 Good afternoon and welcome to this session. I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me. I was humbled by the invitation because I've seen the number of very prominent speakers who came here. So I would like to really thank you very much for this. It's a great opportunity for my organization to express its views. As you know, ITU is the oldest organization of the United Nations family. We celebrated just three days ago on Friday, 147 years of our existence. And this was an institution that was created in Europe, in Paris, by 20 European countries in the US. And it now has 193 member states. But we also pride ourselves of being the organization of a UN that has over 700 private companies that are members of a union. And the only difference between private companies and governments is when it comes to voting. And we rarely vote. We only vote, really, when it comes to electing me. And I think that's the least important things. Me and the management team, of course, and the members of the council. The union is based on consensus. Of course, from time to time, we may differ. And there are some cases where we have to vote on issues. But we really minimize that. It's a very cap to the minimum. Of course, last year, most of you may have heard that in Dubai, we had to do a vote. And that was a reason for a division, for a treaty that was trying to broker at a time. And it was unfortunate because we had to vote on an issue that was proposed by the African group, which was saying that all developing countries, including developing countries, have the right to access information and communication that normally should be something political. But the whole context was politicized. And of course, during the time, the issue that was proposed by the African group was supported and defended more by another country that is not friendly to others. I won't name any country here. And because of that country's defense, we went to a vote on this issue. It was unfortunate. And I was saying that what is happening? The North-South cooperation was not there anymore. The solidarity was not there anymore. How can you say that countries don't have the right to communicate? And that's something that shouldn't be politicized at all. And we are a technical organization. Should not be politicized. And in our jargon, we have always been able to agree among ourselves because the issues we are dealing with are technical issues. And all technical problems have a solution, at least one solution. Of course, political problems don't necessarily have single solutions or not have solutions at all. And that we were sliding into political field which was unfortunate. But of course, the subject of ICT development for sustainable social and economic development is a key for today here, especially in the island, with the EU presidency, I should say. It's a very key issue. And Madam Donohue has been in charge of the digital agenda in this country. And I believe it's even more relevant for her. This is my phone. Sorry. It's proving that it's relevant. That's right. Yes. Yeah, sorry about that. No, it's just a message. But it was timely. It was almost not planned, though, but it is. And this lecture series probably also the kickoff of this week, for me, is very symbolic as well. It's a week of 25th May, which is the African Union celebrating its 50 years. It's a very important week celebrated all over Africa. And especially here in Ireland, where I believe the aid in Ireland here has been one of the most effective. You will see in my speech here, I'm actually one of those who are against aid. In general, I may say that the aid system here in Ireland has been effective contrary to some other countries where more than 80% of the money that is going for aid is not even getting out of the country. It's staying there in the developed countries. So and it's called aid. And it's no result. And as an African, I was saying in Kigali back in 2007, my first year as Secretary-General, that unfortunately, since the independence, 50 years of independence, we've been basing our development agenda on the three words. Aid, assistance, and charity. And it didn't work. If you try something for 50 years, it doesn't work. For God's sake, you change. And the ICT field, ICT sector is one where if you have a very good policy, private sector will come in and invest. I say that because I'm a defender of private sector. Not only my organization has over 700 companies, private companies that are working hand in hand with the governments. But I myself came straight from private sector to ITU. In running, I was saying I'm from private sector. I must be good. And they elected me. And therefore, from that culture where we give a good regulatory environment, things will fly. And I'm happy that we have three ambassadors here from Africa of countries that are shining examples of things happening in the right way if you do a right regulatory environment. Kenya is one of the countries where ICT is growing fast. Some new services and applications have been born in Kenya and Uganda. The MPSA, mobile banking, were born, designed, implemented in Africa and now being exported. Because we're dealing with innovation here, which is driven by human brain, which is one natural resource that is equally distributed around the world. No nation, culture, race, or religion has more or less of that. But you have to train those brains. And especially in software development, when you train people, people from developing countries will be even more innovative. Because on a daily basis, just to survive, a software is a survival solution, a survivor kit. And people are doing that. The MPSA came as a