitely. You know, reaching out to the local community, the local languages, finding a local leader who can inspire them. So these are like real-life challenges that we are facing on the ground. So you know, as ITU in the previous years, we have been telling you what we have been doing in the upper end of the continent with advanced digital skills. But we are in touch with the local communities. We are getting there. We are addressing the needs that are emerging, you know, with individuals in different ITU member states. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you, Halima. So Jean-Paul, we'll go from Halima to you, of course, highlighting the main challenges that you face in your region, Africa, as for implementing the whole range of action lines, right from ICT infrastructure to climate change to, you know, capacity building, cybersecurity. So what is the key, what is the main challenge? The main challenge in Africa remains infrastructure gaps. And unfortunately, this is likely to worsen as we see a more challenging global environment in terms of investment. And we are seeing flight of capital away from developing markets. So African countries were doing relatively well in terms of attracting investment into their ICT sectors. And that includes, as well, on the regional level looking at, for example, fiber optic cables covering multiple countries and regions. But this is at risk at present. And there needs to be a sustained focus and strategy to channel resources into countries that need this acceleration in digital infrastructure. Thank you, Jean-Paul. Of course, infrastructure, ITU is the lead facilitator for implementing the action line on infrastructure. And we look forward to working closely with you in making some advances in the region. We'd like to move over to FAO. So Temani, what's the key challenge in e-agriculture currently? So for the greatest challenge we do have is just the challenge of food. Just to give you an example, the world produces more food than it needs. But we do have many people who are hungry, OK? So we call this is the food challenge. And it is multifaceted. So there are other issues that contribute to this situation. The food, maybe, as you mentioned, one of it, that maybe the food that is produced on the farm due to some losses cannot get to the markets. Maybe there are environmental issues that are there and other humanitarian solutions. So the challenge is how do we use e-agriculture as a way to solve the global food challenge? How can we use technologies and adopt technologies from resource challenged countries to the resource-enabled countries? How do we ensure that all these countries are able to adopt technologies? How do we also make sure that technology doesn't make the problem worse, OK? Because then we have to be averse on the risk that technology are there. So we have worked very well with a number of stakeholders, including ITU, including other UN agencies, to come up with strategies at a policy level that can help governments into how they can implement and develop digital and e-agriculture strategies that can allow for the investments that my colleague has just mentioned in these particular areas. And then the second area is always capacity development. We talk of capacity. Let's build capacity, but capacity at all the tires of the ecosystem. Let's talk about farmers. Let's talk about the youth. Let's talk about the value chain actors. Let's talk about government. Let's talk about private sector. It is needed that we create this because technology will keep changing. But the policies and also the rules of engagement, once they are clear, we have the right investment to our needed farmers that can be able to produce more. Also, we say farmers, but also all other producers, maybe fisheries, forestry. In a fair year, we look at all of them as producers. So we really need good investment by looking at policy environment, by looking at capacity development actions that we can do, by looking at innovation as an element. How can we innovatively use what we know, what we have, so that we produce more? And also, how can we get good financing for these resources, especially these digital solutions that we need to upscale this problem? So we really have a great opportunity here. And this WISIS process is a very, very good platform that allows us to work together within the UN system to address the challenges that I think that are the core values of the WISIS actions anyway. So thank you so much for joining me today. So we heard about the essence of capacity building, the importance of localization. Thank you, Halema. Jean-Paul, you spoke about the implementation of the WISIS framework at the regional level, importance of how financing models, financing for ICTs, and good cooperation is so important. And of course, Tembani, you highlighted the fact that a process does exist, and we should work together to ensure that e-agricultural policies are implemented well so that no one is ever hungry anymore. So thank you very much for joining us today. And we will be joined by other UN agencies and other action line facilitators in upcoming interviews.