 So, thank you very much and welcome to the ministerial session. We call it a ministerial round table and our aim is to hear from the ministers as policy makers, interact with them, we are going to try to manage the time. So, our session begins with a small presentation just to set the stage. I will invite the ministers one by one to come up to the podium and take their positions. They are going to speak to you for about three minutes each, after which I may have follow up questions and then I open the floor. And feel free to ask any questions or make a comment. The ministers are very disciplined, they are leading by example. They will do three minutes and you try to ask your question in about a minute. We will come back to you. So, I plead with you. Imagine telecommunications, we are going through very difficult times. Climate change is raking havoc across the globe. Food security is a huge issue, as you can see. From 1964 to 2007, I can tell you that heat waves have cost the world food to the tune of a reduction of 10%. So, we are less rich in terms of food than we were decades before 1964. And this is our problem. For those that come from small island developing states, the deputy prime minister from Samoa, the minister from Tuvalu and many other countries, there is a huge challenge. Land size is shrinking. Climate change, mitigation and adaptation is a critical element. The world has lost it to the tune of about $1 trillion in terms of destruction as a result of sea rise. And as you can see, this video is basically showing you what has happened in terms of climate change. 2015, according to the results of nature, nature is a scientific magazine. It has been recorded since records were kept as the hottest year in the world. As you can see, the trend does not look very good. So, that which we cannot mitigate, we should adapt it to. I would say that 20 year review shows that pretty much 90% of the disasters are weather related. So, climate is a big issue. Climate change is a reality for you, for me, for us all. There is no country that is immune. Today, in Europe, there are many countries that are suffering from floods. And traditionally floods don't happen during this time of the year. For those that have been watching the news, the United States of America is suffering from huge snowfalls and winds. And that has disturbed some of the participants from coming to participate. Isn't it ironic? In South Africa and many other regions drought is the theme of the day. It just doesn't rain. Clouds are up the sky, but they are not pregnant to give birth to rain. And that's a huge challenge for us all. Whatever it is, as we said yesterday, we believe in a multi-hazard. Whether it is a super cyclone, whether it is floods, whether it is an earthquake, tsunami, whatever it is, technology. Yes, the master key. So it can unlock value out of that or it can lessen the impact of disasters. Impacts of disasters, 1.3 million lost lives, 2000 to 2015. 2010, 2011 were the worst years. Not only in terms of cost, but also in terms of human life which was lost. One disaster in Port-au-Prince in Haiti, 7.1 on the Richter scale killed over 320,000 people in one instant. 3.2 billion lost as a result of natural disasters. Preparedness is better than a response. I think it came through during the policy statements made this morning and we do agree. Economic loss 2.1 trillion dollars over that decade. Again 2011 was the most expensive year for the world. And I told you on average yesterday for those who were here, on average one disaster cost the country affected. Something to the tune of about 25 billion dollars. And that money if you plowed into development, it would make a huge difference in eradicating poverty. So we move on. The ITU approach is a very simple approach. We start from where it begins. We use technology, remote sensing. I'm going to demonstrate to you and show you how we do it. And then we use remote sensing, active and passive remote sensing. We use geographical information systems. And we make sure that we of course monitor the environment in order to detect, predict and be able to respond to natural disasters as they come. So we empower countries to make sure that they are technologically ready to respond. After that we're going to preparedness but before that and as part of preparedness we set up early warning systems. And the places where we have set up early warning systems, the response efforts and the state of preparedness has been quite different. Katandwanis and Arbani in southern Philippines in Uganda. We just launched two sites for early warning in Zambia. We're just about to commission. I could go on and go on and go on. When a disaster finally happens, we are ready to respond in the health countries for terrestrial networks destroyed or disrupted. We provide satellite communications and other means of communications, tetra systems, radio tranging and so forth. And I will show you now. If then it happens of course we have to join hands to make sure that we recover. ITU does a lot of things. One of the things, the legal framework. The chairman of this event mentioned today the temporary convention. So that is an international treaty to set up a legal framework. The regulators have a huge role to play licensing the kind of equipment that comes in and goes out and make sure that they allocate spectrum. And spectrum management is a key issue. Operating procedures are critical. Who does what when in order to avoid confusion when the disaster does strike. We write and publish a lot of books. You go on our website, you will find them on how to organize yourselves, how to set up and how to create operation senders and coordination senders. So we do a lot of things from policy to legal, legal to regulation. This is the trial-partite arrangement that we have in place in terms of technology. One, we wanted to monitor what is happening on earth. So we use satellites and we do remote sensing active and passive and we collect a lot of data which is quite critical to monitor the environment, the sea rise and anything that we think will impact human life. Second, we also use telecommunications to convey that information to wherever it is required. Third, aleting, coordinate, humanitarian action, setting up telemedicine facilities to make sure that we convey the diagnosis made by a junior doctor that we train at the site of the disaster. Send it thousands of kilometers to a specialist with somewhere else and then you will direct a small operation and that way we save human life. But we also need geographical information. We take a satellite map or a resolution before the disaster strikes. We know what was on the ground. We have the statistics. We have the population dispersion. And then we take a satellite after the disaster. We convey the two without going on the site. We can pretty much