solution, a local solution to local problems. People who want to transfer a very low, small amount of money, $5, $10 for which the current banking system is not fit for. Now, we're talking about mobile wallet in developed countries. That is a exact copy of that. I want to buy a hamburger. I can pay with my telephone. This is a small amount of money. Current credit card system or banking system will not be fit for those things. So these are the solutions. So what I'm saying is that we're giving the same opportunity today. And in Nigeria, look at Nigeria. For five years in a row, Nigeria was number one in the world in terms of mobile growth. You cannot be number one five times in a row in a vacuum. You may have done something right. And NCC, Nigerian Communication Commission, which I followed personally very well, having known the first CEO, Anas Ndukou, is a personal friend of mine, has done a fantastic job in attracting investment in a very clean and transparent manner. As a result, competition grew there. And it's still growing. Now, today we're in a world where we're going to reach by the end of this year 7 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide. So it means that we have done a lot of good job. And I, of course, my organization has contributed a lot in this because all the spectrum is managing ITU. Standards are made there. If the work, thanks to the work we've been doing in ITU, we have radio, telephones, television, and satellites, and cables. And thanks to that, of course, this is one part of the play of the game that other stakeholders as well that come to it that are complementary. And thanks to that work, we can say that we have enough conditions to grow. So a lot has been achieved. In the internet, we have 2.5 billion people connected in the world today. But what does that mean? It means even though we've done well, it means two-thirds of human population is still offline. Two-thirds of the population are cut off from the goodies that have come from the online world. They will not be able to trade. They will not be able to access the world's best libraries, not access to knowledge. And therefore, they won't be able to grow socially and economically. So we have still a big challenge to face. How do we bring those remaining 4.5 billion people online? How do we do it in an affordable manner and safe manner? Cybersecurity is a great challenge that we'll be facing. That's just a global phenomenon. We have to face it at a global level. So therefore, I believe that there is a lot of opportunities for international cooperation. We enable, in ITU, we have made standards that enable the internet. We're just part of it, part of one of the players, one of the many players. XDSL is a standard made in ITU that enables you to access high-speed internet through wire lines existing so that people from all walks of life can really access. We allocate the satellite slots, which mean that you can use your GPS devices today. And you can provide vital safety for transport systems, such as aviation and shipping. Those are things that are done in ITU. And therefore, we pride ourselves of that. And the regulatory environment, sharing of best practices, lessons learned elsewhere, everywhere in the world. Because in regulation, there is no perfect model, we should say. Among the 27 EU countries, there are no two countries that have the same model. But they have some common principles that are very important to share. Where we live in an information society, it will be a shame if we make mistakes that were made already somewhere in the world by lack of information. Or if we reinvent something that was invented already by lack of information. Then we pull all these together. We will then enter together the knowledge society, where every citizen has access to information, can use the information, create information, and share it. Those are the four pillars, the four prerequisites for us to enter the knowledge society we are dreaming of. Because every citizen on this planet is a potential source of information. How do we do that? In year 2007, when I was first elected, my first year, I organized what I call the Connect the World series. We started by Africa, Connect Africa in Kigali. And we invited the African leaders and the industry leaders. And one of the things we're telling the presidents at the airport upon arrival, I was asking them a very simple question. Mr. President, is it a crime to make profits in your country? Of course not. Why are you asking that? I said, well, I have over 1,000 executives from the CEOs from major corporations here, Gaza. I've been telling them that, but they would like to hear it from you. Can you put that in your speech? As a result, and they all said it in their speech, come and invest in my country, it's not a crime. As a result, there were $55 billion commitment for investment from the private sector. $55 billion, not aid, not charity, not assistance, but investment. Guess what? If people invest in the country, they will create jobs. They will give new services and new applications. And those politicians will be reelected because people will be happy. And that's been the approach in the ICT field. It works. Maybe it won't work in a sector like health or education that are not necessarily profit-making. But this sector is profit-making. Then we can let it fly by its own. And also a very important thing we did is when we were talking in the UN system about the millennial development goals, Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General, back in 2009 told us, all the UN heads, please be active so that we can meet the millennial development goals. What is my contribution to