 P2's resilience and trustworthy connectivity for all by addressing key issues like infrastructure, coverage and usage gaps, affordability and accessibility of devices and data, technologies and reliability of service. Through a collaborative multi-stakeholder approach, P2C aims to find answers to these issues, define specific gaps and create an overview of the required interventions, policies and pledges to bring 2.9 billion people meaningfully online by 23rd. Are you ready to help us bring digital transformation to the hardest to connect communities? Join P2C, be part of this global effort, pledge for connecting people everywhere or for any of the other focus areas of the coalition. Visit www.itu.int slash partner to connect or email us at partner to connect at itu.int. Well, welcome to day two of the Partner to Connect Roundtable where there has been enormous energy in a lot of very innovative pledges and partnership discussions and I know we will continue with that today. I'm David Kirkpatrick of Techonomy. I'm going to be your host for today and I'm going to start by telling you the interpretation channels for the translations. Number one is English, two is French, three is Spanish, four is Russian, five is Chinese, and six is Arabic. One English, two French, three Spanish, four Russian, five Chinese, six Arabic. We are going to go right into our first high-level panel with some really interesting pledges from all over the world and in order to bring that to you, let me introduce Kate Wilson, CEO of the Digital Impact Alliance who will be our moderator for the session. Kate, floor is yours. Excited to be the moderator for today's session. I was reflecting after the conversations yesterday led by Doreen Bogdan-Martin, by President Kagame and Minister Ingeberry, how transformative digital technology has made the experience for Rwanda and for so many countries around the world. Digital transformation is a journey that we are all on and we are each here to learn from one another about the meaningful aspects of digital technology, capacity development, infrastructure investments that we are making and how we can work together to learn from one another on that journey. I'm very inspired both to be one of the moderators for this panel today but also to be one of the high-level panel chairs for the Partner to Connect initiative. In that, we are focused on how we are going to build digital ecosystems and I want to turn it over to my colleagues here to talk to you about the pledges that they are making today on this journey both to connectivity as well as digital transformation. I first want to start with Minister Zerbo Amenata. Ladies and gentlemen, in the name of the government of Bokina Faso, I would like to first express my deep gratitude to the authorities of the Republic of Rwanda for the cordial support that has been reserved for us for the excellent working conditions set in place in the case of the current CMDT. I would also like to congratulate and thank the International Telecommunications for the opportunity that they have given us to meet, to think and to get together, to take steps and to contribute to the development of telecommunications for the good of all. Honorable delegates, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is also a privilege and an honor for me to participate in the first edition of the Partner to Connect initiative that will allow us to take strong commitments for the development of our networks and services in the next cycle 2023-2026, and those so that those who are not yet connected can be. I would like to take this opportunity to address Madam Dorin Boddan, Director of the Bureau of Telecommunications Development and its staff, all my gratitude and my recognition for this beautiful meeting. Honorable delegates, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, since the liberalization of the telecommunications sector carried out by the end of the 2000s in Burkina-Passo, our country has recorded notable progress in the development of networks and telecommunications services. However, the huge challenges that it is necessary to provide appropriate responses in view of building an inclusive information society. Thus, in accordance with the Burkina-Passo national reference in terms of telecommunications, adopted in 2018 and called national strategy of development of the digital economy, our country is committed to orienting the development of the telecommunications sector, mainly following two axes, namely the accessibility, the promotion of investments. The present platform allows our country to reaffirm its commitment to pursue its efforts on these two axes. Concerning accessibility, it will be for us to continue to strengthen the intelligent collaboration and the action synergy of private sector states in order to extend the infrastructure on the basis of the Aménagement Director's Schema adopted in 2018, and to cover the provinces that are not yet, and also to increase the number of communities covered. To continue the coverage of the white areas, to connect the most rural areas, and to improve access to services to vulnerable people living in the areas that are at a high security level, and this thanks to the access mechanisms to universal services. As for the promotion of investments, the Burkina-Passo promise to strengthen the dynamic of construction, provide appropriate, attractive and secure environments for investments in favor of the development of digital economy, and this through the continuous adoption of institutional geodic cases aimed at rapid development of the sector. Honorable delegates, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is in their own hands communally admitted that telecommunications are at the heart of the growth and competitiveness of companies and nations, and constitute the main engine of the aim of sustainable development. Thus, I measure the responsibility that is ours as political decision-makers and other major actors in the sector in the concretization of the price commitment. I would like to emphasize the opportunity of this Tribune to reaffirm in a solo way, so that my country can firmly fight and in international cooperation, and remain willing to contribute actively in the lives of our organization. This is why the Burkina-Passo-Passo promise to inform you that it is a candidate for the renewal of its mandate to the UIT Council. I would like to request this very humbly your support during the elections that took place in September 2022 in Bucharest, in Romania. Honorable delegates, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to clarify my own opinion, the desire that the results of the present summer are at the height of our expectations, and to reaffirm all the willingness of the Burkina-Passo to actively contribute to the construction of a global information society, including which means significantly to sustainable development for all. Long live international cooperation, long live the UIT, I thank you. Moving from Burkina-Passo to Europe, I would like to introduce Mr Aki Ekenberg. Thank you and good morning everyone. I'm very happy to be part of the panel and my name is Aki Ekenberg. I'm the head of the Finnish delegation to Kigali, and to introduce the Finnish P2C pledge, we have a message from our Minister of Transport and Communications, Mr Timoharak. Distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to take part in this roundtable and announce Finland's pledge related to the partner to connect this college. Digitalization holds great potential for accelerating progress towards the sustainable development of girls. However, the benefits of internet and mobile technology remain very meaningful this year. The lack of meaningful and secure connectivity is a critical bottleneck which we must act on. Digital development is a long-term focus area in Finnish development policy. In line with the Agenda 2030, our goal is full participation in the digital sphere for everyone. We place particular emphasis on bridging the gender divide and supporting the green and digital transition of the African culture. It is clear that current efforts for expanding digital infrastructure and connectivity in developing countries are not sufficient. We especially need to look at new ways for mobilizing private capital for this purpose. The EU's recent global gateway strategy forms an important framework for mobilizing investments to improve cooperation between the EU and developing rejects. Finland operates in the team of framework and the digitalization for development path to implement this ambitious strategy. Finland pledges to call for regional Team Europe initiatives with 9.3 million US dollars. These initiatives will relate to improving digital productivity, digital governance and innovation ecosystems to support human-centered inclusive digital transformation. Finland's support will have cross cutting emphasis on gender equality, non-discrimination and climate sustainability. Investments in green and secure digital infrastructure and innovation partnership between the EU and Africa are priorities for Finland. This is why we work closely with our national stakeholders and international partners to take this pledge forward. Thank you for this possibility to announce our pledge from Finland at this high-level I wish you all a very successful World Telecommunications Development Conference 2022. We are truly moving around the globe today so now it is my deep pleasure to invite the Minister from Nepal, Minister Kharky to offer his pledge to the partner to connect. Action entries, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, warm greetings from the people and the government of Nepal. On behalf of the government of Nepal and my delegates, I wish to thank ITU and the government of Rwanda for inviting us in WPDC. This year, team on connecting the unconnected to achieve sustainable development is most appropriate in the context of Nepal where we have challenges of difficult geographical terrain, poverty and the digital literacy. I feel that the ITU partner to connect digital pollution, round table discussion is suitable for strengthening our cooperation to reduce digital divide and enhance our people's digital capability. Nepal is at the verge of digital transformation after the formulation of digital Nepal framework 2019. The digital Nepal framework is a blueprint that provides a roadmap to how digital initiatives can contribute to economic growth. Find innovative ways to solve major challenges in sort of period with small resources and identity opportunity for Nepal to participate to participate in the global economy. It encompasses one nation eight sectors and 80 digital initiatives out of which most of the activities present are focused laying digital foundation. The government of Nepal aims to ingrain all activities to be implemented digitally by 2025, which policy reforms and the formulation of new legislation. On this round table discussion, I, Janendra Bahagur Karki, on behalf of the government of Nepal, pledge to empower Nepal citizens through digital information. Further, our government is committed to connect the unconnected by using universal service obligation fund in order to improve the capacity of individuals to engage in digital economy and to enhance the foundation for digital government. I once again would like to thank ITU and the government of Rwanda for organizing such an excellent event. I wish all for the successful conference. Thank you. Thank you, Minister. Secretary of State, you like to provide remarks from Romania. