 Dear ladies and gentlemen, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night to all that joined us today and will be with us for the next 90 minutes. Welcome to this special event focusing on the digital partnerships for a sustainable and resilient recovery from the COVID-19, organized by the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations Agency for Information and Communication Technologies, ICTs. This is a side event of the high-level political forum on sustainable development being the core United Nations platform for follow-up and review of the 23rd agenda for sustainable development and its 17 sustainable development goals. Today, we are joined by 10 high-level speakers representing member states, international regional organizations, private sector financing institutions, development agencies, academia and of course, voice of youth. Among them, we'll hear today from representatives of the ITU UNICEF European Commission, Ethiopia, Estonia, Germany, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, World Bank, GSMA and Generation Connect visionaries board. This session will be composed of the two parts, opening statements and moderated discussion that we are all looking forward to. Just to remind, this session will be held in English and will benefit from the captioning. And now, dear ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, please let me introduce Ms. Doreen Bogdan, Martin and the director of the ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau, who is the host of today's meeting, as well as the moderator, Ms. Bogdan Martin, handing over the floor to you for the official opening of the meeting, as well as moderation of the discussion. The floor is yours. Thank you so much, Yaroslav. Excellencies, distinguished speakers, colleagues, participants, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to ITU's high-level political forum events on digital partnerships for a sustainable and resilient recovery from COVID-19. This year's HLPF is focused on policies and international frameworks that will help to mitigate the devastating social and economic impact of the pandemic and recoup much of the ground that has been lost in our efforts to achieve the 2030 agenda. As the UN Specialized Agency for Information and Communication Technologies, ITU is central to these discussions. Alongside our sister agencies, we are playing a leading role in the rollout of the UN Secretary General's roadmap for digital cooperation. And of course, we're also the lead facilitator in the continued ongoing WISIS process to implement the TUNIS plan of action that emerged from the World Summit on the Information Society back in 2005. ITU data shows that 3.7 billion people remain unconnected, not connected to the transformational power of the Internet. At the same time as COVID has dramatically accentuated our dependency on technology, it has also underlined the fact that a gap between digital haves and have-nots is something that the world simply can no longer tolerate. In his recent vision statement for his second term, the UN Secretary General lamented the colossal digital divide that reinforces social and economic divisions. We simply cannot wait and watch as this digital divide becomes the new phase of global inequality. ITU estimates that around 430 billion U.S. dollars will be needed to connect the world unconnected over the next 10 years. And this huge investment in network deployment will also need to be similarly matched by huge investments in developing human capacity so that people are empowered to take advantage of connectivity as and when it becomes available. It's clear that a challenge of this scale is not something that any single entity, be it a government or a company, is going to be able to achieve on its own. Strong commitments by national leaders in the private sector, efficient public interventions, and effective partnerships will be key to meeting this goal. Last year, I noted that every single participating country included ICTs in their voluntary national reviews, their BNRs, which is a dramatic change from the situation just five years ago when the potential of technology was too often overlooked. So I think it's safe to say that there is no longer any doubt that digital technologies are our only hope of getting back on track to achieve the 17 SDGs by 2030. Innovative multi-stakeholder digital partnerships are the vital enabler that we need for an ICT-driven, sustainable, resilient economic recovery. ITUs Connect to Recover initiative aims exactly to do this with the support of the governments of Japan and Saudi Arabia. We're working with countries to strengthen their digital resilience and to help countries build back better with broadband. Other ITU work to harness the power of digital to advance the SDGs includes our GIGA initiative with UNICEF and my friend Faez who's with us today. We're working with others to connect every school on the planet to the internet and every child to information opportunity and choice. Our PREDA initiative with the African Union and the European Commission to strengthen ICT policy and regulatory frameworks in Africa. Our financial inclusion global initiative with the World Bank to develop and promote digital financial services. Our new ICODI International Center of Digital Innovation focusing on innovative digital solutions for the SDGs. Our GovStack initiative with Estonia and Germany and the Digital Impact Alliance to promote scalable e-government solutions in developing countries and our equals global partnership that we spearhead with GSMA and others and that was highlighted last week at the Generation Equality Forum brings together over 100 partners from around the world to bridge the digital gender gap and of course our new Generation Connect youth initiative that's bringing the vital voice of young people into our digital development work. In addition to these and other projects last week at Mobile World Congress where I had the pleasure to go physically I was proud to announce Partner to Connect the new digital coalition that we have launched which is a multi-stakeholder alliance to accelerate digital transformation in the hardest to connect communities including LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS and I hope that many of you that are connected today will join us in this new journey so that Partner to Connect can take advantage of the rising tide of political will around connectivity and the transformational technologies already ready for deployment which together could make a difference to the people most in need. Ladies and gentlemen the outcomes of today's discussions will also serve as an important input to the forthcoming World Telecommunications Development Conference that will be held next year in Addis Ababa Ethiopia in June and COVID has emphasized the urgency of our task and our WTDC I believe gives us the chance to come together to collaborate, to innovate and to invigorate our efforts to bridge the digital divide. I hope all of you will join us there so that we can leverage the untapped power of digital partnerships to deliver on our sustainable development pledges. With that ladies and gentlemen we will begin our exciting panel discussion and I'm really thrilled to have such an esteemed group of panelists joining us today this evening from Geneva. I will not give a lengthy introduction of each of our esteemed panelists, their bios are on the website and I would like to begin with my colleague and friend Faez King. He is the deputy executive director of UNICEF with whom as I just mentioned we have the pleasure of working closely with on our Giga project. Faez over to you please. Thank you Doreen for the introduction and for the invitation to join this panel of impressive colleagues. Your combined commitment to and leadership in technology for development Your combined commitment to and leadership in technology for development Your combined commitment to and leadership in technology for development At its peak in April 2020, more than 190 countries instituted country-wide closures, resulting in 1.6 billion learners being out of school, at great costs to the education and future. The World Bank estimates a loss of $10 trillion in earnings over the lifetime of this current generation of children if we fail to address the global learning crisis. But now is not the time to stop. We have the opportunity to reimagine what is possible. We have the opportunity to build back better and transform our countries. We can come out and restore peace, recover and rebuild and cooperate to transform the globe. UNICEF's Reimagining Education is revolutionizing learning and skills development to provide quality education for every child through five critical activities, namely digital learning, internet connectivity, devices, affordable data and the engagement of young people. One of the key pillars of that global Reimagining Education initiative is GIGA. This was launched in 2019 by ITU and UNICEF. GIGA is an ambitious global effort to connect every school to the internet with access to the internet. Every child, young person and the entire community can access information, opportunity and choice. Schools are not only places where young people go to learn. They represent the core of communities where people gather in solidarity, whether as hubs for the community activities or for emergency relief and protection. For GIGA, a school is a focal point, not only for us to ensure we reach every child, but also as a countable unit that serves as a basis for aggregating demand and crafting sustainable financial models. As we face this global crisis, we faced bigger needs of making digital learning an essential service. It's about pulling our resources together to connect children and young people to the internet so that they both participate in and shape the digital future. Let us continue our accelerated progress through GIGA and become an example of digital empowerment. Together, we can connect every school and community so they can access a world of opportunity and create a brighter future for themselves, for their nations and tomorrow's innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Thanks, Doreen. Back to you. Thank you so much, Faiz, and a brighter future is what I think what we all hope for. Thank you so much for that. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd now like to invite Carla Montesi. Carla is the director of the Green Deal and Digital Transformation with the European Commission Directorate for International Partnerships. Carla, the floor is yours, please. Over to you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Doreen, and allow me to start saying congratulations for the organization of this important dialogue, and it's clearly a pleasure and an honor for me to participate in this panel. I think that, as Faiz just mentioned, the COVID-19 crisis has underlined the importance of digital tools and the technologies in facing global challenges. The pandemic has proved the importance of digital technologies for the continuity of business and our lives, but at the same time, as you already mentioned, it has posed new digital divides and dependency. From the European Union, our ambition more relevant than ever is to pursue digital policies that empower people and business. Carla, I think. Human rights, data protection, and ethical use of digital technology. Can you hear me, Doreen? Yeah, I lost you for a couple of seconds. Hello. Okay. So sorry. I open the line. I will continue. Not sure that the line is very good, but allow me to say that clearly the European Union is committed to human sense, the digital agenda, to work on this agenda with international organization and creating a strong international digital partnership with our partners. I think really that the best way to share best practice and experience with all the action between governments, international, regional organizations, civil society, private center, and this also only, I would say, sharing this best practice and experience that we can really make a difference. Allow me to mention one of the successful examples that we can give. It's our digital partnership in the policy and the regulation initiative for digital Africa. It's the PRIDA. It's a joint initiative of the African Union, the European Union, and the ITU. It's an action, a project, a program that focuses on African continents and aiming to reap the benefit of digitalization and really to build the capacity of the African Union member states in the internet governance space. The intention is policy, legal and regulatory framework for the use of the ITC, ICT for social and economic development, and also emphasis on boosting the spectrum market across Africa. It's a really important program because in one hand, support the overall African Union digital transformation strategy that was adopted last year, and on the other hand, it's allowed to work with the African Union on policy recommendation on digital solution to trace and share information about the pandemic. And the successful spectrum management for us is really a key element for a successful digital transition and a digital recovery because it clearly creates a telecommunication network that will support different online applications that will reveal to be essential. So allow me to take this opportunity also to congratulate all the partners that are involved in this project, in this program for their commitment. Allow me to say that, of course, this is a program that was focusing on COVID-19 and digital, but we have the future is digital. So COVID-19 has created a momentum for the digital in many, many sectors for a really transformation of our society and the economics, but allow all of us, the creators, that we are in this panel, really to join forces to foster a human-centric digitalization. And beyond the health that was our first experience all together, we really need to turn the challenges into opportunities to continue to work as Faiesa was just saying, to build back better, a green, sustainable, and a digital future. I stop here. Doran, many thanks to you. Thank you so much, Carla. That's a great message. And indeed, the future is digital. And as you said, we need to have that human-centered approach to the digital agenda. Thank you for that. Ladies and gentlemen, I mentioned our upcoming World Telecommunications Development Conference, and I'm delighted to be joined today by State Minister of Ethiopia, His Excellency Dr. Ahmadine Muhammad Ahmed. He's our host of the upcoming Development Conference and also our Chair Designate. Dr. Ahmadine, over to you, please. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening from Addisawa. Dear Excellencies, speakers, and ladies and gentlemen, I am honored and excited to be part of this distinguished panel. I believe these types of forums will help us devise a common strategy and plan to tackle the issue that we will be focusing on this session, which is sustainable and resilient recovery from COVID-19. As has been said repeatedly, COVID-19 has hit the world hard. We are still experiencing the shock and finding a way out from the devastating impact of the pandemic. Unfortunately, we will deal with the long and short-term impacts of the pandemic for something to come. The setback from COVID-19 has also affected the progress it has made towards the past few years. The pandemic has backtracked some progress it has made and wiped out gains. This is more evident in developing countries. The pandemic has caused a decrease in economic activities. These are led to income reduction. The impact of COVID-19 also goes beyond economic impact, which I have just mentioned. The impact has been felt on the health and health facilities, inequality of education, in gender equality, economic growth, and in effect to degrees inequality. We would say that we have recognized that connectivity is essential part of the digital economy and people's lives. Or we have the knowledge and understanding on the role of information communication technology in the recovery process from the devastating impact of COVID-19. However, all our efforts, knowledge and existing strategies are currently challenged by the lack of connectivity. The fact that half of the globe is not yet connected heavily drags the progress made so far and are planned to be made in the future. It is also a sudden complex reality that major among the unconnected are women and girls, elders, people with disabilities, indigenous population, and the economically disadvantaged. Excellencies, speakers, and ladies and gentlemen, the theme of WTDC that will be held in my country, Ethiopia in June 2022 is Connecting the Unconnected to Achieve Sustainable Development. This theme has the core issue of connectivity and sustainable development at its center. As you well know, the issue of connectivity cannot be addressed in isolation. Partnership capacity building should be forged among the government, development institutions, and the private sector. I choose partner to connect clearly outline these initiatives, the road to a D-Series. It has displayed partnerships role in advancing connectivity and achieving the strategies and how we can achieve inclusivity and what should be done in achieving the goals. As a country, we have learned that fast tracking the digital transformation and achieving digital economy is critical and sustainable and resilient recovery from COVID-19 and for achieving inclusive prosperity. In this regard, Ethiopia is undertaking a series of reforms and implement different strategies that can fast track its efforts to digitally transform its economy. However, Ethiopia recognizes the importance of partnership to connect as a much more critical and determining factor for the core development agenda. Realizing that Ethiopia is working with different partners such as the World Bank on digital foundation project, the European Union on ease of doing business, the other key partners in the areas of digital transformation and ICT development. We are also working with countries such as Estonia, UAE, and other countries to achieve our digital economy vision by 2025. My government believes partnerships that are strategy, action-oriented and inclusive, that are based on trust, mutual understanding and collaborative spirit are critical in our past inclusive global development that will benefit everyone. I thank you for helping us achieve our goal in this regard. Thank you again. Thank you so much Dr. Ahmadine and for stressing the importance of partnerships which is the theme for our discussion today. And of course you mentioned Estonia and so now I'm going to turn to our next speaker. Last week we heard the Prime Minister of Estonia reiterating Estonia's commitment into closing the digital divide and it's my pleasure to turn to her Excellency Nelly Losk. She is the Ambassador for Digital Affairs of Estonia. Over to you Ambassador. Thank you. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here with in this panel. And I would actually like to start by congratulating all of us for having embraced this challenge that's a COVID-19 post us because we have made impossible at times possible. A lot of connections have been made. We have switched into remote working. We have we have managed to continue education and healthcare. So a lot of what we have been talking about over the past 20 years with several of you also here today, I believe we realized it is possible also within a much shorter time. But what this pandemic also showed us and I believe this is also one of the reasons for several partnerships that have emerged from this pandemic is actually the realization that we are quite similar. We as governments, as companies, as people all over the world suddenly faced the same problems. Our kids were all at home, but they needed to continue education. We needed to continue healthcare despite not being recommended even to go to a doctor. And when we look at these solutions, we also realize that these are also similar too. Probably the corona applications around the world in Singapore, Estonia, in Ethiopia, and then in the rest of the world were quite similar. So these sort of, I believe, gave impetus for partnerships that focus on the reuse of something that is already there. Or perhaps improving, basing on each other's experiences different information systems or solutions and applications. And I am very glad that Estonia is sharing, but also learning through these partnerships that have been established. And of course we are very grateful for International Telecommunication Union and GIZ and DIAL for the COVSTAC initiative that builds on these various experiences to build sort of reference digital architecture consisting of different components that then can be localized, reused in different settings in different parts of the world. And similar parallel initiatives are also taking place. Estonia is also collaborating in the Secretary General's digital cooperation roadmap, digital public goods alliance together with UNICEF, Norway, Sierra Leone and also India. And here we see the similar trend. We are trying to promote the reuse of something which is already there and build on the experiences that we have had over the past 20 years in different continents. But moreover, I am also glad to see that there is cooperation between in these different initiatives and that may not have been always the case. So there are bridges between COVSTAC, digital public goods alliance, but also digital for development hub that has also been initiated late last year where the different countries also come together to put the resources together, they know how together and the experiences. So I am very much looking forward to the continuation of these trends that unfortunately the pandemic sort of boosted. So thank you very much. Thank you so much, Ambassador, and we're certainly grateful for our partnership on GOVSTAC and as you noted, we all faced similar challenges and we were able to kind of take those challenges and turn them into opportunities, the digital public goods alliance of course that you noted and of course the D4D hub being spearheaded by the Commission. Thank you. Thank you for that. So now I want to invite Ingrid Gabriella Hoven, who's the managing director of GIZ in Germany. Ingrid, over to you. Ingrid, you're muted. Oh, thank you, Doreen. Again, many thanks to you for your kind introduction, and it's really great pleasure for me to join this distinguished panel this evening. As has been said, globally the pandemic has really caused a huge economic slowdown with various restrictions, as just described by Ambassador Losgem, including movement, transform the methods of working and social interactions, as well as severely impacted the access of many, many people in the north and the south to basic social services. And this has triggered, of course, a huge demand for digital technology solutions, not only to respond to the health emergencies, but also to facilitate the continuity of economic activities and also to accelerate the economic recovery which is now needed. And we have now identified, actually, the huge potential that digital processes can provide to help people and to save lives. But you have mentioned it in your introductory remarks, Doreen. We have to make sure that we leave no one behind, and the digital gap is growing. So digital infrastructure applications need to be accessible for all. We need to strive for equal opportunities, also throughout this digital transformation. And since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, actually, we got many, many demands from developing countries to support them for the national digital transformation processes and to have given them a hand to actually strive for process for responsible data use. And this demand has increased significantly. Therefore, for the German government and for GIZ as well, digital development has become a key priority. And as a host of the Global D4D hub secretariat, we are happy to see that we now really create new partnerships to accelerate the innovation for digital solutions and its application and to support partner countries that are grappling with the socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic. Let me give you two examples. First one on surveillance and management of the COVID pandemic. The SOMA software is a powerful tool for real-time monitoring and early detection of disease outbreaks through the collection of case-based data. And the implementation of SOMA is a great example of actually joint learning. Road outs especially in Ghana and Nigeria, the system was so impactful that it is now used in over many, many other countries, including in Germany in some health institutions. Secondly, with respect to the empowering of youth in the field of education with the so-called small development hack, a true team year of initiative with over 50 partners, we received thousands of ideas and incubated nine solutions that strengthen digital COVID-19 responses across the world. So the digital youth marketplace YOMA, another platform and partnership, we empowered more than 250,000 young people to date. Let me come to a third great initiative and Ambassador Liosfeld already alluded to it. And together with the ITU, Estonia, the Digital Impact Alliance, Germany, they together as a group have founded the so-called COVAG initiative. And this collaboration, and this is really unique so far, aims to provide a global approach on digital public goods. Our vision is, the vision of this partnership is that within five years, we can empower all governments, particularly those in low-income settings, LDCs and LDCs, to own and drive for their digital future by themselves. And the approach of Gausset is unique in the sense that actually it creates and elaborates on digital building blocks. And this is intended to provide those examples of components that then then could be shared and applied in other countries. The uniqueness also applies on the approach, how these building blocks are being actually elaborated and innovate. It's done by multi-stakeholder approaches. So at the table, sit experts, academia, NGOs, industry, and other agencies, and they work together to come to those unique solutions that can be scaled up. And then they are put actually online and they become a digital good for everyone. Open sources, open application, simply for the good of people and countries. And I think this is actually an effort that should be scaled up and should be joined by others because it actually turns the way into new direction because it provides a solution for scaled up solutions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ingrid. And thank you also for sharing this whole of government effort with our digital building blocks and also the point about the multi-stakeholder effort that was put into creating those reusable digital building blocks. Thanks for that, Ingrid. So now we're going to turn to our next speaker we have with us, Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi, who is with the King Solomon Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center in Saudi Arabia. Dr. Ali, I want to, of course, acknowledge the invaluable support of Saudi Arabia for our digital resiliency efforts through our Connect to Recover initiative that I mentioned previously and also your support to our Connecting Humanities study. Dr. Al-Ghamdi, over to you, please. Thank you very much, Doreen. Thank you to everybody. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. On behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, allow me to extend my gratitude to the opportunity of participating in this forum. This forum is very important because it is dealing with digital partnership of sustainable and resilient recovery for COVID-19, which is the issue of this time. Ladies and gentlemen, sometimes the word send us a reminder of what is important. The last 18 months remind us that digital technologies rooted in connectivity through the internet sustain life, health, education, and economics. But even with this wide consensus on the importance of connectivity, nearly half of the world population remains unconnected to the internet. Combining COVID-19 impact on socioeconomic activity are affecting progress progress on 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia believes that additional efforts are required to ensure fairness to developing countries. This must include access to affordable broadband, digital transformation of the governments and private sectors, and the great engagement in international policymaking fora. As such, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, through the King Salman Humitarian Aid and Relief Center, is proud of its partnership with ITU and contribution to the Connect to Recover, which is the global initiative, which aims to reinforce the digital infrastructure and ecosystems of beneficiary countries and provide means of utilization of digital technologies, such as telework, e-commerce, remote learning, and telemedicine, to support sustainable and resilient COVID-19 recovery efforts. Our support to Connect to Recover initiative is further encouraged by our belief in the importance of broadband and development, and our commitment to accelerate progress on Connect 2030 agenda for global telecommunication, ICT development, and 2030 sustainable development goals. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is also proud of its contribution to, firstly, the global partnership for financial inclusion, which focuses on using digital and technologies to boost the financial wellbeing of youth, women, and SME, with particular emphasis on developing countries, and secondly, the ITU-ICT development fund for least developed countries and small island developing states. Ladies and gentlemen, when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hosted the G20 last year, digital issues were in the front of our mind. Saudi Arabia was able to drive urgent international cooperation to overcome the impact of a pandemic, including the building consensus with the real declaration, which emphasized the rule of digital technologies and policies to strengthen COVID-19 recovery and facilitate economic activities, noting the importance of universal, secure, and affordable connectivity as will add the need to support all, especially as will the need to support small and medium-sized enterprise and bridge the digital gender divide among others. Thank you very much, and I'm looking forward for the part of discussion. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Dr. Ali. We are so grateful for the partnership and also for stressing the outcome of the G20 and the Riyadh Declaration and the big push for universal, secure, and affordable connectivity. Thank you, sir. So with the pandemic highlighting how access to finance has become increasingly intertwined with digital, I'm very pleased to invite Buddy. Buddy joins us. She's a senior leader for finance competitiveness and innovation, the global practice at the World Bank for her opening statement. Buddy, over to you, please. Thanks so much, Jereen. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it's my sincere pleasure to join the Sistine panel and all of you participants to discuss this timely and very important subject. As you will now know, one of the most welcome outcomes of the digital transformation that we've seen over the past few years has been the emergence of digital financial services or DFS. ICT networks with broad coverage and reliable power have made basic mobile telephone services accessible and allowed DFS to proliferate far and wide. This infrastructure coupled with an enabling policy and regulatory environment has created an avenue for increased access to financial services for the previously unbanked. Indeed, as of 2017, 1.7 billion adults, roughly one in three people, did not have access to finance, even though two thirds of those people had their own mobile phone. So clearly there's a lot that we both singularly and in partnership can and need to do to chip away at this deficit. Access to finance is the first step towards economic mobility. It allows people to send and receive payments. Also, it opens the doors to other financial services such as savings, credit and insurance, many of those being accessed through a mobile phone and paid for using mobile money. As an example of DFS, please allow me to elaborate on the catalytic role of mobile money in particular. By 2020, there were over 850 million registered mobile money accounts across 90 countries, transacting an estimated 1.3 billion US dollars per day. That's no mean feat. What more, mobile money has helped empower women and close the gender gap by reducing key barriers to financial inclusion in a way that has never been achieved by the traditional banking sector. Just as an example, a study in Kenya found that access to mobile money reduced extreme poverty and increased savings among women-led households by over 20%. Though I wish it were the case, the digital path to financial access has not benefited everyone equally as we've already heard. Just as I have pointed out examples of how women are thriving, unfortunately, they also continue to lag as it relates to financial access, mobile phone ownership and resilience. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, women have been shown to be twice as likely as men to lose their jobs and have disproportionately reported decreases in their income. The underlying gender gap in mobile phone ownership remains a challenge. Across low-middle-income countries, women are 8% less likely than men to own a mobile phone and 20% less likely to use the internet on a mobile. This represents 300 million fewer women than men who use mobile internet in these markets, a staggering figure. And finally, that remains a persistent 9% gender gap in financial inclusion. In order to build inclusive COVID-19 responses and enable women's financial inclusion, as well as that of other groups such as youth and rural populations that are also disproportionately on the wrong side of the digital divide, we must do the following. Reduce the gender gap in mobile phone ownership. Commit and collaborate to build enablers and drivers for digital finance, such as digital payments and digital IDs. Gather sufficient gender data to allow for evidence-based decisions and hire, procure and represent women as digital leaders and consumers. The World Bank is very proud to have been part of the Financial Inclusion Global Initiative, or Fiji, where we worked in three countries and across three working groups to develop tools in the driving progress in these and other areas. What more, we are already seeing additional countries adapt these tools to their own contexts to improve financial access overall. Even as Fiji comes to a close, we remain focused on supporting countries to build financial and digital infrastructures and implement the policies needed to achieve financial inclusion and build resilience in the face of a future which looks certain to include further instability and shocks. I thank you for this opportunity to share and learn from the rest of the panel and from all of you listening across the world. Thank you so much Buddy and thank you also for being very specific about some of the actions that need to be taken from closing the digital gender gap to this committing and collaborating to build the enablers and of course the importance of the data piece of the evidence-based to help us in terms of the decision-making process. Thank you for that. So ladies and gentlemen now we're going to turn to Lucas. I have just as I mentioned returned from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and it does give me great pleasure to introduce Lucas Galito who leads GSMA's work for Latin America. He's the head of the America's Region and I'd like to invite him to share his remarks. Lucas over to you. Thank you very much Doreen and thanks to the ITU for the for the invitation. It's an honor to be here today with such outstanding speakers from all over the world to discuss the critical role of ICT in the recovery from the global pandemic. As the purpose of this session is to ensure as an inclusive digital transformation that helps economies and societies recover from the COVID-19 crisis. I would like to take a few seconds to say that just last week as you mentioned Doreen I was well we were in Barcelona for the comeback of Mobile World Congress and the importance of working together across the whole digital ecosystem was definitely one of the key takeaways from the event. As I mentioned during the ministerial program opening session at MWC against the backdrop backdrops of the pandemic it has never been more critical to convene the world's political regulatory and telecom leaders to discuss policies for the robust recovery and a target investment for the digital future. I think it has been mentioned here by my predecessor's public private cooperation is absolutely essential to fulfill the objectives of the Connect 2030 agenda and the pandemic has been a clear testimony of that. We all know that as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads spread across the world social distancing and stay-at-home directives drove up an unprecedented search in network traffic volumes. Connectivity then became the main tool to remain operational and in contact with medical professional work colleagues and the loved ones. Stakeholders worked together to ensure connectivity was not compromised by these unprecedented circumstances so operators also took a wide range of responsive measures not only adding extra capacity but also providing customers cost free zero rate access to essential websites and mobile money services for example as my colleague has just pointed out. So thanks to years of well conducted investments digital infrastructure proved to be resilient and also because we were talking about public private partnerships governments and