it as ITU? I created the broadband commission for digital development and asked my colleague from UNESCO to join me in doing so. Among the eight goals of the MDGs, goal eight is the only one dealing with ICTs a little bit. It is not even very clearly stated there because it's talking about infrastructure. Now, is that goal likely to be met? How about using that to accelerate toward meeting the other goals, e-health, e-education, e-commerce, e-governments? And that's exactly what we did within the framework of the broadband commission. And I invited 60 or so commissioners to join me in trying to design some plan that could be distributed worldwide. One of the first thing we did, we said, every country needs a national broadband plan. Today, I can safely say it was two weeks ago in Cambodia and there are 146 countries in the world now to make a broadband plan. Of course, it has to be approved by the parliament in June, but we've finished the work with them. That's a way to start moving forward, having a very exact plan, a vision 2020. 2015 is already, as Mr. Ward was saying, 2015 is already around the corner. So we're thinking beyond 2015 what's going to do. So a vision 2020 for broadband where they can make sure that there is a level playing field to ensure that there is enough investment in that field will be a good thing to do. And we're working on that. Now, some of the things that are important in a broadband world, well, first of all, we'll help the other sectors, low-carbon economy. We're going to help each of these sectors, and each of the industries, and each of the major crises we've seen over the past few years, have their solution through ICT. They would start with the food crisis, what ICT has to do with food crisis. Well, the food crisis is not due to lack of food in the world. It's a distribution chain. Some food go around the world three times before reaching that destination, adding to the cost and the quality. Then in the climate change issues, of course, we're not part of a problem, we're part of a solution from satellite that are monitoring the Earth to giving solutions that will save energy consumption, alternative to transport, videoconferencing, and others. Our means that will help in it. The current financial crisis, we all know the ICT industry is a good example that can be used. The financial crisis was due to total lack of regulation in the sector. Our sector does not go through a crisis because it is well-regulated. I say well-regulated. Why? Because it's not over-regulated. Because we're also saying we have to have a light-touch regulation in our industry. Heavy-handed regulation will kill the industry. And we're exchanging best practices, so all our regulators come together. The Global Symposium of Regulators annually next July will be, on the 3rd of July will be in Warsaw for the 13th meeting to give an opportunity for them to share their experiences, good and bad ones, so that you don't repeat something and make mistakes that was made or don't reinvent. So issue, and we are talking about the last one, we are talking about the sustainable development. Of course, ICT can be a very good example of a potential for sustainable development and can be used for that. And therefore, we believe that our industry has a lot to offer in that many countries like Ireland have based their economy on a digital economy and that has worked for many years. Of course, there is a slowdown now because of some other factors that still can be corrected because this industry in Europe alone will need more than one million workers for the next five years in the ICT sector alone. Youth unemployment is key and ICT is for youth. And that's very key for all of our governments. Two-thirds of the new jobs in the world have been created in the ICT sector so far over the past five years and that trend will continue. Therefore, we have a real potential for making a difference in the sector. And all it takes is to have a good regulatory environment. If you have a good regulatory environment, people will come and invest. Of course, we'll have to address some of the key issues, some of the issues, taxi issues that are being discussed today by some foreign companies paying their taxes or avoiding to pay their taxes in different countries. We know how it works. But those are real things that we need to make sure that we tackle those problems in a very frank manner so that we don't kill the whole industry. Otherwise, there will be no investment in infrastructure anymore. Everybody will go to making money and nobody will invest in infrastructure. How do we balance that? There are some of the key challenges governments have to face. At one point in time, governments will have to sit down and talk frankly about those things. And those were some things that we debated in Dubai last year during the weekly conference. But it was delayed because the people who felt that they should contribute a little bit more wanted to completely dilute the discussion in taking us, you know, another field that was completely out of our scope, freedom of speech and freedom of expression, which are very important issues, but are dealt with by other UN agencies. And they were playing on the word free. English language is the only language where you can play with that. Your free internet is at stake. And then your freedom is at stake. Free means the same word in English, the same thing in English. It can be the price, it can be the freedom. Any other language that I speak is two different words that don't sound the same way. So you can mislead people by putting them in their mind that there's one you are gonna talk about or the other. But we have seen