estimate and estimate the destruction. So we move on and I'm about to conclude. That was the hybrid of technology that we use. And I can tell you now we have a project. We are always moving. We are on the move established 1865. And acting as we were established in 2015. So what I want to tell you is that we are embracing big data and I will show you a project briefly because you are going to have a clear demonstration of the work that we do. And that project is on Ebola. How you can trace a person infected with Ebola where they are going but making sure we anonymize and protect the details of the individual consent. So privacy is a critical issue. Anonymization, visualization, analytics and so forth are an integral part of the work that we do. So let me just show you here in West Africa the demo. We did this over a period. I hope you can see because let me just go back a little bit. Can you play? So what we did, we took data, real data, we call it call data records. And we showed from midnight you see people are sleeping as it goes on and you are coming to Elimoni. You can see more people are moving. You can tell without knowing exactly the person. But if the person is that center which is a city and they go to a village it is easy for us to tell health workers this person who came from an infected area has gone to this area. Can you quarantine the people there and check them to make sure that there is no spread? It's more complex than this and we have got dynamic maps that show you at any given time when that person went there, how many people were there. And this is an issue of correlation rather than being specific to know exactly who the person is. So what you see is the dot. You don't see a person in order to provide and to protect their privacy. The model and I'll take one minute. The model that ITU uses is called ITU framework for cooperation in emergencies. IFCE with three pillars. One pillar is the technology pillar. We have partners that bring their technology to us and work with us to make sure that we deploy them in a timely manner and they save lives. Then we have a second pillar which is the finance pillar. We build a fund. We have the director of the BDT this morning saying we are going to launch a massive fund to make sure that we respond rapidly where and when we have to intervene when disasters do strike. And the last one is the logistics pillar which is basically bringing airline people like DHL, FedEx and others who have offered in the past their services when we wanted to send equipment, some of them for free. And then we make sure within 24 hours or 48 hours we are at location and we deploy to those that need it. So we operate on the basis of a multi-stakeholder approach and there is power in partnerships. So these are some of our key partners with the women who work. They are more than this and we are building a coalition of the willing. And you too can become a partner of ITU. So the last slide. What do our ministers say? What is their vision? So allow me to invite the ministers to come and join me here. Let me invite HEM Mr. Monise Lafay to value. Please if you could come and join us. Can you join me in welcoming him please? And followed by his excellency Mr. Kapremboa Simbao Zambia. Thank you. And may I invite his excellency Guledikasim Somalia. And I would like to invite his excellency David Prime Minister of Tonga. Sovalene please. I would like to invite his excellency Melford Nicholas Andigwa and Babulda. Please join me. Dr. Mlambo from Zimbabwe Deputy Minister ICT please if you could join us. Fandaste, I think our panel is complete. I recognize the presence of the Minister for Man who will be sitting here. Thank you very much for coming. So welcome. We are going to make this short and sweet. I would like to begin from my right and invite the Minister of Andigwa to give us just a few remarks. Three minutes and then we will move on. And then you will have an opportunity to interact with them. Your excellency the floor is yours. Thank you very much. And your excellencies I would like to recognize all of the protocols previously established. Good day everyone. Happy to be here. Not only do I represent Andigwa and Babulda the country that I'm from but I represent the wider Caribbean territories under the umbrella of the Caribbean telecommunications union. This is an important forum for us in the Caribbean simply because as small island developing states we are indeed vulnerable in many respects. Not only because our economies are small and are in fact very fragile but we also are situated in the part of the world where almost on a two frequent basis we are visited by tropical storms or hurricanes as you would know. With climate change the ferocity and intensity of these storms have complicated planning and development in all part of the world. I can recall it was only recently in 1995 that the most perfect storm that century had visited my own country and had sat and wreaked its destruction for a period of 36 hours. Imagine being pounded by a storm of over 145 miles per hour for 36 hours. And what it did and left the wake of destruction that it left it took some while to recover from that. But we're not only vulnerable to hurricanes. You would have been told and you have been mindful of the tragedy that befell Haiti in 2010 with the earthquake. And of course more recently the commonwealth of Dominica that suffered some massive floods and loss of life and damage to the infrastructure as a result of the passage of another tropical storm. And in all of these we are still mindful of the fact that there are some active volcanoes in the Caribbean. Not only in Magnik, in St. Vincent, in St. Lucia and certainly in Montserrat back in 1995 as well. We are full two-thirds of the country had to be evacuated because of the small size and because of the impact of the volcano. More than two-thirds of the population was displaced. So we have had of a share of disasters, natural disasters. Again, because of the potential of earthquakes, there is a possibility that there could be the impact of a tsunami. We haven't had one of those as a result of any major earthquakes in the region, but it is still a possibility. And of course the whole issue of the rising due to climate change, the issue and the impact that island states will have coastal areas will have when the sea level rises. So these are some of the potential hurdles that we have to overcome. We are served by private systems, telecommunication systems on the sea in the Caribbean and we are all interconnected into the Americas. And there is redundancy and there is resiliency in those networks. But ultimately, looking at the adoption of the temporary convention and what we are now discovering is the restoration fund. These things will actually have some potential benefits for us in the Caribbean. So I'm interested in learning as much as we possibly can from this forum and certainly to take back with us for further deliberations in the Caribbean as we improve our planning and development process. So with those few words I'd just like to say I'm happy to be here and I look forward to the rest of the deliberations. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your excellence. We would like later on to hear from you concerning the disaster insurance in the Caribbean because you are one region that has managed to set up this kind of a funding mechanism. So later on when we come back, we would be glad to listen to you. I would like to go to the minutes of Somalia. Somalia is the least developed country. Somalia has stabilized. Can you tell us, could you share your thoughts? You are the only country that I know that spent over 13 years without a telecom regulator authority but did one of the highest growth rate in our cities. Does it mean regulation is not necessary? To answer the question, no, regulation is an absolute necessity. First of all, I'd like to essentially extend a warm greeting to everyone from the people in the government of Somalia, President, Prime Minister, Cabinet, Parliament and so forth. I think the actually similarly extend a thanks to our hosts for this wonderful facility, for the gracious way that we've been welcomed and certainly for ITU for putting together this very important conference. Ladies and gentlemen, excellencies, I wish you good morning. We must observe these protocols and it's actually good. In Somalia, I guess to answer that question and use that, we've had a unique experience the past 25 years or so. We went from having a government that was not only the regulator but also the actual telecommunications operator. It was very much centrally run and obviously in 1991 the government dissolved. And so what had happened was the people, the community at large, now the disaster that we experienced for a good decade really was man-made. And I think the parts of the world where resources are very little, man-made disasters also have to factor into the response. And for us what it has done was it forced the community, it forced operators to come from nowhere. The operators for about 10, 15 years now have done a wonderful job of self-regulating, sharing spectrum. You know some are stronger than others but at the end of the day you need a regulator to divvy out the spectrum in a fair way. And obviously when it comes to emergency management preparation, you certainly need a government body to do that. In Somalia we've really done a lot in the last 12 months since I've been minister. We have refined and fine tuned the telecom law. It's actually being voted this week so I need your blessings and good luck. Hopefully you'll pass. We spent a tremendous amount of time on the telecom law to make sure that it had all the requisite elements that allowed us to scale up. It creates the regulatory body, the telecom agency. It mandates that this agency will then begin to divvy up the spectrum in a fair and equal way. And along other things that are necessary. We're also breaking ground in a month or two on a national data center which will allow us as we look into emergency mitigation along with sector monitoring allow us to actually look forward. Without taking too much time I'll just stay on this question one last point. The important part of having a government is beyond regulations. It is to extend the level of confidence in the society that should this happen. We have the plans, the where we're at the very minimum. Those of us who don't have a lot of resources, we are aware. So in 2004 the tsunami, believe it or not, Somali is at the end of Indian Ocean. The tsunami hit Somali. It was a loss of life, a loss of livestock. The vast majority of our population lives right on the coast. As you all may know Somali has the longest coastline in Africa. So much of the population is on the coast. So rising sea waters impacts us. Drop situation impacts us. The El Nino effect now where we've had both drought and floods of the rivers. And what we've done and this is the last point that I'll make in terms of our experience. We are looking to build a cross sectoral strategy that has multi-purpose use. So we don't want a system that sits on a shelf in the event of a tsunami. We want something that we're constantly using. And police, firefighters, first responders will tell you the more they practice the better they get at it. And Somalis are very good at communicating. So we are building a national ICT infrastructure plan that is constantly used. And what that does is it allows us to overcome any glitches in the system. Because we're using it on a regular basis. And allows us to use it and be more and more familiar with it. So with that I'll close but again very very delighted to be here. Certainly thank you all for allowing us to have the opportunity. Thank you very much Excellency for your insights. Some say what nature has given us we can't change. We say what God has given us we don't change. But we can improve and work around it. Dr. Mlambo, you come from a landlocked country Zimbabwe. What are your thoughts? Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Yes I know time is tight but let me appreciate the hospitality from the host country to the representatives who are here. Also want to recognize the general of ITU and also for ATU who are here. And chairman of this get 2016. In my intervention I will tilt very much towards Zimbabwe and also developing countries. Because I would like to make specific recommendations at the end to ITU and developers of equipment over here. Zimbabwe has had a fair share of disasters. They are not too very very large in comparison to the size of the Nami but the destruction because of level preparedness is also great. But let me look at policy as a jacket within which in major operations when disasters strike are supposed to operate. Imagine within which they can be enabled to operate without with least inconveniences. That is the key role that policy in ICT should play. The immediate numbers. What is the policy within that country with regards to the use of immediate numbers. They adequately and efficiently recharge to immediate centers and also invoke rapid response to save lives. This is the importance of policy when it comes to immediate centers. Tember convention really captures it all. When I did it through the objective was to try and weave some of these regulations that might inhibit rapid response. We will come back to policy now that it is very important that in crafting policy we will leave out enough margin to take care of immediate services to save lives. Now in terms of resilience if again from a basic we want to remain basic here which might sound very strange to develop the country because there are far, far ahead in terms of