 Your Honourable Mr. Yogiida Sominaden, Minister of Technology, Communication, and Innovation of Mauritius. Your Honourable Etienne Sinatambu, Minister of Social Security, National Solidarity, Environment, and Sustainable Development. Mr. Mahmed Alim Bokas, Chairman, Information and Communication Technology Authority of Mauritius. Excellencies, Honourable Ministers, Heads of Regulators, Ladies and Gentlemen. It is a great honour and a pleasure for me to be here with all of you to open this third Global Forum of Emergency Telecommunications here in Balaklava, Mauritius. As the newly elected Director of the Telecommunications Development Bureau. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to our host, the Government of Mauritius, for your most generous hospitality and for making us all feel so very welcome. Mauritius is a small island developing state that is itself vulnerable to natural hazards. To mitigate the risks to citizens and to vital public and private infrastructure, the Government of Mauritius has been far-sighted in taking steps to reduce the impact of disasters and to improve resiliency. We all look forward to hearing more throughout the course of this three-day conference about the experience of Mauritius and what they've done to make great strides in disaster management. The theme of this year's Get! event, innovating together to save lives using technologies in disaster management. It reflects the fact that natural hazards continue to have devastating impacts on people and on economies across the globe. In the decade from 2007 to 2017, the world recorded an annual average of 350 disasters, resulting in 68,000 deaths, 210 million people affected, and over $150 billion worth of damage. Human and material losses caused by such disasters are a major obstacle to sustainable development. Of the 17 SDGs established within the UN's agenda 2030, four of the goals specifically refer to the need for nations and communities to address the challenges brought about by disasters. The Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction recognizes the important role that ICT plays in disaster management. And technological advancement and innovation are continuing to create very exciting opportunities for enhancing disaster resiliency and risk reduction. The important role played by ICTs was highlighted in the Caribbean back in 2017 when two Category 5 hurricanes, Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma hit the Caribbean. And telecommunications and ICT networks and services were extensively employed ahead of time to track not only the path of the hurricane, but also to be able to predict its impact and to provide life-saving information. I'm very much looking forward to hearing later today from some of our key stakeholders in the Caribbean, some of the lessons that they've learned and look forward to them sharing experiences with us. Ladies and gentlemen, today half of the world's population is using the Internet, and mobile networks and services are offering unprecedented ways to communicate before, during, and after disaster strike. During the course of the next three days, we are going to be looking at how ICTs can make a difference to humanitarian teams working on the ground. Often in the most difficult of circumstances and under tremendous pressures. ICTs can provide resilient tools and platforms that allow these organizations to communicate internally, to coordinate with humanitarian agencies, and to reach out to those communities in need. We are also going to be looking at new services such as digital payments, as well as digital identification, and how those can benefit communities in need. And if we could just solve the problem around providing access. Today, as you know, many of the world's people in the most vulnerable population groups, including refugees, still do not benefit from connectivity. Or they lack the necessary digital skills to take advantage of online platforms and services that could actually help them. Other conference sessions this week are going to be looking at innovative ways of re-establishing connectivity in the advent of a disaster, and some of the technological innovations that are creating new possibilities for enhancing disaster resiliency and risk reduction. These include developments in disruptive technologies from artificial intelligence to the internet of things to big data, and also innovations in the area of robotics and drone technologies. Throughout the week, as we've heard, our emphasis is going to be on innovating together. Innovating together through concrete partnerships. For example, helping countries build emergency telecommunications plans, or to build digital disaster connectivity maps, an initiative that's going to bring together both public and private sector members to identify better ways of understanding connectivity gaps following disasters. I'm also looking forward to our tabletop exercise tomorrow, which is going to be very interactive. That tabletop exercise is co-organized by the ITU and the telecommunications cluster. And the objective of this session is really to engage all of us, to engage all of us in an interactive learning experience that will highlight the importance of coordination and the roles of different stakeholders in the ICT community from disaster management agencies, meteorological offices, and other public and private sector bodies. I'd also like to remind everyone that Friday, the 8th of March is International Women's Day, and that gives us all a great opportunity to reflect during our discussions on the digital gender gap, as well as on gender roles, and the particular ways that women are affected by disasters. The theme of this year's International Women's Day is Think Equal, Build Smart, and Innovate for Change. And I believe that that theme is very appropriate to our conference this week. Distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, I'm very pleased to announce today that the ITU, together with the United States Telecommunications Training Institute, known as USTTI, is launching a conference. It's a global competition for three places for people from developing, for colleagues from developing countries, you're invited to apply, three places to a training, a two-week training on emergency telecommunications. So we're launching that competition today, and I invite you, those of you that are interested, to put in your application for that exciting competition. I would like, in closing, to take this opportunity to again thank our hosts, and also to thank all member states, international organizations, industry groups, private sector companies, and experts that are supporting the vital work of the ITU in emergency telecommunications. In closing, I wish all of you a successful and fruitful conference. I thank you very much.