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests and delegates, on behalf of the Romanian government, I'm happy to have the opportunity to address today to such a distinguished audience. We are happy to be part of the partner to connect digital development round table and bring our contribution to the initiative. I would like to also extend my appreciation to the government of Rwanda for hosting this milestone event that has a critical tension-oriented approach in advancing universal and meaningful connectivity for people. Last but not least, allow me to, on behalf of the Romanian delegation, to express my deepest gratitude to the authorities of Rwanda for the warm welcome and impeccable organization of the conference. This landmark development event that charts the course for the next four years of ITU's development sector. Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing a period of rapid technology change with great impact on area, on every area of our lives. As the future of society around the world is going to be a digital one, there needs to be greater coordination across areas of competence for us to shape the way current generation align to the future requirements of a digital first environment. We have knowledge that the COVID-19 pandemic has created an unexpected opportunity to accelerate digitalization. It has emphasized the importance of digital technology in laying the groundwork for a long-term economic recovery, including building resilience for the future. The digital transformation has led to changes in everyday life and work environment and the technology evolution based on innovation is reshaping both society as a whole and the future of the workforce. The pace of change will never be slower than today, and it is essential that we keep pace with the digital revolution which is unfolding. Romania has, as major objectives, the development of a coherent and integrated digital infrastructure at the level of public administration that would offer the possibility to access high quality digital services to both citizens and companies. The surge of digital skills and digital education for citizens and workforce to keep up-to-date with rapid technological advancements and also the development of a digital ecosystem education to reduce the gaps and provision of frameworks for cyber security, data protection, online safety and IT ethics. We are committed to act firmly and consistently to a new trajectory for how future generations will be better prepared and more competitive from this perspective. The digital mindsets start from the early step and should take advantage of progress in connectivity, widespread use of digital devices and latest communication tools. The priority for Romania is improving accessibility to digital service to encourage employment among young people and most vulnerable social groups. At the heart of our investment in digital technology sits a plan to elevate digital skills of educators. The development of the digital competencies among teachers is critically important and for the development of a digital society. The Romanian government is actively involved in taking essential steps to enhance and create new policies that will boost the digital education. We accelerate progress on a digital learning and digital skills, promoting policies that led to eliminating barriers. We support advanced digital education for women and girls and discourage any form of discrimination or digital divide. As ITU member, Romania stands ready to contribute to the future collective efforts in support of better policies for improving quality of life, overall well-being and prosperity of our citizens. Thank you for your kind attention. Excellencies, distinguished speakers, ladies and gentlemen, Greetings from Jakarta, Indonesia. In the era where as almost every aspect of our life become digitalized, the development of ICTs has become not only a necessity but also a journey that every nation needs to pursue. In such spirit, Indonesia is striving to accelerate our national digital transformation, which consists of four areas, namely digital infrastructure, digital government, digital economy and digital society, undertaking strategic measures to realize Indonesia as a truly digital nation by fostering the digital ecosystem to be more inclusive, empowering and sustainable for all. Against this background, we are of the view that the digital infrastructure and digital society areas of Indonesia's digital nation roadmap are linked to two partners to connect focused areas, namely access and adoption. Pertaining to the access focused area, through the deployment of digital telecommunication infrastructure with diverse technology ranging from big bone, middle mile and last mile, Indonesia pledges to provide accessible digital connectivity for all through deployment of 4G connectivity to cover our nation with a total of 83,218 villages in 2022. This is efficient of an all embracing digital transformation that will connect the unconnected and leave no one behind. With regard to the focus area on adoption, we are also exerting ourselves to nurture the nation's digital talents so the people would be able to use, adopt and develop digital technology in a productive, safe and responsible manner. Henceforth, we pledge to provide digital literacy program to 50 million people by 2024 and digital talent program to 300,000 people through various digital upscaling programs at the basic intermediate and advanced levels to capitalize on our demographic bonus and cater the need of 9 million digital talents. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, on this important occasion, allow me to convey that Indonesia has submitted its candidature and would highly appreciate all member countries' invaluable support for Indonesia's membership of ITU Council and the candidature of Dr. Mehdi Tomo Sutiarjoko as a member of the Radio Regulations Board for Region E during the elections at the forthcoming ITU Planet Potentiary Conference 2022. Lastly, I would like to extend my highest appreciation to ITU for conducting this partner to connect our P2C Digital Development Roundtable that provides member states and other stakeholders' valuable opportunities to share their pledges. I thank you. Let's go into it. I just love that thanks to the ITU, we have internationally a level playing field where also small countries like Liechtenstein can contribute on a global level to change and to improve lives. As a regulator authority, we have filed for 600 low-earth orbit satellites. That's not special in itself. What is special is that the operator, Rivada, firmly believes that in creating affordable connectivity through local entrepreneurship is key to sustainable digital development. Typically, satellite operators provide capacity at the fixed cost per month. Rivada's business model is very different and based on two pillars. The first one, the bulk of the capacity will be sold to, I would call it the usual suspects, government, mining, shipping, Delco and so on. The second pillar of the business model is the very interesting one. Capacity will be auctioned off, very similar to electricity markets. And this second pillar, this auction platform, has three wonderful side effects. The first wonderful side effect is that connectivity will become affordable in low income and remote areas. The second wonderful side effect is that Rivada is only selling B2B, no B2C. So this encourages local entrepreneurship to provide the very end customer services to the local constituency. Thirdly, and very important, this is not charity. There will be no worry about annual financing rounds. It's part of the business model. So this business model with this Open Access market platform means that wholesale buyers locally will be able to bid what is affordable, which is the market clearing rate, which again is the affordable rate. Rivada has pledged 112 million US dollars towards creating this equitable marketplace for satellite capacity so nobody is left offline. Complete global coverage should be achieved by 2028. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Dr. Schneider. I'd now like to talk, turn to Australia and Ms. Kathleen Solari who will be introducing Australia's pledge. Thank you and good morning distinguished colleagues. Firstly, let me say how inspired I am by the pledges made by government and the private sector under part to connect. This initiative provides action-oriented tangible outcomes critical to connecting the unconnected and ensuring that we all benefit from digital transformation. I commend Telecommunications Development Bureau and Doreen Bogdan-Martin for placing these goals at the heart of this conference. Let me also thank tremendous thanks to our Rwandan hosts for going above and beyond to make WTDC and the Youth Summit a success and the ITU for ensuring this event takes place in Africa for the first time. Today, we pledge to continue working hand in hand with the ITU, the ITU Regional Office in Bangkok and Member States to bridge the global digital divide. Our annual voluntary contributions exemplifies our pledge. Australian-funded multi-year projects under the Connect to Recover initiative tackle the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic by fostering sustainable infrastructure and enhancing digital connectivity in Asia, in Asia and Pacific. We are also supporting innovative activities in our region under the ITU Smart Islands and Smart Villages Framework. A safe online space is another priority for us. Via the Australian-funded ITU Child Online Protection Project, we are strengthening children's online safety across several Asia-Pacific countries. Our flagship cyber and critical tech cooperation program with a total value of more than $74 million supports the Indo-Pacific partner countries to benefit from opportunities presented by the internet and digital technologies, but at the same time strengthening cyber resilience. The program was complemented in 2018 and renewed in 2022 by an Australian Papua New Guinea memorandum of understanding on cyber security cooperation. Under this partnership, we are working closely with Papua New Guinea to reinforce cyber resilience by helping to establish a cyber security operations centre and delivering technical training and mentoring in incident response. So far over 400 professionals have been trained. Australia remains committed to bridging the gender digital divide and building a more inclusive ITU. We are proud to support youth and women delegates from the Pacific to attend WTTC and the Youth Summit, and we pledge to continue supporting the participation of regional members in key ITU events. We have also sponsored an ITU training course to bolster the meaningful participation of women in the upcoming Plenipotentiary Conference. As part of our commitment to gender equality, Australia is sponsoring a network of women breakfast on 15th of June. Focusing on the implementation of resolution 55, we look forward to seeing you there. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Larry. I'd now like to turn to her Excellency, Ms. Dima Aliaya, the Secretary General of the Digital Cooperation Organization. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. ITU Secretary General, ITU...is it working? Oh, okay. I can't hear it. So good morning, everyone. ITU Secretary General, ITU Telecommunication Development, Director of Telecommunication Development, VIRU, Distinguished Ministers, Representatives, Ladies and Gentlemen. On behalf of the Digital Cooperation Organization and the countries that we represent, we would like to thank the host, the Republic of Rwanda, President, and also Honorable Minister of ICT and Innovation, her Excellency, Paula, for giving us this opportunity, demonstrating and believing in the power of collaboration to bring in digital impact and prosperity, which is exactly the values that we stand of as DCO. Also, I would like to thank the ITU for their relentless efforts to close the digital divide. We truly unite when it comes to our values and our vision and believing in the future in which everyone has the potential and the right for an opportunity in the digital economy. We have came a long way, but the journey is yet...we have a long way to go as well. Two-thirds of the...two-thirds of the future workforce still is not connected at home, and we look at 40% of SMEs in developing countries are online, and only 19% of women in LBC countries are still not connected. So our pledge today is that the Digital Cooperation Organization commits to bring in digital leaders, innovation catalysts from all over the world, and also all segments of society for a series of roundtables discussing and focused on the greatest digital development challenges we are facing today. Through multi-stakeholder agreements and collaborations, we will co-create and co-design actionable, inclusive, and locally relevant policy recommendations to strengthen the global digital ecosystem. All will start here from Africa. Our roundtable will start in Rwanda today, a continent making tremendous strides in digital development and inclusion. The DCO was established to empower people, everyone to harness the opportunities in digital economy and digital ecosystem. We have grown our DCO coalition to more than 600 million people. We work around the world, all over the world, bringing in public sector, private sector, and civil society together to impact either policy, research, innovation, and also initiatives to impact our digital future. We really believe that together we can enable a digital economy for all. Thank you. Thank you, Secretary General. I'd now like to turn to Mr. Mickey Watkins, the CEO of World Mobile Group Limited here in the United Kingdom. He has promised me a short pledge today earlier. Just like Zoom, the same. You forget to press the mute. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. All protocols observed. My name is Mickey Watkins and I'm the CEO of World Mobile. We have pledged to connect more than 1 billion people by 2030 using our mobile network. We have also pledged to invest $350 million inside the African continent, which we have already begun in tens of millions of billions of dollars in Zanzibar. World Mobile is a new economic model, a new kind of network utilizing infrastructure, hybrid balloons, assets, aerial assets, and ground assets. But most importantly, a sharing economy in which everybody wins. The World Mobile network has a cost factor of 12 to 1 compared to existing mobile networks. Together, united with the help of the regulators, with help of partners, with help of everybody, there is a chance to connect the world. The global growth of connectivity has only come to 2% in the last two years, much of this down to COVID, but much of this down to legacy business models and legacy practices which has left all of us in a box unable to reach out to the rest of the world, which ultimately has left the rest of the world offline. We have approximately 3 billion people offline. This means that every one in two people cannot speak to each other. This means that every one in two people are not able to communicate like we are today and tune in and be on this panel. This is not right. This is incorrect. It's very important collaboration. Telecoms only works with collaboration. Together, we can change the world and together, we can begin now. Talking is great, but action is just as important. Thank you very much. Thank you for that inspiring pledge. I'd like to now turn to Erin Boyd, the managing partner of Welchman Keen from Singapore. Good morning. Secretary General Jal Holen, Director Doreen Boga-Martin, Director Chase Sibley, Director Mario Manich, Excellencies Distinguished Colleagues and Friends. The rapid pace of ICT development has made reliable connectivity a reality for much of the world. However, an estimated 2.9 billion people remain unconnected. As laudable efforts to close the gap progress, it is important to do so responsibly, ensuring the policy regulation planning and investment truly address the needs and requirements of the people we seek to connect. Welchman Keen, a global technology advisory firm, an ITUD sector member, supports public and private stakeholders that are enabling effective, sustainable, and secure connectivity policy, ensuring right-sized technology policy and solutions intended to truly benefit new digital citizens. To that end, Welchman Keen has developed the assess framework, which serves as a functional model whereby we may evaluate ICT projects across six dimensions, whereas ICT should be accessible, sustainable, suitable, ethical, safe, and secure. Inspired by the sustainable development goals and IT's own best practice guidelines, the objectives of the assess framework is to ensure Welchman Keen's work across both private and public sectors always adheres to these principles. As such, Welchman Keen seeks to provide meaningful assistance to the ITU and its membership in areas that will truly make a difference. In line with the cyber for good initiative and under the access focus area of partner to connect, Welchman Keen is formally pledging our programmatic in-kind contribution of cybersecurity capacity building to be made available to member states on an immediate basis. Welchman Keen has engaged with stakeholders to curate a suite of specialized training content, resulting in over 50 available modules tailored specifically to meet the most pressing cybersecurity capacity building needs of developing countries. These trainings cover areas such as critical national infrastructure protection, privacy and data protection, talent retention, and modernization of national cybersecurity strategies. The market value of this effort amounts to $480,000 U.S. It is our hope that our contribution will be an impactful first step in helping countries foster a safe and secure online environment. We are honored to support partner to connect and pledge our continued support and commitment to ITU's thematic priorities as we work together to realize digital transformation and promote effective policies to securely and responsibly connect the interconnected. Thank you. And now I'd like to turn to Ivan Suarez. Thank you chair. Good morning everyone. I want to talk about something that I haven't heard enough during this conference which is climate change. And I'm pretty sure that everyone in this conference is aware that our world is changing. It's a bit unsafe and it's unsafe because of natural disasters. Natural disasters are just the result of the climate crisis. Now the unfortunate part may be that we're not using all the tools available to us to fight climate crisis. Our pledge as access partnership, a long-term ITU family member, I will say, and also committed to be the anchor between the private sector and the public sector who want to keep providing the information and the expertise that governments and the private sector require to address climate change and the climate crisis with one specific type of technology for this pledge, which is satellite connectivity. I want to talk to you about facts. Some of you may have a piece of research in your chest and in that research you'll find a couple of interesting trends. The first one is the upwards trend of annual natural disasters in every region. Now let me give you a number. That's 37 percent, not in 2030, not in 2040, in 2025. If you don't realize that a few and a half years from now. A sad part of all of this is that low income and middle income countries are the ones that suffer the most, because of geography, preparedness, economic factors, and all these interesting data provided in the research that you have there. The economic impact of natural disasters, and this is on a positive forecast, would be 97 percent, which in simple terms mean doubling the current economic impact. And just to give you some context, that's 0.5 percent of our global GDP, or even more context, the size of Denmark, the size of Singapore, or the size of Colombia as individual economists. Now if you look at the research, I'll tell you something else. There are a couple of scenarios. One of them is what we call the business as usual, but we don't do anything from an engagement point of view, a policy or regulatory change, creating modern legislation and modern policies that assist the growth of the satellite industry. Now once again, in that scenario, low income and middle income countries get hit harder. Now on the contrary, we have a chance to do this if we allow from all stakeholders a connectivity revolution, a satellite connectivity revolution, with satellite connectivity is widely used in all its forms, technology agnostic, everywhere. Not only will save lives, which is the important aspect of this pledge, but also will save money. Look at the data, $148 billion. That's a lot of money, excuse me, chef. That's a lot of money that can be put to work elsewhere. Our pledge is quite simple. One life lost is one too many. It is our responsibility, not just as humanity as a whole, but in this conference, from a policy point of view, to make sure that we save as many lives as possible. Thank you. So over the last 40 minutes, we've covered the globe. We've talked about multiple sectors that have been affected from climate change to education. And we've talked about the challenges that are facing digital transformation taking place around the world. At the Digital Impact Alliance, we view one of the key aspects and requirements as being a focus on digital public infrastructure enabled by digital public goods. Digital public infrastructure is complex and it is more than connectivity, although connectivity is first and foremost essential as we've talked about today. It is an identity so people have a way to credibly authenticate themselves. It's ensuring payments so people can participate in transactions which are increasingly moving online, including even entering Rwanda yesterday. And it's a focus on data exchange, which is the connective tissue that ensures that all data flows can move seamlessly and that are controlled by people themselves. However, focus on this infrastructure is not complete without giving equal weight and attention to how digital platforms are governed and how the data generated on these platforms is secured, protected from this use, and importantly, leveraged to benefit people. This is why Dial is so invested in initiatives like Partner to Connect and we are thrilled today to be one of the few joint pledges that are invested in this and we together with our partners, GIZ, UNDP, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID, CETA, the Swedish International Development Agency, the DPGA Secretariat, and GitHub to make a joint pledge to PTC. Our organizations together are committed to increasing advocacy and mobilizing financing for digital public infrastructure through the introduction of a Charter for Digital Public Goods. This Charter for Digital Public Goods is not developed solely by our