the implementation preparedness and everything else there far ahead but coming to develop the countries let's go baked basics. We want to do the drills. We want to simulate throughout. Let's not wait for an announcement of a disaster or sometimes it so happens in developing countries you wake up and you see you are under attack of a disaster because of lack of preparedness. We must if we have pieces of equipment like in Zimbabwe we were very grateful that we had an issue of a number of iridium sets in 2008. Now when we look through they were not trained enough the operators trained enough of what we got these very useful handset supply base. They were not but since that time we there wasn't any attempt to practice or not to respond to disaster using the sets because as the rapport was object when it strikes even if we have a fair coverage of network mobile network operations in our country but those are destroyed from power lines and base stations when floods come in they are destroyed so we might then revert to satellite communications to save lives in there. Has there been enough training? Has there been enough awareness to make sure that we prepare people who are going to in those communities? Now there is no simulations especially where a lot of stakeholders are involved in Zimbabwe between 11 and 12 stakeholders are involved to handle a disaster coordinate and coherence when a disaster strikes is very very difficult it requires simulations and so forth during peace times but again trying to be very basic in remaining one minute we have a number of conferences which have been attended Allow me to mention some of them we have the Sendao obviously conference that was attended we have the Rio declaration we have the Tempe convention which I mentioned earlier on we have the Yokohama strategy for a safer world in the United Nations in 2012 future we want we have the Yokohama framework for action when you scan through just in case you look at all these conventions there is massive information that each conference dishes out to the participants but again talking from the context of developing countries very little of that massive information has been implemented if we just make an effort to implement 10% of that information that will go a long way in alleviating disaster and saving lives and perhaps it forward towards the 17 goals sustainable goals 2030 but we in my view again we call upon those who manufacture equipment and I see to you given a lot of work they are doing to perhaps focus now on encouraging developing countries to start implementing what we talk about like when we leave this conference here is there an honest effort to go and implement what we have learnt because some of it we have had from this margible conference which we have held before so perhaps ITU and other developed world can then assist the developing countries from being aware of the need to take effort to implement what we learnt rather than come back again to wait for another conference and hear this something I thank you very much Your Excellency Deputy Prime Minister welcome again we are grateful you joined us in Hiroshima where you spoke eloquently about the role of measuring the information society your country is a small island developing state it is a listed developed country it is doing well can you share with us what you are doing right because I know you are also vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters but we know that each time you have tended to stumble you have reason rapidi please the floor is yours thank you Maurelia on behalf of the government of Tonga and the people of Tonga like to actually thank the government of Kuwait and ITU for hosting this very important and timely meetings I am very honoured to be here in Kuwait City and I believe that it is not about sharing what we do well but learning what we can do about the mistake that we have done actually learning from my fellow colleagues here in the panel Tonga as you mentioned Maurelia is a small island developing state and my colleague from the Caribbean raised some of the difficulties that we face the challenges like tyranny of distance for example, Tonga is a small country we have about 200 islands our population is displaced over about 50 small islands for telegos to actually provide services in some of these stuff doesn't make sense financially because they are too small the amount of investment needed to actually provide services in some of these small islands doesn't make sense financially so we continuously have to look at at means of actually trying to provide services in some of these vulnerable islands Tonga is one of the more vulnerable ones in small island developing states for example, in the last three weeks from the first of January up to now we have had two cyclones category three cyclones so that's only January we got another three more months in our cyclone season so that just highlight the vulnerability of Tonga as in most small island developing states I believe that the secretary general actually mentioned in his speech early this morning the fact that for us in a small island developing state and I'm sure in other developing states most of our development progress can be wiped out in a matter of hours by some of these natural hazards like cyclones or earthquakes or tsunami so in Tonga's case we pay a lot of emphasis in building our resilience I'll give you an example 30% of our development assistant goes into building our resilience and I think what I actually mentioned earlier today that the return on building your resilience is run by if you invested $1 you probably save about $24 in post disaster losses in other venues like in Senda World Bank was quoting saying for every dollar that you spend on building your resilience you save $36 so there's definite rationale there to actually put more emphasis on building your resilience in the ICT side in the sector what we tend to do is actually partner with the telecos we got two telecos in Tonga to actually make sure that what they put in a more resilient ICT system that actually you can take get a grade 3, get a grade 4 cyclones at least a grade 4 I mean for example in the last cyclone that we had in Tonga get a grade 3 which about 100 to 200 kilometers per hour win our system was not this I mean our MOPA system were not disrupted I mean ideally because we like to think that they've taken into account that we're going to take a few cyclones along the way and they build the system accordingly but I think a lot of emphasis should be on preparedness and in our case because of the environment in Tonga we tend to do it in a more multi-prong approach whereby you use radio radio is still one of our main important tools but also the internet using social media and so forth even in television when we had that cyclone on the first of January this year