 Welcome to the ITU Planning Potentiary Conference 2022 here in Bucharest in Romania where I've got the great pleasure of being joined in the studio today by his Excellency Torilupe Puulinuku Onisema who is the Minister of Communications and Information Technology for Samoa. Minister welcome back to the studio. Thank you. I say welcome back because the last time we were together was in Kigali in Rwanda which seems just a few minutes ago. Yes, it feels like three months is just like two weeks these days. Exactly. Time flies absolutely. So let me start by asking you a little bit about the challenges that you're facing currently in terms of ICT services and deliveries. Perhaps you could give us a little bit of an update on that. Thank you Max for taking part in the ITU PP 2022. It's only an opportunity for us, for our islands and also as a member state of SITS we feel fortunate to be here because from the Pacific Islands if you look at them only a few islands made it to the Planning Pot 2022 so insane that it is a challenge. Not only to represent your states but also to represent your region. So it's a listen for us to that first and foremost that we got to reunite. We got to reunite as a region, not only as a region but also leaders of the region so that your voice can be heard at these will and global gatherings especially when you talk about development and most of these developments if you look at the priorities of ITU the Unconnected, the 2.7 billion people Unconnected some of those are islands of the Pacific, remote islands of the Pacific which they have the challenge of connectivity, the capacity building bridging the digital divide. Most of those are youths not having access to the internet. Most of those schools some of the schools in there are schools from our islands because of the cost of equipment, the cost of devices all those challenges is very much live in the Pacific. So I guess it's important that we the vulnerable communities are here to voice our concerns but also to be part of this planning the future in terms of ITU activities and initiatives. So I guess we feel privileged and also it's an opportunity for us so very very happy, very happy with the outcome from this week's conferences. You mentioned cooperation I mean how hard is it to like you say I mean geographically distant islands particularly I would say that that would be quite complicated where the good will may be there but how do you make that work? You know at every region they have for example there's an African Union that's you know in Africa in terms of European and so forth. I guess in the Pacific I think the missing link is like leaders of the Pacific of a farmer at which they collaborate and develop their agenda and race it to the you know through the user channels of ITU so I guess it's important that as leaders of the Pacific to have a specific ministerial forum at which all leaders of the Pacific in the field of ICT to come together and you know make decisions from our region and raise our concerns at the global level. So I guess that's priority at this stage. And share lessons learnt I guess and share best practices and also try to ensure that connectivity obviously is at the forefront of people's minds. I wanted to ask you with regards to your attendance here obviously you've taken the time to be here you've come all the way from Samoa what lessons do you think you'll be taking back with you in terms of ITU support for Samoa and for Small Island developing states here from PP22? I think thank you for that question I guess it's very important as you raised you know what are the lessons that what are the takeaways from us as a Small Island state you know from today's election we're grateful that you know one of the only one since nation being elected to the council that's Mauritius but we need more of that because we feel that Small Island states you know with vast you know challenges other Small Island states are very small populations other Small Island states got you know better economies and GDPs in terms of GDPs. So we got various challenges with everyone but I think that's a lesson that at least all voice will be it's heard and we know we need to raise it at this kind of conferences. Secondly from a lessons delay like I mentioned earlier that we the Pacific our own region leaders of our own region need to come together and work together because our concerns it's our challenges almost similar to everyone within our region specifically so we need to come together because from the Pacific well 13 states of the Pacific only three leaders made it all the way here and only about five or six states out of the 13 yeah so less than half were available. Why do you think that was? Well I guess you know differences in priorities you know very much we got conflicting priorities in Small Island states you got health and education as your foremost but from COVID and pandemic the world has realized that communication it's a key moving forward especially with climate change disaster risk and so forth and we now we need communication and technology to not only to open markets but also you know for you know business opportunities so it's different priorities but also vulnerable economies you know of the islands you know their priority in terms of you know there's limited resources I guess you know they got better priorities than coming all the way here to PP 2022. And can one turn that around do you think in terms of in terms of opportunities for investment for example. See it's challenging basic example is like I mentioned earlier those small states if you look into private sector to provide the services for small island states small you know remote areas with very minimal populations you know in the numbers service providers won't won't even invest in those because of very few populations and that leaves like small island state government to sustain a to make sure there's a sustainable connectivity. So I guess when you talk about you know investment and so forth we know with islands like Samoa very small in numbers you know it would be hard to get some qualified or some you know investors into coming in invest that's most of the time it's always important that your government is well prepared to take all the responsibility service provider will come later and also investment will come later but you got to be firm on make sure that your government can sustain. Especially connectivity but also taking forward and make sure you have the best technology available because you know as you mentioned you know investors depends on the numbers and the revenue and the returns on those investments. And what about training young people for this technological world what about the possibilities for training and development there. Well I think we're we're that we're doing our very best like I mentioned earlier for islands the top priorities education and school so according to your question regarding the young minds trying to develop education is important and that's why at this stage we're still working on education. We've got we're fortunate to get a lot of scholarships offers from Australia and New Zealand even Japan China in the United States Commonwealth Scholarship sometimes but we need more of that because that will take back the capacity building to our people to a rural area. You know Samoa is a is a state at which 80% of its land it's a customer land in more than 80% 85% so most is in a rural so most of the population know scattered everywhere in those and it's hard to get their awareness up to you know where we need to be fully digitally transformed so as you mentioned the you know the young minds but it starts from the schools start from education start from accessing having access at a young age you know to to these are gadgets I know and be fully you know to be able to have access you know it's a challenge. And finally what are your thoughts on how to improve this play potentially conference in terms of its ways of operating in terms of its processes etc. I'd be interested to know your your feelings about that and if you've got any other final comments. Well thank you very much Max you know this is my first one I hope not the last one but you know as a politician you never know what's going to happen tomorrow but in that in saying that this is from you know like I said earlier and I think we need to emphasize that the representation of of a vulnerable small island states developing states because though although all the targets that's in there like the unconnected the cooperation capacity building all that it all refers to the vulnerable states the developing states so their voice and their representation in these farm has to be you know closely considered. One of the lessons that we've learned like I said we need to be together as a as a as a region for us to be considered and you know have a saying in these we need to come together so that's another big lesson for us. One of we have a couple of Ministers here with us we all agree that that is a key point for us taking back to the islands and one of the the other main reason is we were mostly dependable depending on our surrounding states in the in the Pacific. But I've just learned that you know their their voice in the in the in the ITU council it's for their concerns and their their issues so I guess you know we're hoping that in the future well there will be a representation of the islands in ITU council in the future so that's another it's a big lesson but it's a good take for us to learn from. Moving forward in the future. Thank you. Toilo Pepo Malinuco on a SEMO Minister for Communication Information Technology for SEMO thank you very much for joining us in the studio and very much hope this won't be the last time we see you. I'm sure it won't be and look forward to catching up with you again in the very near future. Thank you very much Max. Thank you.