that. It becomes a new world order. You see one single company driving its national policy, foreign policy. And those are real things, but we have to be realistic in making sure that we don't kill the whole business. That there is room for all of the industry to grow. Those who are investing in infrastructure, those who are investing in the content, coming together. People were trying to oppose telecommunication world with the internet world. These are two worlds that need to go together. You want internet access from a new house, from a new building, from a new business. The ISP will ask you if you have a telephone line and you will give you internet on top of it. And we will give you a phone line, free phone line also on top of that so you don't pay money to the original service provider, actually. If you don't have internet, you don't have a phone line, they will still give you internet by another mean and give you a phone as well, phone line. And 85% of the internet users today are using internet through mobile phones, mobile devices. This is a phone, first. But do I have to choose whether it's a phone or an internet service? No. As a consumer, I don't need to have to make that choice. I need both. If it's not a phone only, it's an electronic diary, it's a camera, it's a video camera, it's a photo camera, it's an agenda. It's my address book, my everything. Do I have to choose? No. I want a single device that will be used everywhere. That is interoperable anywhere I go. As a consumer, as simple as that. So these two world have been working together all this time. They need to continue to work together and consumers need to bring them to force them to work together because it's in the interest of the consumers. Any losers of it if there is any fight in it. And I always say the best way to win a war, any war is to avoid it in the first place. You know, and there is room for us to build the bridges necessary and we're doing them. So I think after Dubai, we all realize we went somehow too far and we're trying to build bridges now. Just last week I had the world policy forum on internet in Geneva for one week, for three days. And there was no division. We all came into agreement. The debates were very frank. Of course, policy forum is a very low setting, low pressure setting where we're not negotiating a treaty. Another thing we realize in Dubai, which I should say here, is the fact that we're negotiating a treaty in a completely new environment. In a multi-stakeholder open environment, which makes it very difficult for negotiators. When negotiating in an environment like this where your debates are webcasts, which we did voluntarily, I webcasted all the debates. But the difficulty in that is that if you know that your opponent had made a proposal that is far left, you make a proposal far right knowing that you want to settle in the middle. Now, what happened is that your consumers who are listening to you have heard how far you have asked and seen what you settled with, which is far from that, not knowing what the other one has given. They say, oh, you've asked that one that much and you only got this? And you're a loser. It makes it more difficult for you to negotiate. And therefore people were much more rigid. That was one of the difficulties. But that's the way it is. And another difficulty is that the fact that when some people know they are being webcast or they are being filmed, they are not talking only to that audience that are in front of them. They are talking to the audience out there. And most of the time, the chairman would say, okay, get to the point. What do you mean by what he said? Because he was not talking to us in the room. He's addressing his constituency. And that's a problem. Some of the problem. That's the modern world we have to live in. So that's why we had such a great difficulty. But again, we have that very good tradition of always coming back together. And I'm sure that we all understand some of the issues. What came out of Dubai are very relevant. And Europeans are doing many of them already. Take a roaming. Vivian reading, when she was commissioner, she tackled this issue in Europe. We need, it's a global phenomenon. And we need some key principles for operators for them to agree on lower prices for consumers not having to have a bill shock when they go home after roaming in a country. We have issues of accessibility. We have 650 million people in the world with different types of disabilities. And our devices were not meant for them. The devices that we're using now, they were not part of it. Now we have to take them into account when designing those networks, services and applications and devices. That's a very good thing. No one can dispute whether you have signed a treaty or not. Issues of an emergency, a numbering plan. When was the last time you went to a country you don't know what's the emergency number. In case of emergency, you will not be able to help to save a life because you don't know the number to call. You will waste unnecessary three to five minutes that could be sometimes make a difference in saving a life. An international emergency number could be like we do for the international dialing call and international the plus where the machine will convert it to the national, to the international call number sign in the country. Those are things we need to do. Those are things that are being discussed even in Europe here. So maritime safety. All of those issues that are in the treaty are very good things that I'm sure whether somebody has signed it or not, they will apply it and that's very important. And most importantly, the developing countries where it's most