we deploy all the tools we put out radio programs put on Facebook and what have you we also send out self broadcasting even SMS informing people trying to reach as many people as we can and telling them you've got to get yourself prepared there's a cyclone heading your way there's a disaster send nearby you can evacuate there so I believe that you should be using all that you have in your effort to actually get your people prepared that will essentially hopefully will result in less lives lost in the legal framework we have a legislation in place that establish a national committee in an event of a disaster whereby they are given an authority to mobilize resources and so forth I think that's a very important legislation to have but we also ratified the Tempia Convention and we also have a relevant policy in place to actually help with our response whereby we set up clusters for health clusters for shelter clusters for food getting all the relevant stakeholders into these clusters so they can make appropriate decision in a timely manner it doesn't make sense for you to start looking who should I call to help with shelter who should I call to help with water you should have that in place be way before they can be they can be call upon whenever you need I think moderator that covers pretty much some of the key points but moving forward always looking forward to having a more efficient disaster management system prepositioning some of the tools like set phone and stuff in some of these small islands and making sure that we have a clear idea of what our different partners roles are in the case of disaster what will be ITU's role what will be FAO's role what will be all the relevant stakeholders what will be their roles so that they know and we know what's expected and I think that will be very helpful especially when time is not on our side when we try to respond to a disaster thank you very much thank you very much let me move on to is Excellency Simbao from Zambia Zambia is the developed country landlocked country very strategic you moved the disaster management unit into the vice president's office to get political commitment and support working with ITU continuously and incessantly and establishing an ill-warning system we would like to hear from you what do you think is the role of political will and policy in the support of disaster management in general particularly how you can marry ICTs in disaster management Excellency, the floor is yours thank you to start with I would like to commend the Kuwait government for the hospitality that they have shown to me and I believe all the other delegates who are here and I would like to bring greetings from my president who sent me here to attend this particular conference I want to say that in regards to the question that you've raised the disaster mitigation unit has been placed under the office of the vice president because we've had quite some disasters may be noted the same scale as maybe others but in our case the kind of disasters we've had health related as well as physical related the health related disasters have been emergencies of cholera that have taken lives and big numbers of people have died and the physical related disasters what is happening now in my country we have two big problems what we have caught disasters when we have the deficit of electricity that means that a lot of things cannot happen for example communication is affected and now we've also got a drought which if we are not very careful or result in death because the drought is very very bad it has affected the entire half of the country meaning this is our time to grow food and therefore the country is not able to grow food so these are the two most biggest problems or disasters that our country faces now in trying to mitigate this that if we put the office of the disaster mitigation unit under the office of the vice president a lot of political will will be attached to this particular problem and as such what has happened is that the whole country is divided into districts and provinces and all these are a unit of the disaster management unit under the vice president the biggest problem that we have is that we are not well connected by ICT for example we would love to have telephone conferences facilities or video conferencing facilities but these are not very well established neither do we have the entire country covered by a signal for communication we don't have that so what it is is that when a disaster occurs in certain areas it has to be a physical visit to that area to go and address that problem even though you might have experts in that area but when they have issues they cannot just pick up a phone and call and find out what they should do they have to travel very long distances maybe a thousand kilometers or stuff like that which eventually you find that the people that are in dire need don't get that particular attention and they die we would like to appeal that maybe ITU can look into the costs of satellite fees such that maybe if that is addressed concerning at least disasters that might be easy for countries like Zambia to easily reach other places and people that they need at the moment the satellite fees are really prohibitive for a country like ours so we are very very much concerned with saving lives and we really appreciate that ITU is equally concerned and they thought it necessary to meet us and the other countries that have seen here because I think we are the people that would like to see to it that our people are saved from these disasters that can be mitigated thank you thank you very much for your insights we will come back to you I would like now to invite his excellency from Tuvalu Tuvalu from the Pacific Islands at least developed a country and also a small island developing state but like his neighbour Samoa it is just about to graduate from the list of least developed countries to become a developing country Samoa has already graduated so it's like flu I understand it's contagious so your excellency can you tell us what you are doing right and we know you have been in the forefront in raising awareness as to the negative impact of climate change could you just give us your insights please thank you Maudreja greetings from Tuvalu an island nation consisting of eight lowline atolls with a population of about 12,000 people but first let me reiterate the warm sentiments already expressed my fellow panelists to ITU and its partners but perhaps much more so to the government of Kuwait and the people of Kuwait for Havana Sia and for the warm hospitality extended to us since our arrival in a beautiful country but why are we here I think we are here because we made a commitment we set ourselves a goal and that is saving lives in time of disasters so the question is perhaps the more important question for us is are we getting any