 Your Excellencies, Ministries, Secretary-General of ITU, ITU Directorates, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. I want to first thank and express my gratitude for the Government of Argentina for hosting the World Telecommunication Development Conference 2017, celebrating the 25th anniversary of ITUD in this beautiful city of Buenos Aires. I also want to thank the ITU, especially ITUD, for organizing this conference. Excellence, ladies and gentlemen, and distinguished guests, it is a privilege and an opportunity for me to make a few remarks on the theme of this conference – ICT for Sustainable Development Goals. But before I do that, allow me to tell a little bit about the telecommunications and ICT developments in Somalia. The ICT sector is one of the best of the brightest spots of the Somali economy, contributing close to 10 percent to the national GDP. Today, most Somalis enjoy relatively high mobile communications and mobile money penetration levels and lower rates compared to other peoples from countries in the region. However, internet penetration rates are among the lowest in the region due to limited domestic broadband network infrastructure and international connectivity. When the state-owned national posts and telecommunications infrastructure were destroyed, private operators filled the vacuum by building successful mobile communication companies in a totally unregulated environment. Due to the unregulated nature of the ICT environment in Somalia, server providers are neither incumbent by regulations protecting consumer rights requiring interconnectivity and interoperability, nor operate with formal licenses for a spectrum usage or provision of service. Just last month, the two jumpers of our parliament passed the National Communication Law with the President of the Federal Republic of Somalia, His Excellency Muhammad Abdullah Muhammad, has signed into law on 2 October 2017. My ministry is now in the process of establishing a regulatory authority. As we built the regulatory authority, we would look to leverage the expertise of the ITU and benchmark other relevant regulatory authorities. Excellency ladies and gentlemen and distinguished guests, many more eloquent speakers have and will articulate far better than I can what ICTs for sustainable development entail. But let me just say that for Somalia and I would imagine for other less developed countries, our fear and concern is being left behind in a world where countries with advanced economic economies are moving into the fourth industrial revolution while we are still struggling with providing basic internet access to our people. Today, access to knowledge and information is necessary to participate in the global economy. Yet far too many people in the developing world, particularly in the least developed countries lack access to computers and basic internet. This is especially true in my country which is struggling to recover from years of conflict. What countries like Somalia need are investments in their ICT infrastructure This can be done either directly by providing, directly by private investors or in collaborations with the government in public private partnership arrangements. In Somalia, we are keen to attract investors to develop our ICT sector so I call on private companies and member states alike to consider investing in Somalia. Thank you very much for your attention.