organizations or by anyone. It's a movement of all of us. The benefits of this Charter are to build over the next year a shared global vision on how we can expand and strengthen a digital public goods ecosystem that it supports all of your digital transformations and by the end of 2022, we commit to gather input on the Charter framework through a consultation and process that includes at least 50 governments and I invite all of you to participate today and conduct additional outreach led by international and local civil society organizations, technology companies, and non-profit organizations to shape our future. To that end I really want to thank our panel and PTC for gathering these critical stakeholders together around an opportunity to advance the growth of DPIs in the most ethical and efficient way possible to achieve the SDGs and to make partners together where we are all collaboratively and collectively building the future that we believe in. Thank you all so much for participating in our panel this morning. Thank you so much panelists for participating. Your pledges were inspiring to me and hopefully to our audience. Thank you. Thank you Kate. Thank you panelists and as we transition to the next high-level panel I just have to say I what Kate was just saying is so impactful and I'm so struck by the unanimity about the crisis that we face of leaving so many unconnected thus far and how much action is planned to address that. So let's get the next panel up there to continue this impressive series of statements and pledges about taking real action on this global crisis. So to all you panelists who are going on stage I just want to make a couple of quick comments for you. Please do lean into the microphones when you speak so we can hear you clearly and to reiterate there is a three-minute time limit for each speaker. The timer is displayed on the screens and the annoying digital bell that you hear is to indicate that the three minutes are up. So all of you do lean into your microphones you speakers on stage and to get us going I'd like to introduce the moderator of this high-level panel number four Narya Santilusia general manager for digital inclusion at Microsoft so Narya take it away. Everyone and welcome. Thank you so much for being here this morning. I just want to especially thank the ITU and director Durian Bogdan Martin for their leadership and bringing all of us together from the private sector, the public sector, civil society all to meaningfully connect 2.9 billion people around the world. So I know that we've heard a lot of wonderful pledges yesterday and this morning and I'm very excited about this distinguished panel of guests and how they will add to our work to provide access increase adoption create value and accelerate investments. So panelists we talked about this but like this it feels so close this is how it should be and then there is of course a three-minute intervention time there were dings so let's not get a ding because that would not be good we want you to get your whole pledge out and finally I will try my best with your pronunciation of names and please extend great thank you. All right so we are going to start with his Excellency the Honorable Dr. Genfen Muswere, Minister of ICT Postal and Courier Services Zimbabwe. Thank you thank you so much and it's a pleasure being part of this August session of the WTDC partner to partner to connect session. Greetings from Zimbabwe my name is Honorable Dean Muswere the Deputy Minister of ICT Postal and Courier Services representing Dr. Genfen Muswere the Minister. Indeed Zimbabwe is humbled to be part of this August session as well as the entire conference and many thanks to the ITU as well as the first country for such a illustrious organization. Ladies and gentlemen in terms of universal connectivity Zimbabwe pages to deploy network coverage currently uncovered rural and remote areas of Zimbabwe through deployment of 500 shared sites of multi operator radio access network that would be shared by a minimum of three mobile operators each site includes access roads civil rights towers security fencing plus active equipment offshore funding is required to meet this and of course imports whilst other expenses such as civil rights can be funded from the universal service fund to expedite the project the project is intended to benefit more than 1,700,000 people in Zimbabwe who reside in areas currently uncovered the estimated budget for the project is 400 million US dollars and Zimbabwe through the universal service fund is able to invest 200 million in the project and will require financial partners for the rest. The Zimbabwe pages to sponsor research on affordability of service delivery in digital literacy, emerging technologies for smart sustainability, cybersecurity, smart health and assist and delivery systems to the tune of 500 million US dollars annually over the next four year period. We also pledge to encourage the private sector and other countries in the region carry out similar research for help in such areas. Whilst the first 500 years dollars has been raised remaining 1 million will be required from partners that we work with. Zimbabwe is so committed to the work of the ITU and lastly let me say it is indicative of such a gesture by the candidature of our doctor postman Zava Zava who will be standing up for the telecommunications development bill. I thank you. Thank you so much. What an amazing approach, comprehensive approach to cover 1.7 million uncovered people. So next we have His Excellency Idris Saleh Bakar, Minister of Post and Digital Economy, Chad. The floor is yours. I would also like to express our recognition to the authorities and the people of Rwanda for the warm welcome and the excellent conditions of this day and work to do since our arrival in this beautiful city, legendary Bequigali, the cradle of tolerance and unity. I also address to the people and to the governments of the countries present at this global telecommunications development conference the sincere sentiment of the people of Bequigali. Distinguished, the four are at the heart of Central Africa, although a huge wave of 1.89 million square kilometers has decided to aim on the opportunity to offer the number to diversify its economy. In this optical in 2014, the four national authorities have allowed to put in place the regulation of telecommunications and training, the protection of data, cybersecurity and this regulation allowed to create three agencies, the development agency, the information security agency and the school. The creation of this last one, that is the security agency and the result of the implementation of the fifth regional initiative for Africa, adopted in November 2014, a series of installation of the trust and security of the use of the ICF. For the experience of a political framework, and I tell you that it is very good for the country to have a reference document called also strategic plan 2020, 2017, 2021 and it has allowed us to improve this strategic plan in a strategic plan 2020, 2030 and it has allowed us to realize 1,200 kilometers of fire and connect with the two neighboring countries, which are the Cameroon and the Sudan. We have also launched work on construction of 1,600 kilometers of landfills. We have also launched the Sahelian Trans-Saharan project to connect with the neighboring countries of the United States and go to the Mediterranean via Algeria. This allowed us to reach 80% of the total population, with 14.2% of the total internet access and which went to 21% this year. The ICF contribution went from 3% in 2014 to 8% in 2020. I would like to invite you, ladies and gentlemen, as I said, we have our strategic plan which is access in six axes and the implementation of this strategic plan requires action synergy and as it was said during this news of the ceremony for its excellence, Mr. President of the Rwanda, everyone needs, everyone needs to cooperate. So we really ask for the contribution of the two and the others so that the strategic plan Chadihan and the strategic plan of the other countries are put in place. Thank you very much. Thank you very much and again what an amazing comprehensive approach. Next, we will have a video address from his Excellency, Dr. Amr Talat, Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Egypt and to introduce the video is Mr. Amr Safwat, Manager of African Organizations from the Ministry of ICT. And remember the microphone, very quick. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. That approach also shows how interconnected all this, the digital skilling and literacy and all the connectivity and postal services and government services really need to be so thank you so much. Next we have her Excellency, Ms. Agne Veichikevichute, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Transport and Communications Lithuania. The floor is yours. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to address you and announce commitments of Lithuania in this strategic event. By 2025, my country pledges to improve connectivity in remote and rural areas and boost digital innovation in Lithuania, support countries in Africa and Asia in empowering communities and building digital ecosystems, assist Ukraine in rebuilding their telecommunication sector as well as contribute to the development of cybersecurity incident response ecosystems in African, Caribbean and European countries. Answering high-speed internet access for everyone is a challenging everywhere across the world. The Lithuanian government together with the private sector will invest around 350 million US dollars into the deployment of the necessary infrastructure. I'm also proud to announce about the Development Cooperation Strategy for Africa, where for the next three years, which was approved by Lithuanian government, and private sector is ready to implement it by organizing training programs in Africa and Asia. Private sector is also ready to share innovation solutions and best practices in using ICT in order to build digital ecosystems in sustainable mobility and road safety. 12 countries worldwide are being selected to be covered by these activities. I would like to emphasize that the robust cybersecurity ecosystem is critical. Lithuanian private sector company NRD Cybersecurity is a leader in this field and has submitted its pledge to the summit to provide on-site training opportunities on the establishment of national governmental and sectorial cybersecurity incident response teams. They are ready to contact 15 countries in Africa and the Caribbean and Europe in this regard. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to use this opportunity to invite you all to our reception this evening, half past five, and engage further about how we could all make sure that this great organization continues to be fit for the times we're living in. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Wonderful approach with the rural communities in your country as well as extending a hand to other nations and the cybersecurity component is especially important for all nations. Thank you very much. Next we have Mr. Sunggyu Kim, Director General of the International Cooperation Bureau, Ministry of Science and ICT Republic of Korea. The floor is yours. Distinguished delegates and ladies and gentlemen, the unprecedented global crisis of COVID-19 made us recognize the importance of ICT and the seriousness of the digital divide again. Against the spectra, the WTTC 22 seems a very timely and meaningful conference. The rapid digitalization came with the undeniable benefits but also marginalized many parts of the society. Despite the rapid ICT development over the years, the international community is still making joint efforts to connect the 2.9 billion people who remain unconnected. As you must be well aware, Korea has made an active policy effort and investment in ICT. This has led to nationwide broadband coverage and helped the citizens not only have access to ICT services but also use those services easily. Also in April 2019, Korea became the first country in the world to launch commercial 5G services. Korea's total 5G subscribers now covers over 20 million. Furthermore, and in February this year, the government published the 5G plus strategy implementation plan to continue its efforts to foster a world-class 5G industrial ecosystem. Korea also recognizes that it's important to build a well-organized safety net to leave no one behind in the digital world and ensure benefits for all. To this end, a draft bill for the Digital Inclusion Act was published and is in the legislative process. The Digital Inclusion Act is aimed at establishing legal grounds for enhancing digital capacity building for all citizens and ensuring better access to digital services for digitally marginalized groups such as the elderly and disabled people. The Act will also designate and nurture inclusive technologies and services to use digital technologies for supporting social minorities. Korea is carrying out diverse ODA projects to share Korea's development experience and achievements in the field and the ICT sector and has been conducting joint projects with ITU since 2008. I'm confident that these projects will play an essential role as we navigate through digital transformation and global change accelerated by COVID-19 while leaving no one behind. I'd like to thank all ITU staff especially Director Bogdan Martin of the DDT for supporting Korea to make these projects and produce successful outcomes. Korea will continue to be a devoted partner of ITU and its members and supports the global efforts to improve the connectivity. I pledge that Korea will continue to contribute to achieving SDGs which will be built on improving the connectivity by participating in joint projects with ITU through voluntary contributions and partnership with other member countries. Thank you for your attention. Thank you so much and of course congratulations on the 5G deployment. We can all learn from that and also on the digital inclusion work as well. So next we will be having a speaker join virtually. We have Miss Zlatina Nikolova, Head of Information Technology Directorate, Ministry of Transportation and Communications Republic of Bulgaria. Please proceed. I think we are on mute. I'm on mute as already. Thank you. Thank you all. Distinguishing Excellencies, distinguished participants, dear organizers, ladies and gentlemen. First let me congratulate and run the government for the great event and the organizers of WTDC for the initiative partners to connect which is a step towards promoting the accelerated digitalization of businesses and societies. It is an honor for me to present the Bulgarian pledge. It's a small country for us. The digital transition is a key to strengthen the social and economic resilience but give sustainable growth potential and job creation. The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the trends towards the digital transformation by reinforcing the significance of digital infrastructure, online education and SMEs digitalization. Broadband access has become an increasingly important factor not only for the competitiveness but also for supporting social inclusion while simultaneously expanding the opportunities for development and use of digital-based services including key government services. Of course the deployment of high-speed connectivity can lead to significant increase in gross domestic product employment, the competitiveness of national and world economy and increase the quality of life. Bulgaria recognizes the broadband access as an educational element of digital transformation. Non-discriminatory, safe and effective internet access must be provided as a service in the public interest so that everyone can participate in economic and public life. In this regard we will heavily invest until 2026 in the deployment of broadband infrastructure which should provide affordable services for all. The focus is set on rural and sparsely populated areas as we strive to effectively bridge the digital divide not only in the geographical sense but in the social sense. The investment covers the heaviest part, the passive infrastructure and we expect the businesses to invest in the last mile covering a maximum number of people. The Bulgarian government recognizes that favorable investment environment is crucial for promoting connectivity and access to high-capacity networks as well as to support the development and protect the interest of citizens. This is our second pledge by heavily digitalizing administrative processes and guaranteeing access to information and infrastructure. We aim to promote investment in networks with very high capacity due to their crucial importance for achieving sustainable economic growth. Thank you for the opportunity to present today. As with this initiative we are given the opportunity to exchange with practices on a really global level. We have a long way to go but we are walking in the right direction. Thank you, thank you again and congratulations. Thank you so much and so important to remember access to have that meaningful access to make make the connectivity affordable is very, very important. Next we have Mr. Ahmed Norad Zahari, undersecretary telecom sorry undersecretary communications technology division ministry of communications and multimedia Malaysia. Thank you moderator, excellencies, distinguished ladies and gentlemen. Good morning and first of all I would like to congratulate the government of Rwanda for hosting this important event of WTDC 2022 and hospitality also to the ITU for the excellent arrangement and organizing partner to connect. Excellencies, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, Malaysia commits to boost digitalization and advanced technology towards building a high technology based economy. This will be undertaken through advancing the digital economy, mainstreaming digitalization for inclusive development, accelerating research and development for industrialization and innovation and capitalizing on the potential of advanced technology. To achieve this and in connecting the unconnected in Malaysia, access to fixed broadband services in Malaysia will reach 9 million premises with 100 4G coverage in populated areas and mobile broadband speeds of up to 100 megabit per second on average by 2025. Furthermore, 5G is targeted to reach 80 percent of populated areas by 2024. Additionally, it is envisaged that approximately 1080 digital economy centers will have reached out to 800,000 micro entrepreneurs leading to an average upliftment of their income by 30 percent as well as providing access to digital economy opportunities to over 20 million Malaysian citizens. Moving forward, Malaysia envisions an ITU which will be sensitive to the varied development needs of its members, be responsive in coming out with defeat for purpose strategies and action plans to meet those needs and be innovative in offering solutions in addressing future challenges faced by its membership in a dynamic and fast-changing sector even as we strive to connect the connected to achieve sustainable development in the world. With that, thank you very much. Thank you very much and bold ambitions around 4G, 5G and the micro entrepreneurship focus is wonderful as well. Next we have Mr. Jao Kadite De Matos, Chairman of Anacom, the National Telecommunications Authority of Portugal. Good morning, all of you. It's my pleasure to participate in this panel and it's really a privilege to have the opportunity to speak after my friend from Malaysia because Portugal, we have all to see with Malaysia and we can see the same if I look to my dear friend, the chairman of ENCM to Amat from Mozambique because Portugal was able during our past centuries to construct connections between Europe and all the other continents and talking about other continents, a special word compliment to Doreen, thank you to be here with us. We can count with our support and we are sure that we also will count with your help to implement the commitments that we are assuming here today and the commitment that I would like to share with you based on this experience of connecting different continents, it's the importance of the development of submarine cables, smart submarine cables and when I talk today about smart submarine cables it's important because I don't know if you all are aware that today we celebrate the world ocean's day. It was the United Nations decision some years ago and it's important to see the contribution that smart submarine cables could give and we are working on this direction to use smart submarine cables to help not only for a great connectivity but also to the preservation of the oceans, improving the world cooperation against climate change. This is one of the main ideas, the projects that we are developing in Portugal concerning the connection through submarine cables with our islands of Azores and Medea in the middle of Atlantic Ocean but also with the other continents with with America was the case of the heat and cable between Brazil and Portugal, linking also Africa, Cape Fear, so all these submarine cables should be used not only to improve the connectivity but also to introduce new possibilities namely the use of sensors that could be very important for environmental and seismic detection and a lot of service to the scientific community and so we can benefit of early warnings of tsunamis or earthquakes to the population and this is really an important achievement. So we aim to develop the rural economy oriented to innovation apps. We trust that our projects match the very core of the ITO activities and thus we pledge our commitment to cooperate with other stakeholders in implementing them. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much and thank you for the innovation with the submarine cables and you were right on time. Wonderful. Next we have a pledge from the private sector. We'll turn to Ms. Magdalena Brier, managing director for future digital education program, California and you'll be joining virtually. The floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you very much. I will make my pledge in Spanish. I hope it's okay. Distinguidos miembros del sector de desarrollo de la unión internacional de telecomunicaciones. Estoy aquí para presentar el compromiso de telefónica con la coalición partner to connect que es el programa de educación digital por futuro. El programa nació con el objetivo de reducir la brecha educativa en el mundo mejorando la calidad de la educación en entornos vulnerables. Para ello combinamos el uso de la tecnología evitando que la brecha digital agrave la brecha educativa ya existente con experiencias innovadoras de enseñanza y aprendizaje. Desde 2016 el programa se ha implementado en 40 países de América Latina, Caribe, África y Asia. Ha beneficiado indirectamente a casi 24 millones de niños y ha formado a más de un millón 200 mil docentes en todo el mundo. Como he mencionado anteriormente nos enfocamos en los más vulnerables incluidos lugares de extrema pobreza, escuelas desconectadas y población refugiada. Nuestro trabajo se enfoca en cuatro elementos clave que tienen un impacto directo en la calidad de la educación. Primero formación y apoyo al profesorado. Los docentes son la clave del programa desencadena el proceso de aprendizaje en los niños y por lo tanto juegan un papel vital para lograr un cambio significativo en la calidad de la educación. Por futuro proporciona a los docentes y tinerarios de desarrollo profesional y herramientas para fortalecer su práctica docente, su capacidad de gestión del aula y sus competencias digitales ayudándoles a integrar la tecnología en las aulas. Segundo un ecosistema digital por futuro ofrece un ecosistema digital completo que consiste en una plataforma de aprendizaje, un LMS que funciona tanto online como offline y equipos tecnológicos cuando es necesario. El tercer elemento son los recursos educativos digitales de alta calidad. Por futuro ofrece un catálogo de tinerarios educativos que permiten vivir experiencias de aprendizaje memorables y transformadoras en el aula. Promovemos el desarrollo de competencias del siglo 21 en docentes y alumnos de educación primaria y secundaria. Y el cuarto elemento en el que nos centramos es la recopilación de datos, el seguimiento y la evaluación del programa. Supervisamos y evaluamos continuamente el programa para comprender y mejorar cómo ocurren los cambios, medir el impacto del programa y dar feedback a los docentes para ayudarles a mejorar su trabajo. Por futuro se constituye en 2016 y tenemos el compromiso de seguir trabajando por el mismo camino para contribuir al cumplimiento de la agenda de desarrollo sostenible 2030. Thank you very much. The focus on teacher capacity is wonderful and there are probably many people in the room that would like to find out more about that program. So next also from the private sector we have Mr Mark Van Coppenola, vice president, head of government affairs international Nokia. Thank you. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity to talk at this highly relevant WTDC conference. Let me start by saying that connectivity is not a luxury, it's a right. And yet the digital divide continues to disadvantage people both socially and economically. As we know today roughly 2.9 billion people remain offline and among the 4.9 billion who count as internet users many only get a chance to go online infrequently via shared devices or using poor connectivity speeds. This digital divide needs to be addressed urgently and there are good arguments for it. As the World Bank states, raising the internet penetration to 75% of the population in all developing countries could create more than 140 million jobs around the world. To shrink the digital divide we need to act together, hence the criticality of the partner to connect program. Close collaboration between the public and private sectors both on the supply and demand side like pooling investments for connectivity, focusing on delivering the necessary digital skills for people. These can make a huge difference. At Nokia we create technology that helps the world act together. We provide the critical networks that enable digital access. Our broadband solutions bring connectivity to households, community centers, hospitals and libraries and provide access to healthcare, education, employment and public services. Looking ahead, Nokia has set a target to improve the lives of 1.5 million people by the end of 2025 through socially driven digitalization projects, digital skill building and connecting the unconnected or underserved. At Nokia we are proud to be part of the to connect program. Let's work together to make it happen. Thank you very much. Thank you very much and yes connectivity is the right and thank you for highlighting the need for continued public-private partnership as well. And our final speaker before I get to do a small pledge is Mr. Mishuki Moanghi, distinguished technologist, internet growth, internet society. Thank you. Your excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, the internet society would like to take this opportunity to thank the ITU for this forum and for leading the partner to connect digital coalition. At the internet society our work for the past 30 years has been anchored to our vision and belief that the internet is for everyone. However, there is still a long path to that vision. Today, nearly three billion people remain unconnected. Among our key focus areas are initiatives that provide connectivity to people in remote, rural and underserved areas. These are the places where there is a greater need for the development of digital skills and innovative connectivity solutions such as community networks that have proven to be successful in complimenting the work of traditional operators. In the last two years we have supported over 50 community networks globally and there is a need to do more. It is for this reason that the internet society is pledging to support the deployment of 100 complementary connectivity solutions and to train 10,000 people to build and maintain internet infrastructure by 2025. In addition, the internet society foundation pledges to triple its funding to provide three million dollars for digital skills development through its skills program and to expand it to reach six additional countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. The internet society foundation also pledges to award one million dollars to support innovative solutions to connect the unconnected through its bold program. Our pledges today will scale up our work considerably. It is a decision we must all make to put our experience, expertise and resources into action for the common goal of universal connectivity. We know that no one organization can do this alone. We are therefore pleased to have the expressions of support for our pledge from organizations such as Connect Humanity, the Association for Progressive Communications APC, Mozilla Corporation, Partners in Education Ethiopia and the Baharuda Institute of Technology. To conclude, I invite you to reach out to myself and my colleagues who are here at WTDC to explore how we can join forces to make sure that the internet is really for everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much and a very bold pledge to scale your work, so I'm excited to hear more. And finally, I wanted to just turn your attention to the cameras. We're going to have a brief message from Microsoft's President Brad Smith as well as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors who will be introducing Microsoft's pledge. Brad Smith, President and Vice-Chair of Microsoft, and thanks for giving me a moment to share with you today. I want to say how pleased we are to be part of the Partner to Connect initiative, how proud we are to be part of something that I think has moved forward so well. Just two weeks ago, I had the chance to sit down in person with Doreen Bogdan, Martin and Davos at the World Economic Forum. It was a reminder, frankly, of the power of her persuasion, because she's the one who made the case successfully to get all of us at Microsoft leaning in and pushing forward on the engaging communities pillar and really to do more than frankly I think we ever envisioned to help advance skilling. Digital skills, as so many of you know, are one of the causes. They're one of the needs of our time. Thanks to this program, we have committed to reach 10 million people by 2025 to bring them digital skills. And believe me, when we make that kind of commitment, we deliver, we will. And I look forward to seeing what all of these new people of talent will do. Hello, I'm Brad. So Brad, who is one of the leaders of Focus Area Two Empowering Communities, they're talked about our pledge to train and certify 10 million people within-demand digital skills by 2025. And I'm also excited to note that we have a few other pledges at Microsoft that we're committing to the Partner to Connect network. First, our Microsoft Airband Initiative, which seeks to advance digital equity through access to affordable internet devices and skills. That team is focusing on reducing the gender gap. They're collaborating with the Hunger Project in Malawi and will expand broadband access for 70,000 people while also providing training and jobs in ICT. We have also pledged with US Agency for International Development, USAID, to continue our public-private partnership that brings improved internet access to women with the aim of expanding economic opportunities in Guatemala, India, Ghana, Colombia, and Kenya. And finally, GitHub, the global software development platform and a part of Microsoft since 2018, has made two pledges. First, it will support the creation of three open-source program offices in the United Nations system by 2025. And it has also added its name to the group pledge to launch a charter for digital public goods. So as you heard Brad say, Microsoft is so proud to be a member. We are going to deliver and I have five seconds. I just want to say thank you to this amazing panel and distinguish us for their great pledges. It's really been an honor to be with you today. Congratulations to all of you for being so good at sticking to your time. And we now have a break until 11.30. We are right on time, so now we have excellent work on the timing. And see you all back here promptly at 11.30. Okay, well, welcome back. And for something a little different, we're going to do a spotlight session now on the secret ingredients to last mile connectivity investment. So congratulations for resisting the Nigerian coffee and coming to the real substantial part of the program. You won't be disappointed. So basically the challenge for so many places, so many parts of the world is how do we finance getting internet to everybody who needs it? And the three speakers we have here are experts on that. They've done a lot of work in that area sometimes together and certainly are going to tell you some interesting things that they've accomplished. So I'm going to immediately ask Andile and Gabba, who's founder and chairman, convergence partners investments based in Johannesburg and also a focus area leader for the partner to connect digital coalition to start by telling us a pledge that he is making. Thank you, David. And good morning, everybody. And thank you again for hosting us, the government of Rwanda. Thank you to Doreen and the team for putting this great event and partner to connect over the last, you know, since last September. Convergence partners is a private equity fund in Africa. Basically, we are 20 years now. We've been investing in submarine cable satellites, you know, last mile connectivity. And really, I mean, we are really happy to be here and we've been active since last week participating in youth. Africa will have 2 billion people, I mean, 15 years from now. So a lot of work has to be done. So we are really happy to announce here, you know, this morning that 250 million dollars we are putting in digital infrastructure over the next five to seven years. This is again to make sure that last mile fiber wireless, you know, is connected into different parts of the continent in schools, you know, in business, you know, in hospitals in making sure that we can make sure when we get into that 2 billion people who the majority will be youth, you know, most of those young people are connected into the digital infrastructure. So we're really excited to be part of this event. Thank you. Fantastic and delay. And we'll come back to you. We're going to have a little discussion here after we hear from our speakers. Chris Burns, the chief digital development officer and director of the Technology Division of USAID has a pledge to make. Thanks, David. Good morning, everyone. In the interest of time, I will just straight to the point. There is a $40 trillion global infrastructure gap out there in the world that can only be addressed through collaboration and cooperation with governments, with the private sector and with civil society organizations. And to close that gap, it's really going to require new models of public-private partnerships. To address that specific challenge, the Biden administration is prioritizing infrastructure for the developing world. In doing so, we are committed to values-driven, high-standard, and transparent infrastructure development. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced last week our broad US government partner to connect pledges. I'd like to focus on one today for this panel, and that is our new digital invest blended finance program that is part of the Biden administration's global infrastructure initiative. Digital invest is going to use grants to mobilize the private sector to extend connectivity, including ISPs and digital financial services to the most underserved and marginalized populations of the world, particularly women. Through the US digital connectivity and cybersecurity partnership, we are providing $3.5 million into digital invest into a series of grants, that we think will unlock 100 times that amount. This year alone, we hope to bring in $335 million of additional private sector capital to extend that connectivity into underserved areas. And in doing so, we hope to be able to shape the private sector and build their confidence to invest in earlier stage, higher potential startups that have higher barriers to entry. But the US is not just focused on infrastructure alone for its own sake. Through USAID's digital strategy that is focused on open, inclusive and secure digital ecosystems, we work across that entire field of digital development to extend that connectivity. I don't have the time to get into that today, but I did mention the digital connectivity and cybersecurity partnership that is a USG wide investment. We have a pledge into partner to connect where we have already supported $47 million worth of technical assistance and capacity building for countries themselves to build out their ICT policy and regulatory framework. So I'd like to note that we are open for business for any country that is focused on doing just that. Please let us know. Thank you. That's a good invitation. Thank you, Chris. So Rolanda, Rolanda Price is country manager for Rolanda for the World Bank and has been involved with these kinds of efforts for some time. So react to what you've heard and just talk about what you've seen in terms of creative investments for last mile connectivity and what you'd like to see more of. David, the one thing I can say, way to start off on a high note, $250 million of private investments on leverage, rural connectivity, focus on gender, these are all elements of the World Bank Groups strategy. And one of the key things that we are focused on is the fact that universal connectivity and accelerating digital transformation is what is going to unlock new pathways for growth and shared prosperity. And when we say shared prosperity, we're talking about the bottom two quintiles, the bottom 40% of the population. The Bank is working in a number of different ways, the World Bank Group, I should say, is working in a number of different ways, to try to bring more private sector investment, to try to address market failures, and across the board to do what is required in the first instance to create an excellent enabling environment for connectivity investments. There we're looking with governments at forward-looking broadband policies at regulatory frameworks that deal with infrastructure sharing, for example. You asked me to drill down a little bit on other things that we've seen, on other innovative approaches. And one of the key things that we're doing in some countries, I can talk about Rwanda, but I'm taking the stage to say a little bit about what we're doing in Africa in general, is this advanced, large financing, long-term financing of capacity for public services, so for hospitals, et cetera. This advanced, large-scale financing is going to enable private sector to come in, because they will have the assure routes that there will be payments for the longer term. It's going to incentivize long-term investment. Of course, there has always been universal service funds, but using those and leveraging those universal service funds, we're working on what we're calling reverse auctions, where private companies essentially can bid for public subsidies that will help them to move into areas that we make it more viable for investment in unserved or underserved areas. And then, of course, the usual public-private partnerships where, through specifically World Bank financing, we are able to put the government's stake. And there, for example, we have done this in Komoros and with the Sautome Principe for underwater sea cables. So there are a number of different techniques or approaches that we're using. These, I think, are probably the most innovative. Really cool. So, Antile, talk a little bit about what's going to determine where that 250 million goes and how you work with other entities in order to really leverage it to its maximum capacity. Just to, on the leverage side, to give an example, I mean, between us, between USAID, the World Bank, I mean, one of the companies in our portfolio called Sysquad. In Liberia, we, together, as these three organizations, Sysquad, USAID, World Bank, we invested in a cable, in a fiber cable to wire, you know, Liberia as an example. I mean, this is a classic, you know, partnership models that we are looking at. How, from a USAID, the World Bank, and the private company can work together, basically. So that 250 million, I mean, that's one example. Again, in Togo, in Loma, we have a similar, you know, environment working with the World Bank. So that's how we see, you know, this partnership in different parts of the continent. So we really are inviting a number of DFIs. We're inviting a number of public institutions to collaborate in investing. I mean, I think we must have had yesterday that no one can do this alone. That's what the minister from Rwanda said. So, private sector, various, you know, DFIs, public institutions, we need to collaborate to invest, to address, I mean, this gap of 2.9 billion people that need to be connected. Great. So, Chris, talk a little bit about how 3.5 million can unlock 300 million. And also, if you would address what countries in this room ought to do to be most able to take advantage of that kind of capability. Sure. So the 3.5 million, and we're going to invest another 2 million this coming year, so the 5.5 million in total, initially we'll go out to five fund managers, private fund managers, who will basically then work with investors and help them understand how to enter a new market or how to lower barriers of entry, particularly for smaller and mid-sized ISPs. And really, you know, of course, putting in infrastructure requires a lot of CAPEX and OPEX upfront. And so the fund managers will be able to help those investors with those upfront expenses so that they can then drive longer-term investments. And so that's how we get 3.5 million leveraging over 330 million, just because of the power of helping folks understand what they need to do in the early stages. And I think as it relates to, you know, countries in this room and elsewhere, when you think about Anilale's comment about what we've done together in Liberia, you know, I think the through line there, and I think this is what should get investors really excited about investing in underserved markets, is we came in post-apolla. So it was a health crisis that really needed solid infrastructure to be able to communicate, for example, between Ministry of Health and frontline health workers. And so when we wired, fiberwired Monrovia and linked up all the line ministries and all the ISPs and now we're building out the backbone around the country, it's really to facilitate frontline health workers and others to do their business. And so we oftentimes we talk about connectivity for connectivity's sake. USAID, of course, in the business of development and humanitarian assistance, it's not just within public health, but within education, within agricultural production, all the sectoral work we do that connectivity and payments and digital ID and all those foundational underpinnings really help us be more effective in everything we're doing. I think the same could be said for national governments as well as across their development plans. Really good. One of the things that I am really taking away from this conference so far is the very healthy integration of ideas that are all necessary to bring to bear at once in order to really connect the unconnected and it involves healthcare, it involves education, it involves climate resilience and a lot of other things. So Rolanda, I know for the World Bank those sorts of things really matter and when local authorities and governments understand potential of what connectivity can bring to those areas, it can help unlock funds. So talk a little bit about how you think about that. Well, there are lots of different elements as you say David that will essentially unlock this growth potential that we're talking about that will incentivize that the investments that are needed. And I think one of the key things for us is that it's not just about coverage, it really takes into account, we have to look to see what are some of the constraints that are not incentivizing individuals, citizens to adopt this new technology. And we actually have, the World Bank has an ongoing program in digital acceleration in Rwanda, it's $100 million of IDA. It's another good example of leverage because we were able to by of course with the support of the government work with the Asian infrastructure investment bank and we were able to bring another $100 million to focus on many things including digital inclusion. And one of the key things that we have found is challenging for adoption of new technologies in Rwanda is affordability. Affordability not just of the data packages, but affordability of broadband enabled devices, but significantly also digital literacy. You get the phones into the hands of these persons, but they don't know how to use them. And a key element of this project under the digital inclusion pillar is training over three million people in digital literacy, many of them small businesses so that they're able to use technology to be able to advance their business. It's also setting up, for example, a device access fund and looking at various guarantee approaches to make devices more affordable to bring the private sector in more strongly and make devices more affordable. And it's also working with companies of course bringing greater competition, hopefully also to get down the cost of data packages in these rural areas. So these are some of the key elements. I mean you mentioned as well climate change and others, but the very first thing for us is working on getting persons to know the benefit, the potential of technology and then working with especially poor and underserved to be able to get those devices into their