closer to achieving that goal or is it that is preventing us for achieving that goal because over the years we have discussed we have talked about a lot of things we have been using the same vocabulary year after year we have discussed issues like preparedness medication risk reduction recovery efforts system platforms regulations legislation frameworks financing such a benality such a benality saving lives and the least goes on in other words to have at our disposal the right ingredients so what is stopping us from cooking the right soup or the right broth skills resources or finances perhaps I believe we all have different answers unique to our different context in the night over dinner with His Excellency the distinguished director he shared his idea about the possibility his aspiration of this forum coming up over the years perhaps with a model that is so dynamic and so that is self financing self sustaining that can be easily translated into achievable goals I think because of our different circumstances vastly different contexts this will be a huge challenge but I sincerely believe this is attainable just this morning we had one of the speakers challenges with the view that if we put our heads our efforts our resources together we will be able to achieve I would like to make a brief reference one of the keywords from yesterday's vocabulary and that's about the need for strong leadership leadership and political will to drive change I strongly believe that overall there is political will and I can confidently say that for together from yesterday's presentation also we were asked whether a multi stakeholder approach is ideal for our purpose is ideal for achieving our dream, our goal and my answer to that question is a very loud yes naturally in time of disasters we should all stand together and work to help each other and save life not only locally but with international partners as well so a multi stakeholder approach is definitely our best option and Mr. Moderator while still on the subject of multi stakeholder partnerships I would like to invite all interested partners and I mean donor partners in particular who are willing to discuss partnership arrangement with Tuvalu please come talk to me thank you so much thank you very much I want you, I told you the ministers leading by example they left exactly 25 minutes for you to make your interventions to ask them questions so we hope you will be equally disciplined and keep your comments very short you indicate by raising your name plate and then you introduce yourself and then please you go ahead and ask whatever questions you may have the floor is open is there anybody who would like to ask a question or they were so perfect yes there is a hand down there please take the floor thank you very much I am a Arab Economic Development and my name is Muhammad Sadiki and I really sympathize and acknowledge the difficulties of countries post conflict and disasters because the Kuwait fund actually goes there post these disasters and conflicts and start working with government and assessing the damages so that to identify fields of participation and reduce the impact of these disasters on these countries what we have found and I am a field engineer I go there and do the assessment that we as financiers also we are burden sometimes under government because we ask questions we need answers we want to identify projects priorities and all these different programs while they are dealing with immediate needs of the of the disasters I think international community United Nation and countries bear these disasters they have to work in a model so that financiers can come to these countries and they have the information ready the priorities already so that their intervention can achieve its objectives thank you very much thank you very much for that question excellent I could take two more questions and then away yes please over there thank you for the word I answer to Jero Mediculio he represents Obolundi my question is addressed most of the time but also international community intervention we need to talk about the quick answer what is the relationship to protection or prevention and whether our populations are sensitive to the protection that was made at the time of emergency because we need to come first but also we need to answer to deal with the disasters so what is the relationship to this issue of prevention in the state in the education of the population because there are solutions in relation to TIC which are less expensive in relation to prevention thank you very much for that question we will invite the panelists to share the experiences is there another question ok I am going to invite the ministers let me invite the minister before I give the minister of Somalia we talked about the model in the Caribbean for insurance for disaster management you may want to include that when we talk about financing I think there was an interesting question coming from the Kuwait Fund Development Fund do you want to react to that thank you for the opportunity to respond to the collaboration that takes place within states in respect of collective security so far as insurance premiums are concerned it bodes well for the operation of the region as I said we are a small island developing states and each have a particular small economy so wherever there is a disaster the tendency is for the premiums to rise in the following season for that particular country but because we are all in a common pool the larger population is able to spread the costs for that type of intervention specifically to the question of wanting systems so far as hurricanes are concerned this is an annual event and we are linked into the North American hurricane tracking system so we do get frequent meteorological information and the formation in the first place and tracking of hurricanes and our populations are often well advised well in advance and we have systems in terms of the type of preparation that has to be done but not put stand in the preparation and the one that will come when the storms prevail they in effect have the ability to disrupt life and living because of the sheer ferocity of these storms adequate use of social media as my colleague have indicated there is the broadcast medium as well the state on television and radio so we do have early detection systems so far as that type of disasters concern and we also have the ability to offer information to the public ahead of the particular conditions Thank you very much Minister Somalia If I can begin with the Kuwait fund part of it I think those of us that are either developing world post conflict, post traumatic experience we do need visionaries like you see in the Kuwait fund for example in Somalia this last 12 months we built out a government broadband network, fiber optic network broken ground in fact have reached