 Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, WCISD, here in Geneva and online as well. I'm Max Jacobson-Gonzalez, and I'll be your master of ceremonies for today. And my job is to make sure that this event runs as smoothly as possible. And believe me, I will try my very best to do so. This session is available remotely, and it's being webcasted, live-streamed, and recorded. So there's no excuses if you don't catch it straight away to catch up with it later on. The language of the event will be in English, and the on-site audience should be careful with the Speak button, because if pressed, the camera will automatically focus on you and will activate your microphone. So unless you're asked to speak, please avoid pressing it. So to begin with, please let me welcome all the ITU elected officials here on stage with me, Ms. Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of ITU, Mr. Thomas Namanauskas, Deputy Secretary-General, Mr. Mario Manovich, Director of the Radio Communication Bureau, Mr. Seizo Noe, Director of the Telecommunications Standardization Bureau, and Dr. Cosma Zava-Zava, Director of the Telecommunication Developer Bureau. Now, please allow me to give the floor to the ITU Secretary-General, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, who will open this event. Welcome to the ITU and happy World Telecommunications and Information Society Day. I'm delighted to be joined today by the Deputy Secretary-General, Thomas Namanauskas, the Radio Communications Director, Mario Manovich, the Standardization Director, Seizo Noe-Sun, and the Development Director, Dr. Cosma Zava-Zava. Let me say how honored we are to have so many ministries, regulators, ambassadors, industry members, friends, and staff of ITU with us here physically, but also joining us remotely from all around the globe to celebrate ITU's birthday. Of course, it's not every day that you get to turn 158 years old. Today is also an opportunity for us to remember how it all started with just 20 countries and the historic signing of the International Telegraph Convention back in 1865. And of course, since then, the ITU has helped to shape the development of technologies like the radio, like the television, like satellites, the internet, mobile communications, all technologies that have become part of the fabric of our lives. With emerging technologies like generative AI, the pace of tech innovation is accelerating yet again. And we, as the UN Agency for Digital Technologies, and I think also we as society, we need to ensure that those technologies are safe and that they are developed responsibly. We also need to bring the benefits of these technologies to everyone, everywhere, and looking to the digital future with confidence in who we are and of course what we can do together to bend the arc, to bend the arc of tech history towards inclusion. And that's why I'm pleased that we are all here today on this special day for ITU to discuss how we can ensure that least developed countries are not left behind. We need to make sure that least developed countries are not left behind in this digital era. So here's one indisputable fact. Digital is, emphasis is, digital is a critical catalyst to move LDCs from potential to prosperity. That was the theme, and it was also one of the key messages at the UN LDC Five Conference that recently concluded. It's also the strong signal that was sent by those of you that have pledged to help LDCs through ITU's partner to connect digital coalition. More than one third, more than one third of the entire value of what we have mobilized so far, some 30 billion US dollars in connectivity pledges. More than a third is targeted towards least developed countries. And today, what's great about today is we're going to hear from some of those that have made pledges what they're doing on the ground to implement them. It will give us a chance to understand what we can do to address some of the most unjust digital inequalities facing LDCs from a lack of affordability to that gender digital gap that just shows no signs of narrowing. Later today, I'll make some announcements about partner to connect and ITU's upcoming SDG Digital Day, because this is really a pivotal moment for the sustainable development goals. I'm convinced that our success rests on our collective commitment to the hardest to connect communities in LDCs and elsewhere in the little time that we have left to actually rescue those SDGs. I think we can no longer define LDCs by what they're not, but by what they can be. What we do now, this opportunity to create lasting digital justice, prosperity, and sustainability for all, it will matter. It will matter for generations to come in LDCs and beyond. So thank you so much for being here, being part of these celebrations. And I look forward to the discussions. And with that, Max, back to you. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of ITU. Now allow me to ask the other elected officials on the stage here with us to share with us a brief memory on the occasion of ITU's birthday. So we'll start off with Thomas Lamanouskas, Deputy Secretary-General of ITU. Thomas, who was yours. Thank you. So thank you very much, Max, and happy birthday to all of us. So indeed, there is a saying that people don't necessarily remember what to do or what to say, but people remember the emotion you leave them with. So I thought for this opportunity, I'll share the emotion that I associate with ITU. And this is pride. And there are a couple of moments in the last few years that actually reinforce that it's not only my emotion, but it's the emotion of our family as ITU. So first of all, starting with the staff. And I remember a couple of years ago, watching the first time in a presentation of a Kinsey culture and value survey. And whatever it said about what needs to be proven, ITU, it said one thing, the staff is proud of ITU and proud to be in that organization. The ITU as a family also made me super proud last year and it's a turn into ninth. And it's not only because I was elected that day, but also because that was the day when also the glass ceiling was shattered by electing the first woman, Secretary-General Boreen. And indeed, the whole ITU family came together with a strong voice in that to live on that. I also personally was very proud to be able, and a little bit of a bragging here, to carry the ITU flag on December last year to Hurupi Kalimanjaro. And that wasn't just to show off. That's really having that there made me personally proud. And I think there is a reason for that, because ITU is the organization that probably now, more than ever, is very relevant in bringing the digital world to everyone through connectivity. And we've been doing that now for 158 years. And I think it's very important that we translate that cry that clearly it's not only my emotion, but all of other people's emotion, truly continue doing that work and delivering that to everyone, not least, of course, to least developed countries. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much indeed, Thomas. At least the air here is not as thin as it is on top of Kalimanjaro. Mr. Mario Manovich is Director of the Radio Communication Bureau. And I hand the floor over to you. Thank you. Yes, thank you, Max. And good afternoon, everyone. And happy birthday to all of us again. So I think I will go to elected officials. Of course, they have emotions when they are elected or re-elected, but I will go somewhere else. I will go to another achievement, great achievement of the ITU, that we should all be proud of. And it is the radio regulations. This international treaty that is binding all member states and that has been there for more than one century and always respected and always kept in the national legislation of all countries. So the found memory is in WRCs, in World Radio Communication Conferences. The last days of the conferences, when you see that all the difficulties and all the disagreements that have been blocking progress for the last weeks, they start to disappear. The delegates are suddenly ready to compromise and everything gets sorted out. And the people live happy and they go and update the LinkedIn accounts to reflect the achievements of the conference. So I think that's a very fond memory. Every end of WRC is pretty special. Thank you. Thank you very much, Marion. We look forward to WRC this year as well. So next is Seiza Onoe. Seiza Onoe-san, who is the director of the Telecommunications Standardization Bureau and the floor is yours. Thank you. And also a happy birthday to all and me because last Friday was my birthday. And actually, my first experience of ITU was an ITT meeting 30 years ago, but it was bitter memory. So it's not today's topic. What I want to, I'm happy to share with you is a participation in the WTIS, World Telecommunications ICT Indicator Symposium 2015, held in Hiroshima, Japan, eight years ago. And some colleagues here, probably many people, today I worked closely with, today attended the same event. At least Cosmos was there, but I didn't meet him at that time. So I didn't know him at that time, but I found some photos that showed that we were definitely on the same event. That found. So the Symposium itself is very new to me, very new experience for me because I participated in this panel discussing how to bring the broadband to the developing countries. At that time, I focused on the new technologies only. So looking back, I think it has been my first step in working at ITU. And also, now I'm working for the... I'm very happy to be a part of the global effort to shift the future. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Seizo Noesan and Tanjobi Omedetogozaimasu to you. Thank you. So for last but not least, Dr. Cosmos Ava-Ava, Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau. Thank you, Max. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Excellent this. It is a pleasure to be here and happy birthday to us all. I have many fond memories, but I will limit myself to two. I joined ITU in 2001 and I had more hair than I have now. My first project was, I think, about three weeks after joining and it was on countries in special needs, countries emerging out of four situations and major natural disasters. And I was very lucky just after about a month and two weeks there was a TDAC in this room and I met officials from FCC within the government of the US and also from the USID. And we managed to negotiate and got a budget of about 1,583, which we dedicated to those countries that were emerging out of four situations for the reconstruction of destroyed cities, but also for them to be supported in establishing regulatory authorities. And of course I accompanied the ministers to FCC, NTIA, et cetera. So for me to realize that our work, or the work of the organization would impact the people, particularly those in need, it was quite satisfying. The second year has to do also with what happened in July in 2001. I was having a breakfast meeting in Washington, DC. There was a conference which was called AFRICOM, where I had two delegates from, or two officials from INIMASAT. And I started probing because I thought, why don't we use satellite communications to save lives? And it did the trick. So we managed to establish for ITU for the first time to be able to deploy images telecommunications. We negotiated 105,000 euro with INIMASAT and we said, we don't want the money. You give us the equipment and they gave us 15 gun terminals, which when delivered just after four months on the 26th of December, 2004, the tsunami struck. And that was the birth of ITU's deployment to countries. So for me, the two occasions indicated that what we do matters. We impact the people. And we are rolling our technology with a human face. And I have very fond memories of that. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you very much indeed to all of you for all these memories. I think you'll agree this is a great way to start our celebration today. Now let's listen to the welcome remarks made by Mr. Antonio Guterres, who is United Nations Secretary General, of course, and who will be addressing us through the wonders of modern technology, a video message that he prepared earlier. Thank you. In the information society today, we highlight the power of technology to advance sustainable development in least developed countries. The digital revolution is a defining force of our era. The opportunities are tremendous from transforming education they'll scare to accelerate the climate action and the achievement of all the sustainable development goals. But to realize the promise of technology, we must confront its perils. The lack of ethical guardrails and robust governance frameworks proliferation of hate speech and disinformation. The amplification of social divides and then economic inequalities and the risk posed by artificial intelligence from deep fakes to bias decisions by neural networks that no human can fully explain. Technology must be an instrument to reduce divides, not deepen them. As the internet becomes ever more central to value creation and innovation, least developed countries risk falling further behind. We must dramatically improve accessibility and inclusivity and eliminate the digital divide. We must support the creation of digital public goods, open source software, open data and open content. We must invest in the capacities of public institutions so that they have the skills and resources to understand, oversee, shape and engage with artificial intelligence and other transformative technologies. And we must come together around the global digital compact to avoid fragmentation, safeguard human rights and ensure technology is a force for human well-being, solidarity and progress. I commend the International Telecommunication Union for working to accelerate global connectivity for all by 2030. Let us all do our part in closing the digital divide and securing a more equitable and sustainable future everywhere. Thank you. Thank you very much. And Mr. Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary General. I now have the pleasure to introduce Ms. Heidi Schroderos-Fox who is the director of UNOHRLS who will provide, who also provide remarks and introduce the video address of Ms. Rabab Fatima under Secretary General and high representative for the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing states for UNHOOHRLS. So, Ms. Schroderos-Fox, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator, Secretary General of ITU, Ms. Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Excellencies, a very good morning from New York. Good afternoon to you. Really happy to join to wish ITU a very, very happy birthday. I am very grateful to ITU and the Secretary General, Doreen and her excellent team for really maintaining the focus on the countries that are left the furthest behind. And this was so evident during the LBC Five Conference in Doha, your strong engagement and focus on the LBCs. We all know well the nature of digital divide. Six out of 10 people living in least developed countries do not use the Internet. And this is, of course, very difficult to imagine for us, especially when we live in a living lives where our daily routines are very much based on Internet. It is therefore very important to keep focusing on LBCs until we can really reach universal connectivity. I will make two very short points. First is that enhancing digital literacy and skills, especially among the youth, is extremely important. Giving growing youth population in LBCs, we need to secure their future. And we should work together to equip the youth with the necessary knowledge and abilities to use ICT effectively. And my second point is that building entrepreneurship in LBCs is very significant. ICT can have a game-changing impact once micro, small and medium-sized enterprises have intermittent access to fast-speed Internet and digital services. In LBCs, technology-driven entrepreneurship can help promote productive capacity and competitiveness. It can enable more entrepreneurs in LBCs to expand their businesses beyond local markets. And ultimately, it can empower entrepreneurs by providing them with tools, resources and access to markets that were previously unavailable or prohibitively expensive. So, colleague, the case for continuing to focus on the least developed countries is very compelling. And with these very brief remarks, I have a great pleasure to hand over to our Undersecretary-General and High Representative for the least developed countries, Landlock Developing Countries and Small Island Developing State, Ms. Rabab Fatima. She has sent a video message to you as she is currently on mission to Asia. Thank you very much. Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan, Martin, Excellencies, Distinguished Partners and their colleagues. I'm delighted to join you to mark this year's World Telecommunication and Information Society Day. The focus of the day on empowering the least developed countries through information and communication technologies is indeed very timely. We meet today in the backdrop of a successful LBC5 conference. I recall the exciting and extremely useful conversations that I had with many of you during the conference, especially on the transformative role that ICT can play in the lives and livelihoods of more than 1.2 billion people in the LBCs. I'm particularly encouraged by the deep interest and commitment demonstrated by some of the leading technology companies to enhance their investments in the LBCs to bridge the stark digital divide in these countries. We wish to build on this momentum to ensure full and effective implementation of the Doha Program of Action, especially its second pillar, which concerns leveraging the power of science, technology and innovation to empower the people in the LBCs who are the furthest behind. To that end, I'm very happy that the Partner to Connect campaign which was launched in March last year committed to a renewed focus on mobilizing global support and pledges towards the LBCs and other vulnerable countries. Excellencies, dear colleagues, over the past year, almost 200 pledges with a value of $12 billion that's submitted to Partner to Connect. Its special focus on the hardest to connect communities in the LBCs and the SIS. Next year, we have two important meetings coming up. The third UN conference for the LBCs and the fourth international conference on the SIS. The other two groups of vulnerable countries. As we prepare for those two important conferences, we must make every effort to ensure that STI is also at the core of the new programs of actions for the LBCs and the SIS. I look forward to working with ITU, member states, the private sector and all other stakeholders to form the broadest possible digital coalition to meet this agenda. I thank you all. Thank you very much indeed, Mr. Fatimah. I now have the great pleasure to introduce to you His Excellency Mr. Mohamed Abdul-Muhaith who is the permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations in New York and his Excellency will deliver remarks on behalf of the LBC Bureau members. Your Excellency, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Madhatran. Good morning from New York to you and all and happy World Telecommunication Information Society Day. Excellencies, Secretary-General of ITU, Ms. Doreen Bogdan-Martin and distinguished participants, I'm pleased to take part in the World Telecommunication Information Society Day, deliver this statement on behalf of the LBC Group, especially as this year's event focuses on the empowerment of the LBCs through information and communication. As rightly captured in the theme, ICTs are vital for the development of LBCs which was also amply highlighted during the LBC 5.1 in Doha in March 2023. Science, technology and innovation feature prominently as one of the key focus areas in the Doha program of action. They can turbocharge the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In the LBCs, ICTs can transform societies and accelerate development paths by driving financial inclusion, contributing to emergency responses and advancing e-services and others. But LBC is lagged behind in ICTs limited infrastructure and capacities. Approximately 800 million people in LBCs do not have access to internet. The digital divide prevents LBCs from exploiting the potential of emerging technologies for accelerated sustainable development. Therefore, LBCs urge for rapid development of ICTs infrastructure and broadband connection to enable digital transformation to scale up investment, technology transfer and practical digital capacity initiatives. The ICTs and digital technologies should be accessible and affordable to the LBCs. Multi-stakeholder partnerships and innovative financing models can be helpful in this regard. The revolution in ICTs has also brought some associated risks. We believe that an open, free and secure digital technology can address such risks as internet fragmentation, data insecurity, disinformation and misinformation. We also believe that the global digital compact proposed by the Secretary General will ensure digital equality by addressing the needs and priorities of LBCs. Finally, today's program provides ample opportunity to exchange with and learn from the experiences from fellow LBCs along with hearing from key stakeholders on their commitments and updates regarding the partner to connect digital coalition. I once again thank the ITU for the opportunity for the LBC Group to participate in this event and wish all of us good discussion. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Your Excellency. And thank you to all our esteemed speakers for their welcome messages. And now for something a little bit different. Let me please allow me to turn to Ms. Karimot Odibode who is an award-winning poet, writer and youth activist and founder of the Black Girls Dream Initiative and member of ITU's Generation Connect Africa Group who on the occasion of ITU's birthday will recite a poem for us. Karimot, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Karimot Odibode and I'm calling in from Lagos, Nigeria. I'm one of the prestigious young ladies recognized by the United Nations and also the Generation Connect African Youth Envoy. I'm so excited to wish the international telecommunication union after that. We're going to recite a poem and I really hope that this poem is going to remind us of all the importance of connecting the unconnected with just a click. We just a click. We have built dreams. We have built orbs. We have made mountains out of stone. We have connected the unconnected. We have built a future where everyone can dream it and be it. We just a click of the button. We have connected dreams across borders, transformed education, created jobs, created knowledge and built the world we want. With technology, we have lifted burdened and implemented dreams. We have given girls orbs, so young people that they can fly. The barriers no longer exist. The borders are archaic. That they can reach far and beyond. With technology, we have taken thousands steps in seconds. So let's do more. Let's build ideas that will create space for everyone. Let's fund ideas that will connect the unconnected. A safe space where no one is left behind. Where girls and women are truly acknowledged. Where young people are included. It starts from you and me. I am proud of you. We are proud to be here on this day. A glorious day of the best of the catalyst of all, the international telecommunication union. This is a call to action. For us to dare to dream up. For us to believe in our ability to create light out of the night. Let us know that with technology, the future we hope for will come. With technology, education will transcend borders. That goes in Africa, Asia, and across the world we learn. That young people will thrive. We will build an education system that will bring us all together. That with technology, we will build an education system that will bring us all together. That with technology, we are just a click away from breaking borders and smashing barriers. With just a click, dream it and be it. Connect the unconnected. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. Wonderful poem, great delivery and some great messages there indeed. Moving swiftly on, because I know that time is very much of the essence, I would now kindly ask our elected officials to take their seats in the audience. All apart from Dr. Cosmos Ava Zaba, they're not off the hook yet. You can stay with us up here for a little bit. Thank you. Moving on with the agenda, I would now like to ask Dr. Cosmos Ava Zaba to present some of BDT's initiatives impacting LDCs. Dr. Cosmos, thank you. Thank you very much. I think if I were a poet, I would begin by with a just a click. I would get all the LDCs connected, but I'm not. So I would like to say that our work focuses on making sure that the world is connected. No one, no place is left behind. We have fundamentally five priorities to implement or to focus on for the next five years. The first is meaningful connectivity. We realize that there are many people who are connected, but they are not getting meaning out of the connectivity. The second one has to do with enabling environment, creating an enabling environment for the private sector and industry to invest and connect to the world. The fourth one is digital transformation. The fourth one is international cooperation. For you alone can do it, but you can do it alone and resource mobilization. And finally, cybersecurity, keeping everyone safe. We are going to share with you just a sample of the work that we do to impact the world, particularly those in the LDC developed countries. So can we have the video, please? Activity is crucial in today's world, but least developed countries LDCs face major challenges in achieving it. Only 36% of the population in LDCs use the internet in 2022, compared with 66% globally. Lack of access, digital skills, and affordability limit the journey of LDCs towards social and economic development. Aligned with the United Nations Doha Programme of Action, ITU responds to the specific challenges and needs of LDCs to enable them to benefit from the emerging global wave of digital technology. Through our work, we help LDCs through capacity building, direct project assistance, and human-centric digital public services. We equip LDCs with data insights to inform policies and provide technical assistance, and support innovation, inclusion, and entrepreneurship with tools and methodologies. We prioritize the use of technologies to save lives during emergencies, protect our planet, foster cyber resilience, and map broadband for universal connectivity. We are committed to making strong and impactful partnerships to do all of this, including through the Connect to Recover Initiative for Resilient Digital Infrastructure, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development, the ITU-UNICEF GIGA School Connectivity Initiative to connect every school to the internet, the partner to connect digital coalition to accelerate universal and meaningful connectivity in the world's hardest to connect communities. Join us in building a more connective, inclusive, and a better world through digital. Together, we can help LDCs advance towards sustainable and irreversible graduation from the LDC category. So thank you very much. I know that you are all familiar with the LDC as a category of developing countries. Could you kindly take out your mobile smartphones? It's time for us just to do a bit of a quiz and see. Can we... You have the QR here. I will pull here. It doesn't vote because she deals with this subject every day. I have the first question. Which country was the first LDC to graduate? Wow, so well done. The majority are saying it's Botswana and that is very correct. Congratulations. Botswana graduated in 1994 from an LDC category. I have one last question for you and I know you are going to get it right. How many LDCs are on their journey to graduation? So I think all the answers are in. OK, congratulations. You all got it right in a way. It's 16 countries are on their way to graduation. And now just to summarize, our Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan said quoting the voices coming out of the door of the LDC-5 and also the UN Secretary-General that it is only digital that is going to rescue the sustainable development goals. And the common denominator that is common to all these countries that are about to graduate and those that graduated before is that they are all doing well in terms of information and communication technology. And that is why we are committed to make sure that we don't leave anyone behind. I know some LDCs are small island developing states and also the least developed countries. Certainly they can graduate from the LDC category but they can't graduate from the small island developing states and that is why it is important next year to pull our resources together and our efforts to make sure that we help island developing states that remain vulnerable to natural disasters and extend our economic shocks. And with this I think I round up. Thank you very much for listening and participating in this quiz. Over to you, Max. Thank you very much indeed, Dr. Kosmos Ava-Zava for presenting those BDT initiatives that illuminating video and that meant a meter as well. We may not have got all the answers right particularly in terms of the graduation but we would all like to be invited to the prom when that happens. So I would now like to ask my colleague, Ms. Selina Abdullah, Special Advisor of the Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union as well as the speakers of the mini panels to join us all here on stage. Selina will be moderating this segment of the programme which will be focused on mobilising and tracking progress on commitments to accelerate LDCs path to prosperity with the help of the partner to connect digital coalition. So Selina, whenever you're ready, the floor is yours. Thank you. But we're just waiting for our colleagues to come up here. Thank you, Max. You were reading that a little bit too quickly. I needed some time to come up here gracefully. Sorry about that. Here we are. And may I invite all the speakers on stage, please. Thank you. And unlike Max, I'm not going to rush you. We'll just do that when you're speaking. So thank you and welcome everyone. It is my great pleasure to moderate this part of the programme. And this following segment will be divided into three mini panels with different speakers. And you see them here on stage and there are a few online. During the next 45 minutes, you will be hearing from governments, private sector, civil society representatives on key connectivity challenges faced by LDCs. And some of the strategies used by fellow countries on how to approach them. The mini panels will also present to the audience a selection of the current and new P2C pledges that address those challenges. As we are on a tight timeline, I would like to request all speakers to be mindful of the time allocated to each of you. And to help you keep time, I will tinkle the glass once after 30 seconds before you end and twice when time is up. And after that, I'll figure it out. Now all speakers have three minutes each, unless I advise you otherwise. Thank you. So to kick this off, let me introduce you all to Mr. Graham Burns, partner from the Boston Consulting Group and the P2C Knowledge Partner, as well as SDG Digital Day Knowledge Partner, who will set the scene and drive attention to the issues of access, affordability, and digital skills development in LDCs. Graham, you have four minutes, and I've been very generous. Troy is yours. Thank you, Selena. You're excellent, Lisa. Thank you for having me. By the way of brief introduction, my name is Graham. It's a pleasure to be here on behalf of our long-standing relationship with the ITU to help celebrate your birthday and also continue the mission of achieving universal meaningful connectivity for all and digital transformation globally. Today I would like to briefly outline some of the phenomenal progress that's been made towards the Partner to Connect Digital Coalition and to highlight some of the specific challenges that continue to face challenge for the LDCs. If we move on to the next page, you'll see that since launch in 2021, the Partner to Connect Coalition has made phenomenal progress and gathered 622 pledges for a total value of 30 billion US dollars. Significantly, 34% of those total pledges are in support of at least one at least developing country. And that's meaningful when we then start to translate that into the size of the monetary support for those LDCs, 12 billion overall. And more importantly, last year in December when we had our PTC annual event, we already started to see significant traction 27% of those pledges already starting to have impact on the ground. Whilst this is great, if we go to the next slide, you'll see that the LDCs still need support in three key areas of digital transformation. Access, adoption, digital skills within that and clearly the value creation ecosystem that underpins innovation and prosperity in different organizations and countries. Just very quickly, I'll take you through some of the key stats and data points that help contextualize some of the challenges that we still face in providing connectivity for LDCs before I pass back to the floor. So here we see that connectivity clearly still remains a challenge. Only 83% of LDC populations are covered by a mobile broadband signal. 