regulatory authorities took different temporary measures including for example additional spectrum allocations and other measurements. So moving forward it's important that these measures can be maintained and even strengthened as connectivity will be as vital in the post COVID world as it has been during the pandemic. So the right policies frameworks can strengthen digital infrastructure foster innovation and accelerate economic recovery. So at GSMA Latin America we recently launched the report titled the opportunity for a digital and connected Latin America in which we speak about exactly that so I would like to briefly mention the fork work areas of lighting in that report. So number one is evolved regulatory frameworks and national policies there is a need to look at efficiencies and eliminate regulation and historical policy frameworks that hindered the development of the sector. Number two is foster dialogue between Congress regulatory authorities policy makers and the private sector to create policies consistent with digital agendas. Number three is build fiscal policy consistent with national connectivity objectives. Heavy tax burdens on the mobile sector have the potential to reduce the affordability of services and devices and discourage investment. And number four plan long term spectrum policies focusing on digital inclusion and innovation not state revenues. So on that note and in the interest of time I will end my opening statement here and I look forward to sharing with all of you a bit more about GSMA's concrete involvement in digital partnerships such as equals together with ITU in my next intervention. Terrific thank you and we will come back to you for a second round so thanks for highlighting as you noted from your recent report the importance of policy frameworks the importance of dialogue which of course is critical the right fiscal policies and of course spectrum spectrum spectrum that's key. Great so now we're going to turn to Shalyn as I mentioned before youth engagement has been something that's somewhat new for us at the ITU we're quite excited about it and we're pleased that we now have young people contributing their ideas through our new initiative called Generation Connect and today we have one of our youth representatives with us we have Shalyn Jotishi who is a member of the Generation Connect Visionaries Board. Shalyn over to you. Thank you very much Shorin I'm deeply honored and humbled to be here with you all and thank you for your leadership and your moderation. Many thanks also to my fellow panelists and all of you in the audience I see some familiar names and of course some new ones too so the movement grows. The advantage I think of being towards the end of the session is you're afforded the opportunity to build on the incredible commentary of all the others so I will make my remarks a bit brief. As Doreen mentioned my name is Shalyn Jotishi I'm from Washington DC where I serve as a senior policy analyst covering education labor and digital technologies at New America a think tank and media platform based here in DC and I'm also honored to serve on the Generation Connect visionaries for representing the next gen voice on during today's forum. I'd like to just briefly use my time to share a little bit about Generation Connect and actually invite each of you to join hands with us in the chat I will share some links for you all to connect and learn more. So the ITU youth strategy has a really strong alignment with the vision and objectives of the UN youth strategy youth 2030 of course and it's focused on working with and for young people hence the engagement during today's session. The overarching initiative of the ITU youth strategy is Generation Connect and Generation Connect is a is a board and an initiative comprised many different countries and individuals that aims to engage global youth and encourage their participation as equal partners alongside the leaders of today's digital change many of which we've heard from today. Empowering young people with the skills and opportunities to advance their vision of a connected future is really integral for this work to work well. The ITU and my colleagues on the board have been working with the team to elevate this message and movement and the alignment of the strategy with the needs of the youth on the ground. Even here in Washington DC in one of the wealthiest most developed nations in the world I always like to remind audiences that even here in Washington 25% one fourth of our residents lack access to broadband limiting the ability of youth my neighbors to secure access to education employment health care and social connectedness in this pandemic year of isolation. So digital connectivity and digital skills is no longer nice to have it's a need to have and it is a need to have regardless of the nation at hand. Resource mobilization and partnerships of course are integral to the achievement of Generation Connect's objectives as we build towards the upcoming World Telecommunications Development Conference in Addis Ababa and the preceding Generation Connect Youth Summit. So on behalf of the Generation Connect visionaries board I invite all of you to partner with Generation Connect to really amplify the youth in your nations and your regions and your communities in the international digital development dialogue particularly for a youth summit. If you're interested in engaging please email us at generationconnect at itu.int and I will share that email address in the chat for all of the attendees. I will also just share an article that explains the Generation Connect group in more detail so you can get a sense of some of our work ahead. I also of course invite you to reach out to us at New America if we could be helpful in your efforts. We have advanced a great deal of research around the intersection between digital connectivity and digital skills youth empowerment and education attainment and are working closely with the administration and policy community here to advance a digital equitable future for American youth. I will drop my information in the chat if that would be of interest. There are many more things I could say but for now I will just thank you very much Doreen for your leadership and for the opportunity and back to you. Thank you so much Shalyn for that energizing intervention and indeed we do want to empower young people and give them help them get the skills and be able to take advantage of the opportunities to advance their visions. Thank you for that. So I want to thank the panelists for that kind of setting the stage and now we're going to come back to everyone for a question. So I'm going to start first with Faiz if I may. Faiz of course ITU's collaboration with UNICEF I think is a sort of best practice action when it comes to interagency collaboration and Faiz if you could share with us sort of your thoughts how can we further increase the prominence of digital development within the UN system and stimulate more impactful partnerships and I think we had said four minutes each but I know we're short on time and of course the euro starts in an hour so we want to make sure everybody can see the game so Faiz if we could maybe limit it to two three minutes max please over to you. Excellent thank you Doreen thank you so much for that. Indeed UNICEF's partnership with the ITU is a tremendous example of the impact that two agencies can bring when combining the respective talents and areas of expertise together we're able to better forge a connection between digital development and the empowerment of young people everywhere. It is something that neither one of us could accomplish at the same level of magnitude. I believe it's also collaborations like ours or Giga that will allow us to reach heights within and across the UN system. It's also become very clear in the last few months as how Giga can build on UNICEF's work on reimagining education and ITU's work on digital skills. This and the work with partners like Generation Unlimited and Digital Public Goods Alliance will also help ensure that digital learning content and platforms are available for scaling. To this point I think the UN Secretary General's high-level panel on digital cooperation made it clear in that both recommendation 1a and 1b to establish universal access and connectivity and to create digital public goods to those who need them. As part of this effort I think UNICEF co-created and now hosts the Digital Public Goods Alliance and UNICEF will help foster and push this together with other with other UN agencies. I think the lessons that we've learned here are only the beginning. Closing the digital divide requires global cooperation, leadership and innovation across all types of partners in finance and technology that Doreen I think sort of sums up where we own this one. Thank you. Excellent. Closing the divide needs cooperation, leadership and innovation. Very well said. Thank you Faiz. So Carla we're going to turn back over to you. We're seeing the European Commission really ramp up its international development efforts. Can you share with us how you see the Commission leveraging this big network of diplomatic missions and the European Network of Digital Stakeholders and the Commission's presence in international organizations. How do you see the Commission leveraging this to increase more digital partnerships? Carla? Yes. Many thanks Doreen. Yes absolutely. To go faster I can confirm that clearly digitalists at the heart of our international