all ministries of the government within 8 months and our goal is to extend that out to the regional government because we want to have below ground secure government communication network so that in the event that flooding happens that towers don't fall and so forth so certainly we would invite your engineers to come and assess we have two ongoing projects now one with the world bank that has funded quite a bit and also we starting an African development bank so our sector in terms of ICT is growing and has been the only sector that actually grew within 25 years of conflict and it's something that we'll begin to stabilize so I think visions such as how can financing be made readily available this sector is something provided that we all make it a multi use so that if it's a financing there's a way to generate some of that money in return so if it's a multi use network that has secure capabilities then the money comes back in terms of capital in terms of investment with respect to prepositioning advanced warning I think social media is the champion we do a lot of advanced communications our the crises that outside of the man made ones that we have are flooding and drought and thankfully those aren't instant that we can kind of we're coming the we actually have the very north which is rocky and sandy and south which is rainfall so I think the best way to go is to leverage all communications in terms of radio in terms of TV in terms of internet and I think one tool that we use which is very low cost in Somalia that is underestimated is SMS SMS for Somali and communicating in a rapid way is a wonderful tool and I think so the low end of the spectrum in terms of usage and technology should not be underestimated I think yesterday there was a presentation on radio these things all matter and as long as it's a considered effort so so the minister says the low end is SMS I have a low end which is the human face so a multi-stakehold approach where people can actually meet know each other do simulations and drills and get to know who is in which organization so that when imagines do okay you don't struggle to find Mr. Jones and when you find him you can't figure out who of those in a crowd is Mr. Jones so I think ITEC is good but a more humantarian approach by humans knowing each other is very critical because sometimes when we do events in countries trying to bring all the stakeholders, ambulance people fire brigade, civil protection minister of justice because of the temporary convention the regulator because of regulation private sector because of technology they are meeting for the first time you are introducing them but you came thousands of kilometers or hundreds of kilometers from somewhere so we encourage regulators to have nice breakfast meetings with other stakeholders and exchange cars and get to know each other and play golf okay thank you very much I just want to add to what Michael Dix said especially with the question from Parunta I think it's not about preparedness is a year long process you don't wait until there is a cyclone heading your way to actually try and tell people what to do so for us it's a year long whereby we do drills we do educational programs for radio, televisions and what have you so for us it's a year long so it's just something that I think need to be emphasized that your preparedness and your education it's very important and it's a year long process it's not when there's a cyclone heading your way having said that one of the disasters that we were still trying to see how we can better respond to is all better prepared to is tsunami we had tsunami in the pacific 2009 and we where we think tsunami might be generated around the region it will only take about 10 to 15 minutes to hit our shores so we're still trying to see what will be the appropriate mechanism to actually get that warning out for people to start running because some of our villages are in the coastal areas so it's still a challenge that we put sirens around the coastal shores and one of the challenges that is making sure that when you send that trigger that the siren will go off that nothing is wrong and then the siren will be silent and then the people in the waterfront will know that there's a tsunami heading their way so those are some interesting challenges that we're still trying to sort out and we're looking forward to discussing those ITU and other colleagues who may have that experience Thank you very much I think the issue that has been mentioned is quite critical in the sense that sirens will alert people and what is also even more important is the fact that after the siren there must be a recorded message that gives clear short instructions in the local language because there was a country where they used the siren and the siren was very musical and the kids were dancing they didn't know that it was for an emergency so when you add after that clear instructions for people to evacuate and to tell them where to go in the language they understand it is very important and his excellency the deputy prime minister said it is an ongoing process it's not a one off you must continuously educate the people I see there is a hand here the minister of Zambia I just want to address the frustration shown by the gentleman who talked about quite fine towards the people that require the help I share maybe that frustration with him but I would like to request that in that case isn't it possible that maybe ITU can take up this problem and see to it that people in each country are trained to para to their needs when they request for financial help and then the donor comes and just goes back I would like to ask that question is it possible thank you very much minister I confirm it is possible and on behalf of the secretary general and the director of the development bureau certainly we will do that you saw a model IFCE ITU framework for cooperation and emergencies we promote this kind and please feel free afterwards to conduct us we know the concerns when you are financing the sovereign risk assessment policy reversal the danger of that and so forth we will be able to work with you and we are continuously handing and growing partnerships and please don't hesitate after this we can have a meeting I think yes the last word Doctor Mlambo 10 years that is the send-out declaration 10 years about the adoption of the Yogo framework of action disasters continue to undermine efforts in achieving sustainable development the question again is why despite the high tech that there is in this world people will continue to die in Hiroshima last year we learned that cities can go a long way in alleviating disaster but disaster still okay now for countries like mine which is Zimbabwe let me again isolate one tipping problem which we seem to see lack of awareness at several levels starting from the political level