8% have no signal at all and 9% have a cell signal that does not connect to the internet. If we go to the next slide, you'll see that of the 83% with a particular view on youth, only 47% of young people are able to use the internet. This signals that there's not just a connectivity issue, but there's an adoption challenge around affordability and also skills as well to be able to participate in the online economy. Significantly, for LDCs, the affordability of a basic mobile broadband package still remains materially more expensive than what we see in other parts of the world, and 185% above our own EU and targets. Next, what we see around adoption is it's clearly a broader systemic issue than just having connectivity and advice that allows you to participate. The digital skills and inclusion issues are more pronounced within LDCs. Literacy, gender divide, and greater disparities between urban and rural areas underscore some of the challenges that we all need to help overcome and support our LDC organizations to transform. Finally, when we look at the broader macroeconomy and the digital economies that underpin these countries, what we see is that between developed, developing, and LDCs, the lack of meaningful access, the affordable connectivity challenges, digital skills, inclusion, and gender diversity challenges still paint quite a challenging picture for LDCs that gives us cause to drive further action. Lastly, I just wanted to highlight that whilst this is a fairly sobering picture of the opportunity, we're not without hope or inspiration. The LDCs clearly represent a set of youthful and vibrant countries with huge economic potential and ambition to achieve the SDGs. Today, we're joined by amazing panelists who are going to share their pledges and their impact of the world about how they can help us advance those LDCs. Thank you, Selena. Thank you, Graham. I didn't have to do this. Thank you very much for setting the scene for us. And now, let me introduce the speakers of the first mini panel focusing on access. First, Her Excellency, Miss Paula Ingabiri, Minister of Information and Communications Technology and Innovation of the Government of Rwanda. The Minister is joining us virtually. I hope she is here. Her Excellency, Miss Aurora Diaz-Ratu-Ruelta, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Spain to the UN and other international organizations here in Geneva. Mr. Christopher Fabian, co-founder and co-lead of the GIGA initiative. Mr. Shin Hui Wang, Vice President, General Manager of Standards and Industry Relations for ZTE Corporation. So, Minister, I'd like to call upon you. Let's start with you online. The floor is yours for the next three minutes. How nice to see you, Minister Paula. Welcome. Thank you very much. I hope you can hear me very well. Yes, we can. Great. So, first, I'd like to thank ITU for inviting me to be part of this as we celebrate more than a hundred years of their birth. So, happy birthday, Doreen, Thomas, Mario, Cesar and Kosmos, as well as the rest of the entire ITU family. Access to Internet remains a critical factor for the delivery, especially for a government such as ours and as part of our strategic vision and a growth roadmap we really aspire to be a knowledge economy with universal access to digital skills and all the opportunities that the digital economy has to offer. Access to the Internet is a critical enabler for this vision because achieving access for our population means that our population can benefit from key resources to grow the skills they need for their personal and professional development as well as the way we are providing critical public and private services that are delivered much faster and more efficiently online. To realize the value that Access brings with significant investments in expanding broadband and Internet services to our population, in 2018 we achieved the rollout of 97% geographic coverage of 4G Internet services in our country. Today, mobile broadband is our most competitive market with an 81% mobile penetration rate. But despite achieving near universal coverage of Internet services in our country we continue to see gaps in terms of usage due to the challenge of unlocking key enablers such as devices access to devices affordable devices, affordable services, digital skills and relevant content. And to bridge this gap we are partnering with players in the industry to develop collaborative approaches which over time will achieve significant increases in Internet and smart device penetration. ITU is one of our long-standing partners in the mission of expanding access to communities. We are leading the implementation of Giga in Africa, an initiative spearheaded by both ITU and UNICEF to connect all schools in Africa. And we did launch a pilot last year where 63 schools are the partner to connect Digital Coalition which was in 2022 as part of the ITU WTDC which was held in Kigali. ITU supported the mobilization of unprecedented number of commitments and pledges of funding to support meaningful Internet connectivity and to support that we have to ensure that at least we provide smart devices to one million households and that should cover more than 50% of our households covered by 2024. We continue to welcome the support of our partners and thank you very much. Thank you Minister Paula with 10 seconds to spare excellent and we appreciated your very insightful introduction. Let's continue with Rwanda so I'm going to ask Chris Fabian to tell us more about Giga the joint initiative of UNICEF and ITU with the goal to connect every school to the Internet by 2030. Chris, Rwanda is one of the Giga countries could you tell us briefly what the key accomplishments of Giga has been in general and also in Rwanda the floor is yours, thank you. Thank you so much and happy work. 158 is a really a good age to reach. Congratulations ITU. Over the past few years Giga's connected something like 5600 schools which is about 2 million students 2.2 million students including as Minister Paula mentioned many in Rwanda. What we've seen in Rwanda is that the work that we did with her, her team and others in the Ministry of Education helped to reduce the prices of school connectivity in Rwanda by about 50% from $20 per megabyte to about $9 per megabyte and also increased the speed of connectivity by about 400%. The model schools that were connected in the initial procurement are now being scaled up to around 1600 more schools in Rwanda so the impact is there. A few of us were in Victoria Falls last two weeks ago with Cosmos, Doreen and others and we heard over and over again about the market imbalances that all of you know about connectivity. Poor people always pay more for the things that rich people don't pay very much or pay nothing at all for and in fact in many schools around the world the cost of connecting a poor school is about three times as much as disconnecting a wealthy school and so we heard over and over the need to figure out how to create price transparency across all the countries that Giga is working in. We're in 20 countries now going to about 40 by the end of this year. What that means is that by the end of the coming year we're going to be able to connect the red dots in Brazil behind me turning green. Each dot on the Giga map and you can go to Giga.global and see it see this map live. Each of those dots is a school. The red dots are disconnected schools. The green dots are schools that are connected. We're supporting the government of Brazil and their connectivity work to connect 19,000 schools as well in the next 18 months. So these are serious numbers and everybody deserves a nice birthday present and our pledge to partner to connect originally was kind of low. We said we were going to connect 2.8 million schools. Nobody knows how many schools there are in the world. One of the fundamental pieces of Giga is trying to count them all for the first time and we're doing that. But we would like to upgrade our pledge just to make it a bit of a better birthday present and so we're going to say that by 2030 we're actually connecting all schools in the world. I think you can hold us accountable through that map. You'll see the colors change and we'll have everybody in the room to do that because for sure this is something that we can't do alone and everything from price transparency to the financing behind really low liquidity markets infrastructure is key to making this present into our future for everyone. Thank you, Selma. Thank you, Chris. Actually you have 30 seconds left but I know you have a video. Do I? I could have bought more time. I thought that was just me but if there's something to show we can show it. Please, let's play the video. It's a very interesting story. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much and it's stories like this one that keeps inspiring us to continue working towards connecting everyone in the world and also congratulations on the progress that Giga has achieved so far. And now it's my great pleasure to invite her Excellency Aurora Diaz Rato Vuelta, our Ambassador from Spain to take the floor and share the announcement of their new pledge. Ambassador, please. Thank you. Here it is. Thank you so much, Selina. Thank you so much to ITU to allow us to join in this celebration because this is a very particular and special day for us since World Telecommunications and Information Society Day was born in Doremolinos, Spain when the plenipotentiary of 1973 decided that it was on May 17th the anniversary of the founding of the union that our World Telecommunications they should be celebrated in order to raise awareness of the opportunities telecommunications and provide us with information about the future of the world telecommunications. Today I can announce Spain's pledge to support the ITU led partner to connect digital coalition through the funding of a junior professional officer from Spain that will work in the executive office of the ITU Secretary General. We, Spain and the ITU have already signed a memorandum of understanding on April 20th to provide a framework for the JPO and on May 10th we have published a call for applicants. to support connectivity and digitalization globally and it is totally aligned with the partnership to connect goals. This pledge amounts to an estimated value of 400,000 euros and it will be implemented in a period of two years. Spain fully supports P2C and the Giga initiatives that aim both to connect every school in the world to the internet and to closing the digital gaps that are the cause of many children having fewer opportunities to learn and fulfill their potential. In particular, let me recall that Spain is also supporting UNICEF and ITU in the establishment of a Giga Technology Center in Barcelona. This center supported by all layers of the Spanish administration, the government of Spain the regional government of Catalonia and the city of Barcelona will harness and drive efforts to equip learners with information opportunity and choice through research and product development in order to increase digital connectivity in schools. It will work on open source connectivity solutions in the very dynamic Barcelona digital ecosystem. Just let me underline that the government of Spain also supports through this pledge all the work that we are partnering with ITU leadership for closing all digital gaps, particularly including the gender gap. Finally, let me conclude this announcement by stating that in order to achieve our goals, we acknowledge that a global cooperation, leadership and innovation is needed. Please join us and ITU in this partnership and commit yourselves with us to the achievement of the partnership to canal goals together. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Ambassador for sharing your pledge with us and now I can say safely that I'm looking forward to more. I'll call you. Thank you. To conclude this mini-panel, let me now turn to Mr Shin Hui Wang, Vice President and General Manager of Standards and Industry Relations with the ZTE Corporation of China to talk about their pledge. But first, I'd like to congratulate ZTE for becoming the first P2C champion and for your commitment to what's partnered to connect so far. So please, tell us more about your pledge. It's $400 million worth of ICT network infrastructure annually for LDCs and SIDS by 2025. All that in three minutes. Thank you. Thank you. I love these messages. Thank you so much. On this special day, I would like to start by wishing ITU it had a birthday and to say so. It was last Friday but that doesn't really matter. Approximately the same. Thank you. It was in Kigali last June inspired by the spirit of P2C program which is quite in line with our company Business Philosophy to be the driver of digital economy. We just made a pledge just a figure like this. We pledged to build $400 million U.S. dollar worth ICT infrastructure annually for LDC and SIDS by 2025. And, you know, the program is quite progressing in good shape and it was on a regular reporting. So, you know, some figures you know, more specifically regarding the theme of today, I got some figure of this program. We've already accomplished around $330 million U.S. dollar worth ICT infrastructure building for 27 LDC nations by March of this year. You know, the work will start from the second half of 2022 you know, during the implementation of our pledge, we acknowledged the imperative and importance of this P2C platform so we are willing to keep contributing to this great endeavor. And in addition to this, so one we made in Kigali, that was the resolution 88. This one gave the mandate of ITU to further advance the objectives of P2C. So, it's essential not only for ITU but for all the stakeholders around the world to accelerate connectivity and bridge the digital divide which should be aligned with some national strategies. Okay. I would say, you know, given that on behalf of the company I'm working for aside from the one we made in Kigali I would like to take this opportunity to make additional one which is to sponsor P2C 300,000 Swiss franc in next three years to bolstering the implementation of goals on the framework as well as the WTDC resolution 88. That concludes my presentation. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr Wang. There's some negotiations going on here about whose pledge is better. We'll take more pledges. Thank you. And that concludes the first segment while the first mini-panel and since I have the gavel in front of me, done. We all know that access is a prerequisite for connectivity but we also need connectivity to be affordable, especially in low and middle income countries. So in our next mini-panel, we will be addressing the challenge of affordability and with us today to share their insights are her Excellency Ms Maimouna Kyvenga Terishi Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the United Republic of Tanzania to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva this Excellency Nampi Naouye, Minister of Information Communication and Information Technology Tanzania who is joining us virtually Ms Nina Bekele Product Partnerships Social Impact Google Ms Julia Nietzsch Digital for Development and Strategic Partnerships Orange. Julia is also joining us online. So let me first turn to Ambassador Maimouna for her remarks. She will also introduce the minister who is joining us remotely. Master please the floor is yours for the next two minutes. Thank you very much facilitator. Secretary General elected officials of the ITU Excellencies Distinguished Delegates Good Afternoon As I've been introduced by the facilitator my name is Maimouna Kyvenga Terishi. I'm the ambassador and the Permanent Representative of the United Republic of Tanzania but more importantly I'm the focal point to the United Nations Office and the other international organizations in Geneva. In this regard I would like to express my evaluability for any clarification follow-ups and the meetings with the all the respective member states stakeholders and the partners here in Geneva in as far as ITU responsibilities is concerned. Without further ado let me take this opportunity once again to introduce and welcome the Honorable Nape Naue a member of parliament but also the minister of information communication and information technology of the United Republic of Tanzania to give his remarks via the Zoom platform. Welcome Honorable Minister the floor is yours. Thank you very much Ambassador Terish, Secretary General Elected Officials of the ITU Excellencies Distinguished Delegates. Let me join the previous speakers in congratulating all the ITU member states for marking 54 years of the world telecommunication and information society day to day. This year's theme which is empowering the least developed countries through information and communication technology is timely as it aligns with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and most importantly reflects on the interest of LDCs. Distinguished Delegates the government of the United Republic of Tanzania made pledges on the following areas one dig to skills and jobs, local content through IHPS dig to financial services expanding coverage to 80% of the population physical address for all by 2022 and connecting the unconnected 4 million people in the rural areas by 2025. The government is committed to ambitious implementation of these pledges and we have witnessed a positive progress across each pledge our monitoring and evaluation model linked to these pledges as enabled to trace and track the implementation at various levels and by various means. Distinguished Delegates the government of the United Republic of Tanzania had succeeded in extending mobile broadband coverage to almost 80% of the population in the country. Despite these achievements internet adoption remains a prevailing challenge a substantial number of the Tanzanian population live in areas with mobile broadband coverage but do not use the internet services affordability to devices being a core barrier. Currently records show that 69% of all mobile devices in the country are feature phones while only 31% are smartphones majority of Tanzanians are low-income thus can afford to buy an internet data provider to provide entry-level broadband services but cannot afford to buy a smartphone these drives the low-income people to buy 2G phones which cost less than 20 US dollars compared to the entry-level 4G smartphones that often cost more than 40 US dollars as we are all aware our digital future requires more than just entry-level broadband services it is in this ground that the government of Tanzania is making a new pledge on affordable broadband connectivity and smart devices to 90% of its population by 2025 making broadband affordable is a crucial step in achieving our ambitious goal of digital transformation for sustainable development this pledge aims to shift the police and the regulatory compass from addressing only the coverage gap to address the adoption gap it also focuses on creating conducive environment where the majority could afford an entry-level smartphone distinguished delegates successful implementation of this pledge will sustainly reduce broadband costs on both the industry and the consumers and will ensure affordable and accessible smartphones for all the government of the united public of Tanzania calls for continued cooperation and partnership with the global and the regional stakeholders to join hands in connecting the unconnected to promote digital inclusion as much as I had wished to be in Geneva today to celebrate this momentous day and engage with all of you I humbly request for all the member states stakeholders and development partners wishing to support collaborate and establish partnership with the government of Tanzania and this end over to kindly meet our excellence ambassador Maimuna Tarish and she has said whose doors are always open for the discussion and further engagement in conclusion the government of the united republic of Tanzania reaffirms its unwavering commitment to continue supporting the work of ITU in executing its duties and will actively participate in the fourth ITU meetings thank you very much thank you minister for that very inspiring intervention and the pledge ladies and gentlemen the government of Tanzania has submitted a total of seven pledges so far to P2C and counting so thank you both excellencies for joining us today and sharing your journey I would like to pass the floor now to miss Nina McKelley to tell us more about Google's efforts addressing the issue of data and device affordability Nina you have three minutes thank you Dear Selena, esteemed colleagues and guests all protocols observed thank you for the kind invitation to speak to this important topic here today having roots in Ethiopia myself this topic is deeply personal to me and it's my honor to represent our work here at Google more information on our activities in this field can also be found in our digital sprinters framework and I'm looking forward to discussing this more in detail with you also following this forum the internet has done many things providing access to the same information to a person in Tanzania Ethiopia or here in Switzerland this lies at the heart of Google's mission organizing the words information and making it universally accessible and useful and universal means no one is left behind to deliver on this mission Google has partnered with governments and businesses in developing countries for well over a decade now and we took a major step in 2021 when we announced our plan to invest $100 million in Africa over five years to accelerate the digital transformation empowered by partnerships we have helped over 100 million people in Africa to the state to affordably access the internet and we continue to strive to increase this number further let's focus on data affordability empowered by infrastructure for example we deployed the state of the art Equiano subsea cable that runs along the west coast of Africa with connectivity on the continent the cable has now landed in South Africa, Togo Nigeria and Namibia and is expected to lead to a drop in internet prices of up to 21% moreover it is expected to lead to a 5 foot increase in internet speed in Nigeria and almost triple the speed in South Africa we also look into innovative technologies to reduce the cost of data Google access taro team with high speed connectivity to areas with little infrastructure by using laser technology to transmit information through the air and we continuously expanding our efforts Google recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the African Union focusing amongst others on enabling affordable access through physical infrastructure in addition to data affordability, device affordability is a key factor in the equation as well the average cost of an entry level smartphone in Africa for example still exceeds 60% of the average monthly income making smartphones largely inaccessible for the majority of the population additionally, affordability of devices is not a single a single challenge to enable people access devices we need to consider three aspects holistically whether the purchase price is affordable whether the device uses extensive data and whether it can be easily financed it is working to address all three aspects through our open source operating system Android which offers consumers the option to choose from device models from over 1,000 companies worldwide including a large range of low cost devices we've also launched a lighter yet powerful Android operating system Android Go edition enabling lighter applications on entry level devices with only 2 gigabytes of RAM and finally regarding device financing we partner with providers such as Orange