 Good morning, dear WISIS stakeholders and welcome to the WISIS Forum 2018. We are here today with our WISIS Action Line facilitators facilitating the different WISIS Action Lines based on their respective mandates and representing different UN agencies. This interview is a part of the series we started in 2015 and the attempt is to align the WISIS process with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The topic of today's interview is Towards Transformation Towards Resilient and Sustainable Societies. And this is the title of the High-Level Political Forum 2018. I'd like to start with Ms. Hu, who is the coordinator for the WISIS Action Line C9 media. Ms. Hu, what role does media play in the transformation towards resilient and sustainable societies? Thank you, Jitan Jali, for this very important question about the C9 media. In the past 12 years, C9 media has seeked to solve the issue of the challenges related to the media and we see such a need to strengthen the role of media and social media to continue playing a crucial role in building the inclusive knowledge society and contributing to the SDGs. Particularly, you know, there is a goal of 16.10. We are going to building the inclusive, just and peaceful societies and also promoting universal access to information and the fundamental freedoms. I think media and social media, they are really important for every society to not risk being left behind because they are media and the communication ecosystem are not advancing properly. That's why we are defending free expression online offline. We are trying to find a solution to solve the challenges relating the media and social media to play a bigger role. Thank you, Ms. Hu. I'm now moving to Deniz, who is from UNDESA. UNDESA facilitates the WISIS Action Line C1, C11 and C7 e-governance. So, Deniz, your action lines look at multi-stakeholder partnerships, collaborations, sustainable development and what is the role of your action lines in moving towards resilient and sustainable societies? Thank you, Gitanjali. So, when we think about sustainable and resilient societies, we want societies to be resistant against different types of shocks, natural disasters or man-made disasters such as cyber attacks or different problems with the technology. So, what we are doing with e-government is we are looking at how governments can actually work and be ready in case of those disasters. So, the upcoming UN e-government survey 2018 will only look at sustainability and resilience. I am happy to tell you that we are partnering with ITU on a chapter in cybersecurity. We are working with other UN agencies in how ICT systems can behave in case of natural disasters and also in partnerships and promotion of ICTs. We are giving extra attention to non-ICT sectors such as education and health, et cetera, and how we can incorporate ICTs in national development strategies. So, those are the things we are working and we will be presenting our work during this week in this and also in high-level political forum. Thank you, Denise. Indeed, the role of multi-stakeholder partnerships in aligning the SDGs with the WSIS Action Line is crucial. Thank you very much. We are now moving to the International Telecommunication Union. Ms. Halima, who facilitates the Action Line C4 on capacity development and capacity building. Skills development is crucial to attain this linkage between the WSIS Action Lines and SDGs. Education, capacity building, training programs, these are all very important aspects. Please can you share with us some of your ideas and your vision for the Action Line C4 capacity building and in ensuring that they play a crucial role in the transformation of resilient and transformation towards resilient and sustainable societies. Thank you, Halima. Thank you, Jitangeli. We believe that transforming societies in a sustainable manner requires some development of capacities and skills to enable individuals to be able to implement the transformation themselves. If we appreciate that sustainability in part refers to continuity, then we will agree that it is the individual who is embedded within a society that has the opportunity to be able to implement transformations and be able to sustain it. We can therefore comfortably say that capacity building is actually the main driver or the main factor that can allow us to ensure that societal transformation is actually and truly sustainable. This is why at the ITU we are working on developing training programs that are specific to certain ICT specialized topics and we deliver these trainings and partnership with members of the academia and through our network of Centers of Excellence. We also provide a platform for dialogue for policy debates and the exchange of knowledge through regional forums and global symposia, which we use to try and strengthen human capabilities within the ITU member states. And in this way we believe we are enabling the societies to be able to take complete control of their own transformation and be able to ultimately manage, sustain and maintain this transformation themselves. Thank you very much Halima. In fact, you touched upon a very crucial point that training individuals and societies to be responsible for themselves is the key. Thank you very much Halima. We have here Mr. James from the Food and Agriculture Organization. He is the co-facilitator of WISIS Action Line on e-agriculture C7 along with the International Telecommunication Union. James, what role does e-agriculture play in transformations towards resilient and sustainable societies? Agriculture is crucial all over the world, but what role does e-agriculture play? Thank you Ajit Anjali. Our role in terms of agriculture in general is very broad because we include food also, food and nutrition, forestry, fisheries and all areas of agriculture related to agriculture. And these areas are very important. We can deliver information and knowledge direct to the farmers in the field in the rural zones to keep the people there at the same time to avoid some kinds of conflicts about migration for example or try to avoid the climate change effects for example. If we can deliver solutions using mobile phones or another kind of technologies it's very good for the farmers because they can take decisions and keep in the field your families and our families also we have at the same time we can improve and increase the resilience at the same time create a world more sustainable. Thank you very much James. We also had a hackathon on Sunday and Monday which is an integral part of the WSIS Forum. This year we focused on Hack Against Hunger. So some of the winning applications did they reflect any of these ideas? Yeah, sure. At least three or four are totally linked to resilience because we are developing solutions for example in China. Biogas is a huge solution to avoid for example the waste of food waste of production in terms of agriculture and it's possible we use this wasted food to generate energy for example. You have a lot of examples and you have more or less for good ideas very good ideas to FAO and others stakeholders developed together with these guys and girls. Thank you very much James. The WSIS Action Line facilitators have been working together to ensure the linkages between the WSIS Action Lines and the sustainable development goals. We had created a matrix in 2014. Please do look at the matrix which is online and maybe my last question could be directed to Denise to explain to us what more we could do to strengthen this alignment between the WSIS process and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Thank you. I think what we need to do is we really need to bring here non-ICT sector. Like hopefully in the coming years we will be seeing here more education, health, population, gender and environment ministers and I think if we can raise awareness among them and if we could really integrate ICTs and e-government in national development plans which I have to say that it's lacking right now then we will be able to use the full potential of ICTs to implement the 2030 Agenda. Thank you very much Denise. This is the role of platforms like the WSIS Forum to ensure that we can provide an equal platform for all stakeholders in all services and industries even other than ICTs to get together and highlight the crucial role ICTs can play in enabling the sustainable development goals. Thank you very much.