  prettiness president of this august body prime minister of the UAE and ruler of the Emirates of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Muktam, directors of various ITU, bureaus, your excellencies, colleague ministers of ICT from ICTU Member States, council members and experts from various industries, distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you fraternal greetings and goodwill messages from His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, Brigadier Gilius Madawio, the government and the people of Sierra Leone. Please allow me to personally express my gratitude to His Highness and the people of the Emirates of Dubai for their warm hospitality accorded me and my delegation since our arrival here a few days ago. I also wish to commend the ITU for the choice of this year's theme Work as one to advance the power of tech for good. A topic that could not have been more relevant especially at such a time when ICT has become an integral part of our modern life affecting various aspects of our day-to-day activities empowering people and communities. For us as a new government and a thriving nation it is an opportune time to make new contacts and discuss problems of mutual interest with delegates from member countries present here today. Your Highness, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, in the past, diamonds, gold and other natural resources were used to determine our economic future. But today we live in a digital world that is powered by broadband whether it is fiber optic cables, digital subscriber lines in our homes or pocket devices in our pockets. We recognise the development opportunities and challenges of this emerging world powered by innovative tools of ICT. Our administration in the new direction agenda is adopting a paradigm shift in strategy to enhance socio-economic development. Thus the key priority of the new direction is to take advantage of our country's youthful population to drive maximum benefit from the demographic dividend. Hence the focus is on human capital development which will provide opportunities for citizens to realise their innate potentials. The strategy is to accomplish this. The strategy to accomplish this is to leapfrog development from the current structural imbalance to service sectors through ICT. It is therefore our vision to leverage on its innovative powers to transform other sectors of our economy to push our national development agenda forward. Your Highness, ladies and gentlemen, the new administration is fulfilling one of its campaign promises recently launched one of the most ambitious programme since independence, the free, quality, basic and secondary education. The launch of this phenomenal programme has seen increased access to education from primary, primary and secondary levels. Government uploads this move but equally committed to quality. This has created huge demands on access side and raised issues of quality. We therefore recognise the key role that ICT can play in widening access to education to a greater section of a population for facilitating quality educational delivery and training at all levels. The government has acknowledged the need for ICT training for education in schools, colleges and universities and the improvement of the educational system as a whole. Proficiency in ICT skills is still relatively low in Sierra Leone every among ICT professionals and the general populace. This translates to skills gap that entones signals on top benefits that ICT could potentially deliver to Sierra Leone socio-economic development. Therefore, continued strengthening of ICT human capital is the highest priority. The creation of directorate of science, technology and innovation is an expression of President Bill's personal commitment towards enhancing human capital development and to create the enabling environment for innovation and entrepreneurship. Your Highness, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, you will agree with me that the growth and development of the ICT sector requires a stable and predictable policy, legal and regulatory environment that ensures a competitive environment for the development and provision of ICT services such as broadband. My ministry, which is charged with all ICT and telecoms related activities, is in the process of reviewing the national ICT policy to create an all-inclusive policy framework for Sierra Leone's participation in the global digital economy. This policy will also put in place appropriate institutional regulatory and legal frameworks that should effectively support successful deployment and utilization of ICT in all sectors of the economy. To ensure a stable ICT sector, my ministry in partnership with sector players is currently reviewing the existing 2006 National Telecommunications Act to speak to emerging trends in the sector such as privacy and data protection, cyber security, electronic transactions, infrastructure sharing, numbering system amongst others. Our government will welcome any meaningful support towards those critical areas. Your Highness, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, Sierra Leone has experienced a gradual uptake of ICT services through a combination of GSM and CDMA operators. As of 2017, mobile penetration has increased from 62% in 2013 to 73.4% in 2020 currently. Moreover, the internet penetration has increased from a decimal 6% in 2013 to 20% as I currently speak. Within this same time, it can be emphasized that there is some amount of coverage in all chiefdoms of the country for basic telephony services. 3G mobile data coverage is limited to the capital city. The four other urban settlements of Bo, Kenema, Makenia and Coendul with portal availability in some parts of the 12 district health quarter towns. The gradual increase can be attributed to the landing of the Africa Coast to Europe, Submarine Fiber Cable and investment in terrestrial fiber backbone spanning about 60% of population centers. Your Highness, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, permit me to note that even with the significant strides and efforts towards transforming the ICT sector, there are still challenges in dealing with the high cost and poor quality of ICT telecom services as well as connecting the remaining unconnected areas. There is also the issue of national fiber backbone passing through only some of our major district health quarter towns within access networks to provide the last mile solution to serve, unserve, enrich and under-serve communities. There is also no district metro fiber ring to improve the case of access to ICT telecom services by the citizens as part of Sierra Leone's evolution to a digital economy, which is why as a government we are strategically engaging partners in the following areas. Completing the terrestrial backbone and rebuilding other appropriate ICT infrastructures such as design and roll out of a national metro fiber ring for our major cities to improve access to ICT telecom services, design and implement national data center, cloud computing to host all government critical data, extend government common wide area data network to local councils and remaining districts. Adoption of suitable and cost effective solutions for rural connectivity. Design and roll out of a national digital terrestrial platform for digital broadcasting in fulfilment of our ITU obligations for analog to digital migration. The implementation of these projects would deliver a long term contribution such as minimizing the cost of access to ICT services and hence widening the geographic scope of access to ICT telecom services. Create new ICT related small medium enterprises deep in regional and national socio-economic integration and support overall economic growth and development. Your Highness, ladies and gentlemen, as I conclude, allow me to express our profound gratitude to the border management of ITU for its continued support to Sierra Leone in the areas of capacity building and other related areas. We are especially thankful of the recent support in reviewing our cyber security capabilities to the Oxford management team. Our government is fully committed to work with the ITU and has played to meet all our obligations to this August body. I also want to take this opportunity to explore all present here to take advantage of this forum to increase our knowledge, exchange views and seek partnerships that can improve our individual models for the implementation of our collective goals in our respective countries. As we discuss the development and roll out of ICT services in our respective countries, let us also not lose sight of the emerging challenges it has brought on us, especially those arising from cyber security. This is the biggest threat to our national security, ranging from use of suitable mobile phones to organize crime or using the internet to coordinate terrorist activities amongst others. We pledge our unwavering commitment in working with our partners in fighting these crimes. I also, on behalf of the government and people of Sierra Leone, join my colleagues and other speakers before me to congratulate all of the elected officials today either those being elected for the very first time or those who have won re-elections. I like to use this opportunity to pledge Sierra Leone's unflinching support and commitment to supporting the cause of the ITU to bridge the digital divide at all times. I am particularly heartened by the walls of assurance of Secretary General Zau to ensure that the Africa agenda will remain mainstreamed. I take comfort in that and on that note I thank you all for your attention. Thank you.