partnership it's clearly a priority in our dialogue with partners and the action and really we want to leverage a large network of diplomatic mission of the European Union and its member states but also create and work with a strong network of digital stakeholders including the public and the private. I was already mentioned. One example that I want to give is this Team Europe approach that was already mentioned as an example we have launched Faiz to the pandemic at Team Europe Global Response to the COVID-19 where we were able to pull together the European Union institution, member states, financial institutions really to join the force in general for the F sector but also for the digital world. An example of this work together was the digital for development hub that was already mentioned by Inel by Ingrid. It's the digital hub that we launched with our president Ursula van der Leyen but also with different European head of states last December and we really with this digital for development hub we really want to create a strategic multi stakeholder platform to create an international partnership once again to support this human centric digital transformation but what is very very important is that we really want to push for a coordinated approach. So this hub offers a platform not only for action but also for dialogue and for a strong coordination of European partners and our partners in the different countries in the world. So a big effort to coordinate our digital response around the world. I will like to say in addition to what already Ingrid mentioned that this hub is clearly a catalyzer of resources and expertise from a member state and from the countries and in order to do that we really need to mobilize different resources and to foster knowledge change that will be key. This of course coordinated approach was essential for the alpha sector but allow me to say that we really want to work also on the different domain because it will be essential to ensure that digital is mainstream in thematic areas like of course alpha and the education that was already mentioned but also in the agricultural sector. So it will be essential to work and to strengthen this digital partnership with inside Europe and with all the international organization really to promote what we call an inclusive and environmentally friendly post-pandemic recovery. This is very much online with our European and Green Deal. Over to you, Dorin. Terrific. Thank you so much for that and for giving a call out for further dialogue and stronger collaboration and also this point about fostering knowledge exchange which is so important. Thank you for that. Dr. Amadine, I'm going to come back to you of course with the postponement of WTDC. It's also an opportunity to further strengthen our partner to connect framework hopefully with more concrete actions for LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS. Can you tell us how do you think that we can also build a greater multi-stakeholder approach that can benefit from diverse inputs? Over to you. Thank you Dorin. Yes, the least developed countries we call LDCs, the landlocked developing countries which are the LLDCs and the small island developing states which are the SID. Dr. Amadine, did we lose you? So as it is indicated in several studies, many LLDCs have large land areas and the rural population and are especially populated which makes the rollout of the land communication infrastructure which is related with connectivity more difficult. The second one is on the landlocked developing countries which are the LLDCs. They lack direct access to the sea and the other one which is the small island developing states. They have their own numerous islanders and they often face high communication costs. So as I mentioned earlier in my opening statement, it is difficult for these countries to avert these challenges alone. So the partner to connect framework will help these countries to source the capacity and the funding to take the challenges and foster meaningful connectivity and of course digital transformation in the hardest to connect communities. So achieving the SDGs cannot be done in isolation. It requires a global partnership of multiple stakeholders and I think that's why WTDC22 which will be held in my country, Ethiopia, has identified the partner to connect framework which works to ensure that people everywhere and in particular in LLDCs and SIDs can access and use digital connectivity to transform lives, communities and so state in general. So this effort actually will ensure the realization of the sustainable development goals through first, connecting people everywhere. The second is empowering communities. The third one is on building digital ecosystems and the fourth and the last one is on incentivizing investments. So I think I believe that the postponement of the World Telecommunication Development Conference helps the agenda of partner to connect by giving more time to key issues that must be addressed at the partner to connect some during WTDC. Thank you again, here is my reflection on the question. Thank you so much Dr. Amadine and also for stressing the important pillars of the partner to connect the connecting people, empowering communities as you noted the importance of digital ecosystems and of course incentivizing investments. Thank you for that. I'm going to turn to Ambassador Losk. Ambassador, there was a question also that came in on the Q&A from the webinar. I wanted to ask you further about the Gov stack piece but I also wanted to ask if you could perhaps comment on that which is a question on cybersecurity and how we can tackle that in undereducated or illiterate people in the world. If you had thoughts on that and of course if there's other domains where we could create impactful partnerships. Over to you please. Yes, thank you. Thank you very much. I would start by saying I would first address the partnerships and the areas that where we could still partner because perhaps at the beginning of my intervention I was rather positive directing to all these developments that have taken place in the past but still at the same time actually quite a bit is yet to be done and when we look for example even what is happening now or how governments are adopting or adjusting their present digitalization systems to this new area we can still see that we are all still in the process of searching for how to change our governance system for example how much to centralize how much to see decentralize how to make sure that our budgeting finances and procurement models are all supporting let's say the adoption of these reusable open source components and this is also very much related to cybersecurity how do we guarantee that these reusable components coming from different parts are integrated with our security systems for example so all of these questions are to be answered together so this is definitely an area where we can learn from each other to see what has worked in one place and what not and to mention perhaps concrete areas when we look at finance sector where the interoperability of our account numbers has been reached worldwide whereas we are still struggling with data standards or unifying our data standards across one organization or one government or why not even the region so so data standard is definitely one of these areas where we need to seek for global cooperation and the second area concerns identity we can still see that in several instances the identity issues have not been solved and this too actually relates to security how to guarantee that we trust each other's digital identities and of course Europe has now the new amendment for the three ideas and then we have some hopes for the improvement in Europe but when we look at it in practice then the situation is actually completely different but coming to the question that was posted here by the panelists it's actually a good question and we were having a debate or a discussion on this today in Estonia with the teachers of social science in school to discuss how for example introduce these topics even at the school level to make sure that our students know how to separate information and fake news and many other issues that are currently on the table of all of us and I would say that we do not yet have one concrete answer or to solution but it is an ongoing process and it needs to start as early on as possible or a approach that I always like to use comes from my good colleague who says that I do not know a cyber security expert who has not hacked the games so maybe the answer lies actually in our education and how we manage to keep up our school curricula with these fast changes so thank you very much yeah terrific thank you so much for that as you noted we still have a big job ahead of us lots to do we can learn from each other and challenges remain from data governance and standards to identity as you noted security and of course fake news so lots to do thank you so much for that ambassador Ingrid I'm going to turn to you we've always been thrilled to have GIZ as a as a close partner in in equals I wanted to ask you from a donors or implementers perspective what are the key elements that should be part of every new digital partnership for sustainable and resilient recovery Ingrid over to you I have to unmute myself thank you Doreen I think first partnership should really try to scale up the right things and this is why setting standards and good practices for human center digital services is vital