critical as the one affected and most of them signed it. So I hope I'm sure that we will find a way to bridge with those countries who signed or entered it or not. By 2015, when the treaty enters into force, I'm sure that many more countries will join. I already had two countries that joined after the treaty and many more are debating at their parliament now and including European Union is debating. EU Parliament has asked its lawyers to look at it and see if it's a contradiction with the European laws. And from our assessment or our internal assessment, it is not, but we hope we will see what will come out of that. And then Europe will be left to European countries to decide what they want to do with it. But in any case, for me, there are some intangible principles in there that needs to be adhered to by all countries. Another thing I should address before I finish is, which is not in my speech here, but is regarding the Europe itself. We are in a bit of a crisis in some countries. And in the telecom sector is one of the most vibrant everywhere in the world today. But there is a risk of slowdown in Europe here because there are too many companies. You have 120 companies in Europe. If they don't go through mergers and accusations over the next few years, they will not be in a position to talk to the big guys. US has only four companies. China has only three. They can be negotiating at a larger scale and doing individual bilateral agreements with 120 companies already. It's a lot of effort that is being spent in that. And they're not getting the best deal. And therefore, Europeans will be forced to do that if they want to survive. And that industry will then lead and will create. And Europe will be back in leading. That's something that I hope while Ireland is occupying the presidency of the European Commission, I think it will be something that will push through. And this year is critical because many countries are going through that curve. There is a tipping point that we're reaching to now. And I hope that Europe will look at it. That's from our own assessment. I believe that all other regions are doing their own strategies. We had the Connect to World Series in many of the regions. The last one was in Panama for the Americas last year. And before that, in March, same year, we had in Doha for Qatar for the Arab region. Which is an interesting case. I mean, as a result of Connect Africa, we had a pledge of $55 billion commitment of financing in the investment in the ICT sector. And by the end of the seven-year time, and we'll have a summit in Kigali this year called Transform Africa to follow up on that. By the end of, by that summit, our assessment is that there will be over $70 billion. So by far, passing the $55 billion pledge in terms of investment. That's why we have so many submarine cables now in Africa. The whole of Africa is now surrounded by multiple submarine cables. And there are many fiber optics that are laid down on the ground as well in many countries. I was in Kenya when they were doing the ground-breaking ceremony from Mombasa to Nairobi. The landing, I was there again for the landing of the cable, submarine cable. There was no cable at all, two years earlier. There was no cable at all from Cape Town to Cairo on the side going through the eastern part of the continent. Now there are three. The fourth is being laid down. So the highways are there. The infrastructure is being built. Content development will be key into it. Countries like Kenya is building a whole ICT park. Huge ICT park. Seven billions of dollars, I believe, 15 billions of dollars investment in there. It's going to be great. It's going to create a lot of new jobs. A lot of innovation will come out of that. That's very important for all of us. Connect Arab was a different approach, of course, because the countries have the infrastructure already. Now how about new services and applications? The assessment was that there will be a potential investment in the ICT sector only in the Arab region was about 300 billion dollars over the next five to seven years. That will be coming on top of the infrastructure that is already there, because they have the money already. And they are training people. There are universities everywhere. There are link to Western universities and the Arab region. After 9-11, fortunately, many Arabs don't travel to Europe anymore, so stay home. So that's a new phenomenon that's happening. And therefore, there will be a lot of investment in there. There's big potential of investment in Africa and in Latin America as well. The CIS countries are very good in software development. They have a very well-educated staff, young people. And therefore, they are doing a lot. Of course, at the same time, that's the region where you have most pressure for cybersecurity, which another phenomenon that we need to work on. So youth innovation and youth entrepreneurship will be some of the key drivers that we will see everywhere. And I think Europe will be also part of that. So let me close here by just saying that I'm very happy to see the transformation that is being made by the information and communication technology today that will give the opportunity a same level playing field to all countries in the world and those who train the necessary brains are the winners in it and those who take the necessary step to have a good policy that is attractive to investment are the ones in Ireland, of course, has been very successful in it so far in Europe. And it was a hub of investment for many years. And I'm sure the current global economic crisis will see the end of eternal very soon. And countries that are making the right decisions