 Welcome to the ITU studio here at the World's Telecommunication Development Conference WTDC happening here in Kigali, Rwanda where I'm very pleased to be joining the studio today and Mr Ernest Mahfuta Katoka who is the chair of the affordable internet access special interest group part of the internet society. Mr Mahfuta Katoka welcome to the studio. Thank you Max. It's a pleasure to have me here and also having this digital collusion on WTDC so it's a big event that I'm excited to be part of. Fabulous and we're very pleased to have you here. So tell me I'd like to start off by asking you about meaningful connectivity it's very much a buzzword here and and around the world. Is meaningful connectivity a solution to building an inclusive digital economy in your opinion? Thank you. So allow me to say that in order for us to have meaningful connectivity there are challenges first that we must look at so we must address these challenges in order for us to have an inclusive digital economy. Number one we're looking at the digital accessibility gap in terms of connectivity. We are looking at the digital literacy gap in rural areas and we are also looking at the smartphone accessibility gap. So I'm of the view is that if we're to have an inclusive digital economy where both the hand connected and the connected are able to participate in first we need to address the issue of digital literacy because it has been noted that many people in rural areas the challenge mostly is not about connectivity but the challenge is about literacy okay and this is because we are not localizing content to their level so if we're able to localize content to their level we are able to solve the issues of digital connectivity so and the other issue is the issue of affordability of smartphones we have seen this gap widening of digital access in terms of affordable smartphone devices so the solution to that is maybe policymakers can come up with an incentive mobile devices or devices that are made for the rural areas or unconnected areas they can be tax exempt like that it can be affordable and accessible to everyone because the digital economy this is the very big economy that we're looking at but in order to have all countries to participate in and to have this economy to be bigger we need to bridge this digital accessibility gap the literacy gap then we're going to achieve meaningful connectivity so there's no mean for connectivity if what this literacy gap and the accessibility gap in terms of affordability of smart devices tax exemption is a little bit complicated though if you're talking about very regionalized areas how would you put that in place then do you think all right okay so one of the challenges that I've seen is policy inconsistencies for countries in terms of how they structure their taxes most countries I think they are more focused on structuring taxes on the already connected society that most of the time they forget that these people in hardest connect areas this is where the numbers are so if we can have a policy around the rural areas rural connectivity areas that enable lower taxes for people in rural areas we can solve this but for now all I can say is that we need an inclusive policy for countries to follow when we have this inclusive police for countries to follow number one it must come with localization there must be content which is local and there must be a model that is quite essentially for that region yeah and are there any other policies that you think should be put in place to ensure meaningful connectivity yes I think I was quick to note about policies so I think countries must set up inclusive policies and they must be consistent when we have a consistent policies we are going to achieve meaningful connectivity all these talking about digital literacy smart devices digital economy it's all about policies when you're the right policy at the grass level surely you're going to have the right meaningful connectivity at the top level and what advice would you give to policy makers and regulators my advice to policy makers is to continue engaging the unconnected and also to bring in members from the unconnected society because most of the time is that we make policies on people who are not present here we always talk about getting connected people getting this to this area to this region but we're forgetting that the real patients are in the remote areas so how are we going to design a model that is going to fit the unconnected bring one of them let them participate on the table then there will be other tables here for policy makers there will be another table here for innovators while the patient who is in this case from the unconnected area will tell us their problems in terms of their region their challenges then an innovator will design a model that suits that locality. Now WTDC is very much of course the place where connecting the unconnected in a meaningful way in particular is exactly what's on the table so I'm sure you're going to participate in very interesting conversations here but we thank you very much for joining us here today the studio thank you and then sharing your valuable insights with us and we look forward to catching up with you again soon. All right thank you very much Max. Thank you very much and cheers.