or Safari Common Keenia to allow individuals to finance the purchase of an affordable device with as little as $10 upfront at the core of all these initiatives is partnerships success means working in close collaboration with governments, international organizations like the ITU and local businesses and we pledge to build on these partnerships in the years to come to work towards Google's mission to make information universally accessible for everyone thank you thank you Nina I'll let you go on for another 30 seconds because I could sense the word pledge coming about and it did so thank you for that now I have the pleasure to introduce you to Julia Nietzsche from Orange Julia we are looking forward to hearing about the progress achieved so far in the implementation of your pledge welcome thank you Dear ITU Secretary General Your Excellencies Thanks a lot really on behalf of Orange for the invitation to join the celebration of the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day we are proud to participate in ITU's partner to connect alliance and would like to underline the immense work of the ITU and of all the members of the initiative to make connectivity more accessible and affordable especially in LDCs Orange is a network operator serving 287 million customers worldwide in 26 countries digital equality is at the heart of our strategy Orange invests in connectivity infrastructures to make digital services more accessible and affordable in local applications and contents as well as in Orange digital centers to foster digital skills and job inclusion for youth in 16 countries in Africa and in the Middle East Orange will keep investing accumulated 5.6 billion euro over the period 2021 to 2025 we are on track with this pledge formulated when the P2C alliance was launched out of these 5.6 billion euro 3.7 billion euro will be invested to increase voice and data coverage and connectivity in Africa and the Middle East out of the 16 countries included in this pledge 10 are LDCs these will benefit from accumulated investment close to 2 billion euro between 2021 and 2025 these investments in infrastructure make broadband internet connectivity more and more affordable every year today actually 14 countries in our Africa and Middle East footprint offer 1GB of mobile data less than 1 euro moreover Orange works with partners to make handsets affordable amongst them Google in all our Orange footprint countries in Africa and the Middle East we now commercialize the Sansa Touch smartphone sold for the equivalent of 30 US dollars we are looking forward to further cooperate with the P2C Alliance and all its members thank you very much thank you very much Julia and thank you to all the distinguished panelists for the second segment of the mini panel on affordability and you may now rest we are now coming to the end of the segment and for that I would like to introduce you to the speakers of our third and final mini panel which is on digital skills and through digital skills we want to draw attention to the issue of adoption and the actual use of the devices and services of modern day technologies to get meaningfully connected I am pleased to introduce this Excellency Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Vanuatu to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva Mr. Alfie Hamid, Senior Manager Global Partnerships Cisco who is joining us online and Peter Josias Founder of the Digital Child Rights Foundation who is here with us Ambassador Sumbue at first like to ask you to share with us how digital skills are being addressed in Vanuatu about your initiatives and what the remaining challenges are and of course please also tell us more about the pledges that your government has made to start to connect I hand the floor to you Sir, thank you Thank you Sumbue and good afternoon everyone, Excellencies Landigi colleagues Happy World Telecommunications Information Society Day to all of us, it is our day it's not for the ITU but it is for us, peoples of the world so we celebrate that with you since 1865 many many years ago and so today we celebrate that and congratulations to all of us to start by saying this that in 2022 we had celebrated also this day last year and following from that early this year we suffered two cyclones Tropical Cyclone 2D and Tropical Cyclone Kevin in a space of five days so despite the damage that we experienced during the time and we are still under a period of state of emergency in Vanuatu this event continues to play a significant part in the celebrations today the Vanuatu Government celebrate that day as well and we thank you DG Dorian for your message to the people of Vanuatu early this morning the event today with the theme empowering of the LDCs through ICTs is a very important one because it creates a platform for us to share the lessons learned on affordability accessibility and so on Vanuatu graduated thank you for putting Vanuatu on the screen earlier on as an LDC in 2020 in December at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic so our experiences at the time when we graduate from LDC is very interesting because the difficulties we faced during graduation and at the time COVID-19 restrictions and so on that was placed in the communities was very real but what we were able to see was that there was an increased use of ICT so we are very thankful for that for the use of ICT and as I said I've done it already okay so I just would like to say this that the challenges that we had faced over the years and as many have said earlier today our coverage, connectivity the quality of service, affordability the data protection and so on a lot of these issues that we have raised here and I thank you the speakers for enlightening those today in Vanuatu the development government launched two different policy framework on our data protection and privacy policy and on the harmful digital community policy that was released today and we hope that the legislation will go to parliament not too soon after this our pledges for our own pledges for our communities for our people in Vanuatu one was to ensure that the population of 98% of the population of Vanuatu have access to connectivity to internet and so on we have pledged to achieve that in 2018 but because of natural disasters and so on and so on we have been deferred three times already and this year it's been deferred again to 2024 and because we have significant damage to our infrastructure and everything else that we experience I think before I conclude thank you for giving me the time to speak a little bit extra is to call thank to those who already pledges but to call on other countries to also support the efforts to reduce the divide between poor and rich between the urban and rural and between men and women thank you many thanks ambassador and we hope that other countries will be able to take some of your experiences and learnings I'd like to turn to Alfie Hamid to ask about Cisco's pledge addressing the issue of digital skills and how it helps people in LDC be digitally transformed hi Alfie over to you thanks Selena good afternoon to the Secretary General all officials of the ITU and your Excellencies all protocol observed and for me to be presenting today first of all happy birthday to the ITU you know as an old person you can see the gray hairs so it's good to know that there's someone that's much older than me right that's present here today and that's the ITU congratulations I wish you all the best for the future looking at where we are and things very important what's mentioned earlier is that 36% LDCs are online and only if you look at that 36% of the youth only 48% of the youth in LDCs are connected now that is a challenge and if we look at what's happening currently in the globe you know we all know about AI open AI we heard here about chat GPT a recent study that was done by open AI on what the impact of artificial intelligence like chat GPT which is going to have on jobs has shown that certain jobs like interpreters and translators, poets, lyricists, writers journalists, public relations specialists mathematicians tax preparators blockchain engineers all of these jobs are going to be negatively impacted by artificial intelligence yet we have a challenge of leveling the playing fields in ensuring that the least developed countries compete with the rest of the world so how do we do that how do we level the playing fields well there are two fundamental equalizers in the global economy one is the internet and the other is education if you have access to the internet you have access to all the resources that you want you have access to education that is what can take you out of poverty and this is where we come in as Cisco we have other partners who are providing connectivity we have other partners who are providing connectivity we also need to be partners who consider digital skills and by our Cisco Networking Academy program that is exactly what we are doing the Cisco Academy program has been around for the past 25 years this year we celebrated 25 years over the past 25 years we have impacted over 17.5 million learners across the world and the program is present in 190 countries our pledge to P2C was to impact 250,000 people in all these developed countries over the next five years and I'm happy to say that to date since last year July we have already reached 100,000 individuals in all these developed countries in partnership with schools, colleges universities NGOs and governments in the Asia-Pacific region there will be 35,000 individuals in Latin America 2000 and in Middle Eastern Africa 70,000 I'm proud to say that we hopefully will get to the target in less than five years and it's a pleasure to be part of this initiative wish you all strength moving forward, thank you thank you Alfie exciting to hear about this pledge and what you can achieve in all the 46 LDCs and now we have Peter Josias lined up next to tell us about the pledge that his organization the Digital Child Rights Foundation has made to P2C and incidentally ladies and gentlemen this pledge is the 600th P2C pledge so again thank you Peter for helping us achieve this milestone and now the floor is yours thank you Miss Abdelah and thank you ITU for being here happy birthday I'm Peter founder of the Digital Child Rights Foundation and proud member of the Partner to Connect Digital Coalition I'm also a father in the Netherlands of two young adults, Simon and Isa and they live in the digital world they learn they work, they make friends they create, are active with art and culture and they have so many opportunities but this is not the case in low development countries and therefore we made our pledge the Digital Child Rights Desk Project we want to meaningfully connect protect and empower children and young people in the digital world in every neighborhood in every school in every city in every village, in every district, in every country and therefore we created our foundation based on the General Command 25 about children's rights related to the digital environment and we created a tool a toolbox with three levels awareness, education and empowerment because it's important that we work together on the digital skills of children and young people everywhere they have to trust the internet because when they start they don't know so we have to help them and learn them we created inspiring and learnful tools for real life and I'm happy to share with you that we also created a digital child