it may be easy said but it's not that easily done but it's a crucial thing so focus on the right things secondly I would say that we have to support F partnership great new partnerships you really have to strive for whole of government approaches bring the right people to the table try to reach out to other stakeholders make sure that we really embrace the breadth of the challenge that is out there in the digital transformation what you observe in our partner countries that they really struggle with the lack of coordination when it comes to the provision of digital public goods and services and by the way we are facing similar change challenges in Germany as well but quite frankly this is costly and many countries can't afford nor have the time or the luxury really to reinvent the wheel or to invest in fragmented and duplicated initiatives and thirdly I think we have really to make an extra effort in our new partnerships and initiatives to improve coordination and to focus much more on cross-sectoral and regional approaches rather than to support silent solutions so we have to reach out make sure that the investment hold of government approaches and we really make sure that we address challenges that cut across sectors and at country level and I think partnership should provide the platform to really do this this job thank you thank you so much and again for for putting that emphasis on the human centered piece which I think is so important not reinventing the wheel and also looking across sector and and regional approaches thank you those are really great great points that you you have mentioned we're going to turn to Dr. Ali Dr. Ali if you could share your views on how we can ensure that projects are really leveraging digital in these domains that that we've been discussing and how they can be sustainable over time and actually drive change over to you thank you Dorin clearly that all the speakers and I think most of us believe in wanting that cooperation and coordination of our efforts is the main I mean point in in sustaining and long term I mean ensuring this process is going COVID-19 bring us together I hope this is the the initial I mean process of long-term cooperation and coordination between stick holder between government and private sector between different I mean governments and and between different organizations in in either UN organizations or or civil organizations this this kind of projects to be sustained and to be a long term need I mean continuous kind of initiative like you are doing need a kind of of such meeting also to keep discussing the obstacles and and difficulties that we are facing from time to time even the issue of cyber security discussing we through the process of of sustaining this this effort I think we will come across uh sometimes and accept and unexpected kind of cyber issues that we need to to meet and discuss and tackle immediately I think it is it is coordinated it is it is uh can be can be done with with continuous I mean joint efforts of different I mean countries and different stakeholders the most important is is I hope this issue of of of cyber security and other issues doesn't make us I mean step or stand slow or sit back because most of the no development countries they are looking for the the I mean the main things they are not like like real education health services and maybe employment so so I think this is this is can be done clearly now through through having this sustainable digital I mean efforts uh I hope I hope this this will continue I hope we will be with the same enthusiasm in future for for continuing this kind of initiative and projects and it can be done it can be done it can be done thank you thank you it can be done thank you for that upbeat message and as you noted we need to continue to engage and and keep tackling those obstacles and difficulties until we get it right thank you so much I'm going to turn to Buddy and I'm keeping track of time here and so for my next speakers if you can try to keep your response in two and a half minutes max Buddy there was a point that came in from one of the participants about financial services for illiterate people I don't know if you could comment on that and perhaps share some advice in terms of your experience on Fiji over to you Buddy okay well um Fiji leveraged a unique partnership between the World Bank Group the the ITU Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructure and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to address many challenges in financial inclusion including you know how to create the right environment for addressing vulnerable individuals who may not have the tools such as literacy to be able to to take advantage of financial access and and some of the tools that have been developed actually speaking to that but but I wanted to talk and to speak to another question that I think it was inherent in that is about how you can address how DFS can be used you know more broadly than just giving access to financial services but also creating synergies in other parts of of lives of the vulnerable and an example of this is how DFS has been sort of used you know digital financial services companies have partnered with with solar companies to to use mobile money to pay for you know access to kerosene fume free energy or how digital financial services mobile money has facilitated access to telehealth and mobile insurance in a way that both minimizes the downside risk of being poor you know having poor living environment but also gives them access to to insurance and other measures that can help them actually to improve the upside of their lives so I would say that it's really important to highlight the synergies that the the telecom sector can can realize by working with financial service providers and other providers in agriculture, education, health and energy in order to to generally take advantage of the opportunities to improve the lives of the poor. Terrific thank you and that's a great link to connect the digital financial services to energy as you noted agriculture health education and other sectors thank you for that buddy. Lucas I'm going to come to you where do you see the sort of engagement beyond infrastructure what do we need to do more of over to you Lucas. Thank you Doreen so I'll try to make a short as possible so in 2016 the mobile industry was the first large industry to publicly commit to the SDGs and we're talking about the equals in my previous interventions so in relation to SDG 5 on gender equality we co-founded the equals global partnership for digital equality alongside the ITU UN Women ITC and the UN University so as part of equals we live on activities that provide digital skills training training to girls and young women including tech for girls workshops and a mentorship platform our own connected women program also continues to work with operators to reduce the gender gap in mobile internet and mobile money services in low and middle income countries and unlock significant commercial and social economic opportunities so SDG 5 will continue to be a priority for the GSMA driving diversity and inclusion efforts in fact GSMAs work within the framework of the Women for Tech program laid the foundations for the recent launch of the GSMA diversity for tech program at MWC Barcelona and the program aims to expand the conversations to include the undisputable case for diversity and inclusion in in business so also two probably two things one is on SDG 13 on climate action is another critical point of focus for the mobile industry and the GSMA so the mobile sector is tackling collaboration action to the fully transparent about the industry's own climate emissions and have developed an industry-wide climate action roadmap and secondly GSMA drives responsible leadership via the digital declaration which is a program which united CEOs from across industry sectors who are committed to acting ethically in the digital area and delivering that matters most to digital citizens industry and governments so hopefully I was quickly enough in my intervention thank you that was perfect so the focus on driving diversity the mobile money piece you mentioned the gender digital divide SDG 5 and of course SDG 13 as well thank you for that so I'm going to come back to Shalyn in your view what would be some ways in which we could strengthen the involvement of youth in new digital partnerships over to you yep brilliant question Doreen you know there's a need to focus on equipping youth with the skills needed to leverage the full potential of ICTs access in and of itself in addition to quality and reliable and ethically designed access to ECT ICTs is step one but there's a difference between youth using social media and playing video games and using ICT to grow oneself economically and in terms of health and education as buddy shared in other ways we typically don't hand someone a car when they've come of age and tell them to figure out how to drive and use the car to improve their lives so why would we do the same with ICTs in interest of time I'll emphasize one specific idea to maximize the presence of youth around this sort of digital skills piece of the equation the first is to pressure test digital skills efforts before they're implemented with youth in your nation and pull on youth from the most disadvantaged parts of the nation state community whichever group that we are focused on and not from just the wealthiest parts or the most accessible parts or from the best