which makes things happen to the operational guys and then down to those who will be handling equipment in the case of perhaps iridiam satellite terminals now then you take multi-stake scenarios and you factor it into the entire picture I'm trying to define all these coalesce to enable the work happen and happen on time let us say you have 15 multi-stake holders from government departments non-governmental and multinational corporations one hold right down to traditional chiefs every level has different understanding of what you want to do traditional chiefs don't quite understand they might want to appeal to the spirits and then other leaders might want to first inform ancestors if people are dying if people are marooned in an island and the river is swelling up talk about floods in Zimbabwe high wind fires about engal people and there is an alarm that this is what is happening here in the meantime we are getting together this large group and you will say let's move in it's a common sight in quite a number of developing countries that you get a sight if it is fire with firefighting equipment with no water and you realize when you are on site that there is no water then you rush back and when they come back people have died because of lack of coordination I want to come back to ITU that there really has to be an effort to train people especially on the drills let's not wait for the fire because fire occurs every year and people keep on dying every year we know in advance that there will be fire next year cold months before cold months people still die with that equipment and the people in offices and sometimes also some departments take that part as areas of theft and they see an attempt to solicit for coordination cooperation, cohesion in fighting a disaster as interference in their theft which goes back to lack of awareness about these disasters so for countries like us ITU perhaps we need to concentrate on a lot of awareness at different levels if it is equipment I read them says for example some of them are stationed there in somebody's high office as a status symbol but it doesn't even understand but that thing no longer works because of again lack of awareness of that unit is supposed to do skills to practice using the thing and the simulations of disasters to coordinate all these multi sector multi stakeholders to to make things happen so ITU I think given the work you are doing there is that sector there is that focus we need to to make people implement resolutions we come out of conferences with thank you at this point I would like to thank you for listening and also for asking questions and participating in this discussion having said that ITU do not have been possible if the ministers had not accepted it to come and also to share their wisdom with us so please can we just give them another round of applause so I would like to thank the interpreters for their patience because we ran into their time a little bit thank you very much for that before I hand over to the chairman I'm going to summarize for you the session as I got it the following points were repeated by the ministers and I think they are very important first of all we have to adopt a multi-sectoral approach second we have to adopt a multi-sectoral approach because it is not only the technology but it is what you do with it that matters third it is a multi hazard multi disciplinary approach because you need a specialist after the disaster it may be traumatic when it is traumatic you need a psychologist to give counseling and a teacher to educate those kids who are at crash or kindergarten level so that they grow up with a culture of disaster risk reduction and disaster management the unique needs of small island developing states least developed countries and other countries that have special needs have got to be highlighted but not forgetting the faces behind those countries people with a disability the elderly those are critical elements that we have to take on board climate change is a reality climate change impacts all of us climate change will continue and it is important for us to meet to get the impact but also to try to adopt if you were growing a certain variety of a crop and the rains are coming late it is time we migrate to a new set of crops that will withstand drought and also rain season rain season that comes late resilience in terms of communities in terms of institutions in terms of telecommunication networks redundance in terms of the telecommunication networks are critical connectivity is an issue those in urban areas that's why statistics sometimes lie a little bit because you may have 100% penetration but dominated by people in the urban areas those in the rural communities who constitute pretty much in the developing world 70% of the population and mainly are women are not captured in the equation so connectivity bridging the digital divide in a responsible manner is important one of the ministers mentioned the cost of air time that those who provide the service should be a little bit more sensitive to the needs you cannot pour water on those who are already suffering so give a landing hands and we thank again those partners that have been supporting and working with ITU for the benefit of the member states they have been contributing a lot of resources and we invite you to consider its money that is going for a just cause an issue that has something to do with financing is the marriage between the city for development and the city for disaster management so that you set up infrastructure you use the same infrastructure to develop communities to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals on time but at the same time saving communities so those same persons using those systems for development will use it to save lives so it is important they become another issue capacity building and ITU was called a number of times we have to do more training people yes hands on training with the different kinds of equipment now is big data we are moving towards machine to machine communication by some estimation today we have about 25 billion devices that are talking to each other without human intervention by 2020 we will have probably 65 billion devices talking to each other it is important for us to build the capacity and to see how best we can use those imaging technologies to save humanity technology without a human face is a fallacy and finally one of the ministers summed it up and I will use these words so that you don't accuse me of plagiarism we had strong leadership and political will at the key elements that's why we held the ministerial round table so that we hear from the 30 leaders when we finish we are having a group photo for the participants and I will hand over the floor to the chairman if you could just remain standing but thank you very much for your participation