rights panel in every city in every country because we don't know what's happening with our children and young people in the digital world they have the right to be heard we have to respect their views in the digital world so we created as an member of the digital child rights project, a digital child rights panel and a participation platform we want to share this with you all in the world and I'm happy to share today with you that we start our digital child rights project in Malawi another low development country and we will create a multi-year program for youth and children together with three NGOs youth and society CHRR Center for Human Rights and Yoneko Youth Network in Malawi and this summer we will train hundreds of young children and train young people to empower them in the digital world and to all the viewers online at this moment and the next days, weeks, months and years please join us give your pledge to the partner to connect digital coalition it's so important to collaborate and on this day this birthday of the ITU last but not least I will congratulate the ITU team and I think it will be good to give a big hand of applause to the team of the ITU thank you so much thank you very much Peter and thank you to all speakers and panelists for your interventions please can we just thank them for your time it's really exciting to see the pledges and action plans addressing these challenges and it was very exciting to receive three new pledges during this session alone from the governments of Spain and Tanzania and from ZTE to conclude this segment I'd like to give the floor to the BDT director to close us off Osmas, I hand the floor to you thank you Selena you'll keep the glass away from you thank you very much I think we have had exciting interventions I will just make a few concluding remarks the first thing I want to say is that our work in the ITU particularly in the development sector would be almost meaningless if we were not to address the challenges for the marginalized the least developed countries I think we should move as we switch from analog to digital we should move from talking about challenges and to talk about opportunities there are insurmountable opportunities in the least developed countries in terms of investment for our industry in the private sector we are very fortunate that in most of the least developed countries there is a demographic dividend our statistics indicate that between the ages of 15 and 24 we have almost everyone online and that is the group which is most active online so out of the 2.7 billion people who remain offline most of the ones who are active are in that age group and because the population in the least developed countries in that category we can develop skills and make sure that they participate in the global information society with a meaning and an impact our statistics also indicate that our cities and devices have become more affordable but maybe less so in the least developed countries and I think that is something that we should be focusing on and as a general comment digital pulls development so I think we should use it the theme for LDC 5 was from potential to prosperity and I think we have a great opportunity for us to take advantage of that now we have good news we are receiving a lot of pledges and we are grateful to all those that have pledged billions of dollars we are going to take a step further so it's a short relay from pledging to actioning we will be running a series of regional development forums where we do matchmaking those member states that have good needs and those good partners that have pledged so that we can operationalize and build some viable and bankable projects and implement them effectively we believe that universal meaningful connectivity is critical and we think of course the European commission with whom we signed about three weeks ago an agreement where they are helping us with the three million euros for us to be able to measure how much meaning are we getting out of this connectivity and I think that is very important so we remain committed to closing the digital divide but also the skills divide but we also have to accelerate digital transformation just as an announcement which I think the secretary general would have loved it to make there are key events that will be coming very soon we have the global symposium for regulators that will be hosted by the government of Egypt and it will run from 5 to 8 June we have the international community and all the regulators to dialogue and see how they can create a more enabling environment but we also have the regional development forums that I have mentioned but we will also have AI for good which will be coming in July so we would like to urge you to partner with us in a meaningful way thank you very much Haat felt thanks to you Cosmas and speakers and excellencies and speakers I now invite you to take your seats with the audience it only remains for me to wish all of us a very happy birthday and I certainly look forward to continuing our journey together and now I gratefully pass the floor back to our MC extraordinaire Over to you Max Thank you very much indeed and well done for that so here excellencies ladies and gentlemen we are now moving into the closing segment of a WTISD and I now have the pleasure to invite the speakers to take their seats in the audience and invite the following speakers of the closing segment to join me on stage that will be Christopher Sharrock Her Excellency Miss Hend Abdel Rahman Al Muftar and of course Dorian Bogdan Martin we'll just give them a few moments to come onto the stage thank you nice jazz music to get you into the mood are you all sitting comfortably then we will begin so I now have the pleasure to introduce you to Christopher Sharrock who is the Vice President for United Nations and International Organisations for Microsoft who will give us his closing remarks so Mr Sharrock the floor is yours thank you Well thanks Max and good afternoon everyone thank you for inviting Microsoft to your birthday party it's been a tremendous pleasure listening to the discussion and I'm really pleased to be here not least because I understand there is a cake which is coming so I look forward to that it really has been a tremendous day of discussion and I just want to pay tribute actually up front to Dorian to the Secretary General to the ITU to all of the partners that are doing so much to move forward this central foundational issue of meaningful connectivity Microsoft's work with the United Nations and with bodies like the ITU has grown over the decades and I'm very proud to head the team that leads that partnership and a particularly important part of that partnership is here in Geneva and I pay tribute to my colleague John Evert who leads our team here in Geneva our company's mission is to empower every individual and every organisation on the planet to achieve more my team's mission is to support the United Nations and the delivery of the sustainable development goals and we know that the SDGs will only be met if we support those that are at highest risk of being left behind and that means supporting the LDCs back in March after 18 months of preparation Microsoft had the honour to co-chair the private sector forum of LDC 5 and I would like to thank UN OHRLLS for all of their work and also the Government of Qatar for their tremendous hospitality exactly as Doreen said at the start of this discussion this afternoon this was a moment to consider not what LDCs are not they can be and as Cosmos said just now to talk about opportunities as well as the challenges that we face and around 400 companies joined this forum many of them made new commitments at the conference this included an announcement by Microsoft's President Brad Smith with new efforts that we will make to help expand opportunity in LDCs across digital infrastructure digital skilling and digital development for two clear conclusions from the LDC 5 private sector forum first there is an essential need for multi-stakeholder approaches the need for public-private partnerships has never been more clear all of us have to approach these global challenges the challenges facing the LDCs with humility however big we are individually we know that we can do more working together with the scale of the challenges the second conclusion that we can draw and there was a consensus around this in the discussions in Doha the private sector forum is that digital technology including the new advances in AI does prevent a real genuine opportunity to catalyse progress across all of the SDGs provided it is developed and deployed in a responsible and inclusive way we can make progress to connect the 2.7 billion people who are not connected and to close those digital divides and of course ITU's partner to connect program brings both of those two aspects together multi-stakeholder partnerships to deliver meaningful connectivity which in turn can deliver opportunities for progress as so many have said today Microsoft is really proud to be a member of PTC we share the vision of expanding meaningful connectivity and enabling digital transformation to help achieve the SDGs our central pledge was to train and certify 10 million people from underserved communities within demand, digital, foundational or technical skills by 2025 we're more than halfway to meeting that goal and we've also made a number of pledges on connectivity including to deliver internet access to underserved people in Africa by the end of 2025 and just this week, just in the last few days we announced new and expanded partnerships in our airband program set to provide high-speed internet access to nearly 40 million people across Latin America and Africa partnerships in Brazil, Chile Columbia, Guatemala in Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria Tanzania and Uganda this marks significant progress in our commitment to extend high-speed internet access to 250 million people living in unserved and underserved areas around the world including 100 million in Africa and that's because at Microsoft we believe that internet access and meaningful connectivity is a fundamental right so we see that PTC has demonstrated its immense value with the mobilization of so many pledges we hear that today and I thank all of those who've made their pledges and joined us in the program when we look at 2023 we started at LDC5 just a couple of months ago but this is such a crucial year for both the SDGs and for connectivity LDC5 in many ways fired the starting gun we had the STI forum the science technology and innovation forum in New York just a couple of weeks ago we're going to have the high-level political forum in July and then of course we are into the SDG summit in September and we should be clear we have got work to do we have got work to do to develop the safe, responsible inclusive approach to digital technology we've got work to do to forge those multi-stakeholder partnerships we in the private sector have work to do to come together with government, with civil society to deliver together and of course we've got things like the Doha program of action to guide us in all of that so I look forward to joining I'm sure many of you in New York for the SDG summit in particular looking forward to the ITU's digital day around that summit which will be a really important moment for highlighting the various things that technology can do so thanks again, I look forward to the cake and I'll stop