universities or for the most connect well connected youth this equitable user-centered design will ensure that the floor is high enough to accommodate all of the youth in the region and not just the needs of the wealthy which as I mentioned is a challenge that we're painfully grappling with here in America I shared a bit earlier Washington DC home of fame is on HQ and yet 25 percent of her residents don't have odd band access this is what happens advisory boards and structures help and could be expanded but using the principles of co-design I'll drop a booklet in the chat if I might is also a strategy that governments and companies and public private partners can use to substantively engage youth without compromising bandwidth or resource constraints there's a certain way to engagement that I believe works really well and there's been evidence in Australia and other places with respect to co-design around public interest technologies so those are two thoughts that come to mind Doreen thank you very much thank you so much for that I'm going to ask my colleague Yaroslav do we have time to just go back for a sort of Twitter like comment from our panelists or are we so that's the one question for one question we have time so to my panelist if you if you can stay with us just for a couple of minutes we did want to perhaps ask you keeping it short and Twitter style how can we mobilize others to commit to digital partnerships for a sustainable and resilient recovery from COVID Fias can I start with you no thanks Doreen COVID-19 has made the digital divide even more evident it has changed the world permanently making connectivity and digital public goods even more important as a prerequisite to achieving the SDGs at 2030 so that's right UNICEF through GIGA and through digital public goods alliance will convene a broad range of stakeholders and close the digital divide by empowering young people through access to information opportunity and choice thank you Doreen terrific thank you Carla over to you many thanks it's really the we have really a big challenges but as looks already mentioned digital action requires strong investment upfront and we know that this field is dominated by the private sector so for us what is really very very important that we succeed to scale up investment together with the private sector so private sector will be key in our digital for the development app the dialogue with the private sector but we have also foreseen new financial instruments to leverage investment from the the private sector so a private sector will be key if we really want to make a progress over to you Doreen terrific dr. Ahmadine over to you thank you Doreen I think it is very important to mobilize committed digital partnership which first requires identifying critical areas of cooperation and key partners and creating continuous discussion platforms play significant role to keep sharing ideas among main actors while helping us to formulate actionable plans for sustainable recovery from the pandemic thank you terrific thank you ambassador Lausko over to you thank you I believe the answer lies in why digital technologies are higher in foreign politics more than or higher than ever before and this is actually related to the fact that these technological developments that support our societies our economies may not necessarily as it was also said happen in the government but they may not even happen in in our countries so this means that in order to keep up with these developments and to be able to make sure that we know how to use them and we have the right skills to use these technologies for for our benefit for this we need to partner and we need to partner with each other we need to partner with international organizations but also as it was also said this private sector and and and also the private sector that may not be located in in our own countries but where the digital developments and these trends to take place so this I believe also pushes us for for collaboration more than ever before terrific thank you Ingrid over to you Ingrid here I am thank you go ahead I think the key message should be digital transformation is absolutely key for making our economies and society more resilient and this is more needed than ever after COVID-19 and additionally we have to be more inclusive in our approaches especially for local ecosystem players we have to bring in local digital startups civil society organization youth organization on the ground we have to bring them on board and strengthen local ownership for this long-term change that we have to invest in and I think then we have a good chance that the sustainability of the digital transformation is assured thank you terrific thank you for that Dr. Ali over to you Dr. Ali did we lose you sorry please Dr. Ali yeah I said really with what happened during COVID-19 it is important to feel that that I mean that the digital need is and need for technology it is it is necessity not anymore it is just for fun or something like that I mean for this investment on this is the main route and it is it should be part of humanitarian aid also to to support people education health and and and having work you know and jobs thank you very much terrific thank you and buddy over to you I think given all the initiatives that we've all been involved with if we share our lessons and share our successes there's probably nothing that will be more successful at crowding and other partners who want to see some of the same outcomes so I think engaging and sharing information in order to amplify will be critical terrific thank you for that and Lucas to you yeah thank you Doreen so committing to digital partnership is not just the right thing to do it makes good business sense too the COVID-19 recession he does all and a fast and inclusive recovery will benefit all of us we should take the public private collaboration we saw the outbreak of the pandemic as a blueprint for the future that would be my reflection Doreen terrific thank you shallen over to you I think there was a great comment Lucas made with respect to sort of using an all-hands approach the one thing I might add as well is is a healthy dose of competition can be encouraging when we all race to the top and that's that's something that I think we wouldn't want to lose in this discussion having an Apollo-like challenge is can be really encouraging to achieve the goals that we all have set out so at some level definitely sharing of knowledge and information and tools and strategies but at another level using maybe even grand challenge like price strategies to incentivize others who haven't been in the woodwork to get in the game is something that that we've done in the States with with NASA and other groups in the past terrific thank you so much for that so ladies and gentlemen this brings us to to the end of our session I want to thank all of my amazing panelists it's really been a great discussion I think some of the highlights for me this has been an opportunity to kind of reimagine through all of your interventions what is possible but I also heard that we still need to work more towards equal opportunities so that digital is accessible to all that means we need to urgently address the global learning crisis we heard that bridging the digital gender divide is critical and also ensuring digital inclusion of persons with disabilities the economically disadvantaged people in remote communities and those who are being left behind so removing barriers to digital financial inclusion is also key to to their empowerment it will be important of course to involve youth their perspectives their actions that co-designing element that shall and mentioned the importance of skilling is also critical and we heard that we need to move forward in this human-centric approach we've got to keep people at the center as we advance with our digital transformation agendas we have made great progress I think COVID has been a big accelerator a boost for digital issues but we need to continue we're not done lots of challenges remain we need to think about whole of government approaches multi stakeholder approaches they will help us to leverage things like digital building blocks that we heard about today of course the importance of public private partnerships the right policy frameworks fiscal policies spectrum and of course sharing experiences lessons co-appetition I like that challenge and Apollo like challenge why not and of course none of this can be done alone I think if there's one takeaway it was pretty clear from today we can't do this alone we need each other we need to move forward together and faez to borrow from from what you mentioned we need a brighter future and I think a brighter future is on the horizon through cooperation leadership and innovation so thank you everyone I want to of course invite you all to join us and our partner to connect digital coalition as we expand our reach to the hardest to reach communities especially lbc's l lbc's and sids and again our our thanks to all of our partners for their engagement we look forward to continuing to strengthen the collaboration and with that ladies and gentlemen we have 21 minutes until the semifinal of the euro concludes spain versus it my husband is Spanish so I guess so we're rooting for but really thank you thank you all stay safe stay healthy and look forward to seeing you all soon thank you very much many thanks bye bye bye bye many thanks bye bye thank you very much thank you very much