in attracting investment in private sector will be the winners because we need to create jobs first for the younger generation. And I believe that our sector will play a very key role in it. So in a conclusion, I would like to say access to information it will be key. Information is the only thing that when you share it, it multiplies. Anything else when you share it is divided. And that's the beauty of information. It's not only multiplied by the number of people you divide it, you share it much more because it's exponential because each and every individual will add some value to it. And that's the power of information. And that's the power of our industry we're using. And therefore, we have a great opportunity and that will make the world certainly a better place. And a world where everyone have access, can create information, can use it, and share it. And a world where it's affordable and secure because security is key to it. Because I don't want to have access where someone can steal my identity. I'm not free anymore if anyone can invade my privacy. So those things are fundamental things that we need to tackle. But again, it's a global phenomenon. The criminal may not be even on the crime scene in the ICT field, unfortunately. And the criminal may be in a completely different environment where he is maybe a crime where he's perpetrating the crime, may not be a crime. So that's the difficulties we're living in. But we have to harmonize things and come to common agreement. But I may say, since I started working on cybersecurity because it's one of the tasks that came to ITU after the World Summit on Information Society, the WISIs in Tunis, Geneva in Tunis, 2003 and 2005, among the 11 action line, the two that were assigned to ITU, the C2, which is on infrastructure, and the C5 on cybersecurity. It was not called cybersecurity, actually. It was called creating a confidence and trust in the cyberspace to have a political jargon that everybody can agree on. But reality is cybersecurity. When I started dealing with it, I found myself having under attack everywhere. Because there was a lot of ideological differences, even in defining what is a crime. Take pornography. It may be a crime in some countries that are religiously oriented, be it Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, or whatever. It may not be a crime in a liberal country where no religion is dominating. And so we were spending endless time debating in the rooms while criminals are working. So I finally came to, I had to find a common denominator where everyone would agree to do something so that we could work as we talk, children. When I came with the initiative Child Online Protection, or COP in short, everybody said, oh, that's something urgent. And they are the biggest users of the net. There's one likely to give information on themselves or their families to people they have never met. And they are the future generations. And we need to protect them. And they are very naive. It can be naively giving information. And therefore, unfortunately, they are more educated on ICT than us, the parents. And therefore, it makes it very difficult. How do we train them while they're going in the street? We teach them some basic rules. Don't follow a stranger. Don't accept a candy from someone you don't know. It could be a drug. But they serve in the safety of their bedrooms and their classrooms out there. And we don't give them enough guidance. So those are very key issues. But at least children is a common denominator. So I am saying if we are able to put a good framework to protect children in the sub-space, the same framework could work for anything else. Of course, having said that, I'm also trying to apply some of the good principles that have already exist, like the Budapest Convention. There are some very good principles that are in there in the Budapest Convention. There are, of course, some articles in there that are Eurocentric, which is normal. It was meant for Europe in the first place. Now they realize there are very good things that can be shared worldwide. But from Article 35, which are dealing with really non-substantive issues like the ratification process, which is important, but it's Europeans only. And that gives a second-class citizenship to another one who is not European. And those can be, of course, accommodated. So that's some of the things that are happening in this field now. And I believe that humans have been always able to win. The good has been able to win over the bad. That's human, fortunately. And therefore, and while addressing the issues of cybersecurity, the issues of crime on the cyberspace, we should make sure that we also highlight the fact that the bad part should not overshadow the very good things that come out of it. That are far greater than the bad thing that come out of it. We should agree on that as well. And that's why we're actually trying to preserve it, because there are very good things in it. And those, we could avoid ideological fights. But of course, you always have this issue of some repressive governments who would use anything to watch over their citizens' shoulders and making some repressive actions that are not good for the citizens. Using the same good tools that we're trying to use to do good as well. Every coin has two sides, unfortunately. And that's something that we have to live with. Of course, we have to be very clear in making those principles very clear for everyone, hoping that some countries will come and adhere to it. So I thank you very much again for giving me this opportunity. I will now, if you want any, I will respond to any question you might have. Thank you very much.