there, thanks Max Thank you very much andy Christopher Sharik he's right there is cake but you'll have to wait a little bit longer for that so now please let me give the floor to Miss Hend Abdel Rahman Al-Muftah who is ambassador of extraordinary play potential permanent representative of the state of Qatar in Geneva Thank you Chris, good afternoon everybody IT family, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen it's my pleasure to be here and thanks again for IT for giving us this opportunity to share our experiences and knowledge and more importantly to listen to your experiences and of course the very fruitful discussions I have listened attentively to the distinguished participants and the speakers and I thank them for raising critical issues that made the discussion very insightful there is a common theme I have noticed in almost all debates pertaining to the relationship between ICT and SDGs that bridging digital divide and transferring technology are indispensable for achieving SDGs that's why it is very very connected as we commemorate the anniversary of the funding of the ITU, happy birthday again on this day we need to recognize the paramount role of ICT as a powerful tool for economic and social development both in developed and developing countries we in Qatar and allow me to share just a brief experience within what are we doing within ICT we are back in Qatar attach great attention and emphasize on benefiting from all investing in the thousands potential offered by information and communications technology and perceive it as very essential part and element for moving forward towards achieving SDGs and sustainable development in this regard we have been very keen to enhance the use of technology in implementing most of our economic, social, and even environmental development programs aimed at improving the life quality for everyone and establishing sustainable societies in which no one is really left behind and to achieve this Qatar has made the greatest right in building its information infrastructure and community technology based sector that benefit all segments of the society our vision in this regard indeed for bringing ICT to everyone through digital inclusion is that everyone in Qatar has adequate digital access basic digital skills, digital motivation and digital trust meaningfully use the benefit from all wide range of digital services available to them in a smart nation particularly in some services basically education and health sectors we believe that by raising the level of everyone in basic digital skills our digital inclusion strategy and the project will contribute to several SDGs. As far for LDCs are concerned I would really like to see this opportunity to emphasize Qatar's support to the LDC development agendas and will always be unwavering. The hosting of LDC conference in Doha last March was another ample opportunity to renew global community solidarity with LDCs to ensure that they are not left behind and if I may rephrase Dorian's statement we shouldn't define LDCs by what they are or what they cannot but we should really define them but where they should be and where they are supposed to have. This conference really offered a unique platform to help LDC discuss their economic and development strategies that have encountered extraordinary challenges and difficult because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The second pillar of Doha program of action focuses on leveraging the power of science technology and innovation to fight against multidimensional vulnerabilities and to achieve the SDGs. It also provides concrete proposals for access to modern technologies for sustainable development and to support the efforts of least developed countries to significantly improve their capabilities to achieve digital development. All pillars of the actions actually provide path for the achievement of the SDGs and the realization for the light of development in these countries. But ladies and gentlemen and as many people the panelists has been emphasized it's time for action. The LDC's needs financial and technical support both through multilateral and bilateral development cooperation in the spirit of just and the true partnership that would contribute to the structural transformation and enable long lasting achievement in sustainable development. I also take this opportunity of celebrating this day to call the state development partners international organization multilateral organization as also Chris mentioned the public-private sector partnership, civil societies NGOs and so on including of course the ITU to consistently support the implementation of the DOHA program of action and partnership with the LDC's. Particularly with regard to supporting the least developed countries in building their capacities in broadband infrastructure, connectivity access to the digital technologies specifically in some very important sectors education, health environment and economic. In order to achieve all SDGs and to help them to graduate by 20-30. I note with satisfaction and thank all those who pledged to donate funds for LDC's in the framework of this conference and encourage further contribution by different stakeholders. Finally, I want to draw the attention to the event the SDG digital day co-sponsored by Qatar and Singapore in collaboration with the ITE and other partners which will be held on the 17th of September in New York. This event is indeed to highlight among other issues the potential of the data and digital technologies on accelerating the process towards the SDGs. I encourage all of you to actively participate in this expected event and to share different creative ideas. I conclude by thanking again the ITU and wishing them all the success in their notable mission and I look forward to working closely with you and with any other partners in empowering the LDC's and helping them to find their way within sustainable development. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed Your Excellency and to conclude I now have the honour to give the floor one more time to our wonderful Secretary General Doreen Bogdan-Martin to close this event. Madam Secretary General, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you so much Max and thank you to Chris and to you Ambassador Max, do we know what kind of cake awaits us? I know I think that's the big question. What kind of cake? No really. So today of course is a special day for ITU. It's also a special day for me. People keep saying happy anniversary happy anniversary and I say how do you know? Because it's also my wedding anniversary so yes I did, I was working thank you. I was working at the ITU and I did not intentionally WTISD as my wedding anniversary but it just happened to be way back when the theme was telecommunications and sports. So anyway taking you back in time but thank you so much ladies and gentlemen I think it's been an inspiring session with some great new pledges and some exciting updates on the pledges that have already been made. I would like to also I guess I could say Alex make a pledge if I can say it that way but the ITU is pledging to up the bar on partner to connect and get to 100 billion in estimated pledging amounts so we're setting the bar high we're just over 30 billion and Alex assures me that we'll get to 100 billion by 2026 so some of the team in the back of the room is looking a little bit surprised looking nervous but I'm sure with all of you we will get there. So let's try to achieve that goal because as we heard today digital technologies offer tremendous opportunities for those that are currently the furthest left behind so I think it's an opportunity to come together and make sure that we offer those digital technologies to those that need it most we saw today some great focus on the key issues that need to be addressed from the access piece from the affordability piece making services and devices less expensive affordable and of course that last piece on the skills that digital literacy we need to make sure that we get that digital capacity piece there with about 12% or so of SDGs on track and seven years to go I think as the secretary general has said before we're looking for a rescue solution and I think all of us agree that a rescue solution at this point in time has to be digital and that's why as you heard from the ambassador and you heard from Chris we're very excited to be working with our partners to organize the SDG digital day it will be held prior to the SDG summit and we're excited to organize that day to focus on opportunities and to focus on solutions for each and every SDG using digital technologies it's an opportunity to renew commitments as I said to kind of reinforce to double down and bring industry, governments academia, civil society the UN together to get it done we've heard and I mentioned in the beginning that digital technologies ICTs can be they are that critical catalyst that will help us to get it done we are soon launching a competition linked to the 17th of September the SDG digital game changers award so stay tuned for that we're looking for exciting innovative solutions in those categories that you see on the slide so please please follow and promote this through your networks because we would like to highlight critical solutions to get it done I do want to also recognize BCG who's our knowledge partner for the SDG digital day and Max I think we have a little video if we could perhaps share that little video progress is lagging on the global goals to save our planet on the 17th of September ITU together with the UN family and partners will convene the SDG digital day we will discuss how digital technologies can rescue these goals and speed up progress as well as how to ensure the 2.7 billion people currently offline can also benefit be part of the solution join the discussions on the 17th of September participate in the competition discover the digital action plan to rescue the SDGs and help us bring the global goals back on track to ensure a sustainable and inclusive digital future for all thank you again ladies and gentlemen join us September 17 join the movement we need you because I think together we can get it done I want to thank all of you here physically thank everyone who joined us online for this important ITU anniversary celebration and together this is our moment to recommit and work together so that we can build an equitable a just a responsible I heard that a couple times today responsible and sustainable digital future for all thank you very much thank you very much indeed Doreen for those closing remarks it looks like we have some very exciting times ahead of us thank you everyone for being with us today both on site and online and thank you again to all our speakers now to end today's event I would like to invite all participants joining us here physically to enjoy a celebratory reception we have a lot of people in the room and yes there is cake and for those at home you can crack open the champagne or a cup of tea or something like that to celebrate but before we do I would like to I think you can all join us basically in singing Happy Birthday it's not just for ITU as the ambassador for Vanuatu reminded us it is for the entire world and the work has just begun but you all have to join me because it can't just be me singing this is your way to earn your cake so stand by Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday to you that's all folks, thank you