hands. Fantastic. Really we have to help articulate what's needed at the end in order to unlock the money at the beginning and I think you all are doing an incredibly good job in moving in that direction. So thank you to all three of you and now we're going to move to our next high level panel, but I think we've started with some big ideas here. So thank you so much. So I'll move to my other position here and let's, will the high level panel number five please join us on stage. Please go right on up there and if you take too long I'm going to spend even more time reminding you about the three minute limitation and the noise that will follow if you overcome it and also encouraging you to lean into that mic which we're getting better and better at as the day goes on. And the interpretation will continue with English on one, French on two, Spanish on three, Russian on four, Chinese on five and Arabic on six. And helping to get this thing going up there is our moderator for high level panel number five and that is Bochar Ba who is CEO of the Samina Telecommunications Council. So Bochar I turn it over to you and look forward to hearing a bunch of great new pledges. Thank you very much David for this short introduction. Excellencies ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon to all of you and I would like to welcome you to this very important discussion about partner to connect. It's a real pleasure first of all to be here in Kigali and to join this ITU's P2C roundtable high level panel five. I will be your moderator and at the end of the discussion I will be also announcing the Samina Telecommunication Council pledge. I am Bochar Ba, I'm the CEO of Samina Telecommunication Council based in Dubai and as you know partnerships are key and this is exactly what the partner to connect coalition has been established to do in order to ensure that we can achieve the UN sustainable development goals but also the agenda 2030. The P2C just very quickly to summarize, facilitates and catalyze new partnerships in four areas. The first one is access which is connecting people everywhere, adoption which is about empowering communities, value creation for building digital ecosystem and as you know in this digital development the ecosystem is being more and more complex and finally acceleration by incentivizing investment. It's all about unlocking access to capital. Many organizations have submitted their pledge across these four areas and I'm very much looking forward to hearing the pledge now from our distinguished speakers. Just a very quick formality I would like to alert our speaker on while they will be announcing their pledge that each of you have three minutes which will be strictly enforced. There will be some music playing just before the three minutes mark of your intervention which will give you about 10 to 15 seconds to complete your remark. Without any further ado let me now first of all I would like ladies and gentlemen if you can give because we will be running short time one round of applause to all our speakers please welcome in there. I would like now to call open our first panelist is Excellency Mr. Tim Dmitry who is the Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communication and Mass Media of the Russian Federation. Your Excellency you have the floor. So much first of all thank you to Rwanda thank you to Kigali it's really wonderful I never I'm sure I will be here a second time let me speak from my heart but in Russian if you don't mind. Dear Ladies and Gentlemen your Excellency despite the wide scope of digital services their distribution is not equal. Some people do not have access to the Internet. In this international connection there are two and nine billion people around the world. The solution to this problem is one of the priorities for the Ministry of Digital Development communication and mass communication of the Russian Federation. In a few days on the territory of the Russian Federation we will implement the program of digital economy of the Russian Federation. Within this program the goals are set for providing access to online media. In particular, the steps are taken to increase the availability of communication on the entire territory of the country and digitalization of socially significant objects. As a result of 2021 access to the high-speed Internet we built optical connection lines up to more than 50,000 socially significant objects. All schools on the territory of the Russian Federation are now connected to the high-speed channel of communication. We have achieved great progress and in connection with the Pelshysky-Akushersky points are our medical institutions located in the most remote and remote corners of the country. When connecting these objects it is important to note that in each of these objects is built a connection node from which in the future all the population that lives next to them is connected. Thus, we have covered the networks of connection with the modern access to the Internet most of our country. Last year we began to implement the program to provide mobile communication of the fourth generation of all our smallest population with a number of from 100 to 500 people, thus providing them the opportunity to directly receive state services in an electronic form. In 2030 on the entire territory of the Russian Federation and the whole world, modern satellite communication will be provided. For this, we are modernizing our existing geostationary satellite groupings. Thus, we launch a new satellite group called ExpressRV on the high elliptical orbit. This orbit specification will ensure stable communication in the Arctic and in the Far East. Trends on digitalization carry a long-term and multiracial character. Our primary task is to provide the entire population with the opportunity to use modern connection services and have a stable access to the Internet. On its side, I note that the Russian Federation will offer for this all the necessary efforts and we are ready to share accumulated experience within the integration of the program and on the two-sided line of meetings. Thank you for your attention. Thank you. Thank you for this impactful pledge of getting other means of connecting the unconnected and as we all know at the last GSR, we have adopted norms with the ITU for technology neutral Internet, whether it's the rest of your satellite. Thank you very much. Let me now open very quickly, call open her Excellency, Ms. Emma Teofeles, Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Technology of Namibia to deliver her pledge. Your Excellency, you have the floor. Thank you so much, moderator. Very good morning to everybody. Namibia has made significant strides in providing high quality communication services to all Namibians since the introduction of our mobile services in 1995 and during the past 10 years, ICT impacted positively on the daily lives of Namibians, providing voice and data connectivity, enabling the delivery of financial service applications and even e-government services such as online tax admissions, toll-free help lines during the COVID-19 pandemic, as various information campaigns to name but just a few. Today, our telecommunication industry provides 2G and 3G mobile services to 95% and 89% of our population respectively. 4G coverage is provided to 79% of our population made up of about 2.5 million Namibians. It is therefore necessary to continue expanding 4G networks into underserved and unserved areas to support communities in building a better future and to contribute actively to the Namibian economy. One such cornerstone is to ensure internet connectivity at all educational centers to provide learning opportunities to every child and upskill the youth such as myself and adults at our primary secondary and tertiary institutions through online education. Adapting and thriving in the digital world does not come without inherent risks. To this end, the Namibian government formulated the cyber security strategy to force the trust in the use of ICT services. The strategy will be implemented through the promulgation of our data protection and cyber crime legislation, the establishment of a national cyber security incident response team and various cyber awareness campaigns to create a safer online environment. It is therefore my pleasure this morning to introduce Namibia's pledges in support of the partner to connect initiator. Firstly, Namibia pledges to establish the Universal Access Service Fund and the roll out of services through demand side management to provide access to secondary secondary schools and clinics in all underserved and unserviced areas in Namibia. Secondly, Namibia pledges to establish a national cyber and security incident response team to support the operational cyber resilience of Namibia, fostering a culture of cyber awareness and to serve as the focal point for coordination of responses to cyber incidents as well as primary contact as well as the primary contact to lives with national sectoral certs as well as international certs at the regional and international basis. In conclusion, the Namibian government remains committed to improve the lives of our citizens and growth of our economy through increasing connectivity and safeguarding our cyber space. I thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much for your excellency for this very strong pledging focus on expanding broadband connectivity and on building trust on the net through cyber security strategy which will help the education sector in the year. Let me now call up on this excellency and I think we will have him online Mr. Yun Ming Zhang who is the Deputy Minister of Industry and Information Technology in China. He is joining us virtually for his amount. Your excellency, you have the floor. Thank you. 全球排名靠前。 合忠共济。 利用新鞋通勤技术出进经济社会数字化转型 培育经济性动能提升公共服务水平 三四凝聚数字化发展合力加强沟通 枯大共识生化合作共同构建网络空间命运共同体 中国长期担任国际电廉理事国 在即将召开的国际电廉全球全球代表大会上 中国将竞选联任理事国 并推荐陈建军先生竞选无限电规则委员会委员 希望得到各国积极支持 中国愿与各国一道继续支持国际电廉工作 促进世界企业通信事业发展 谢谢大家 Thank you Mr. Burqa I will speak in Arabic I will speak in Arabic I will speak in Arabic I will speak in Arabic I will speak in Arabic I will speak in Arabic I will speak in Arabic I will speak in Arabic I will speak in Arabic I will speak in Arabic I will speak in Arabic and the Internet, and the data that helps to benefit from the use of the Internet, the use of the Internet of Things in the development projects. We always open in Sudan, because most countries are advanced compared to other countries in the support and support of the ladies in the research, technology, communication and information. Women in Sudan want to have the highest points in institutions, especially the government, the education and the special. And the percentage of women in the employment organizations increases day after day. And the percentage of women in the women's participation increased by 45% and up to 50% of the number of women in the leadership sector. Sudan is committed to the excellent website, and it has reached the African continent to reach the lowest level of the world. Sudan is a non-Saharan country with four countries, and it is located in several other non-Saharan countries. This makes Sudan a great opportunity to play a role in reaching non-Saharan countries. Sudan is dedicated to the 30,000-kilometer-long road to the surrounding countries. Before the end, we must sign the great effort and the achievements of the three countries, to be able to communicate with Sudan in the near future. I thank the state of Rwanda for giving us this opportunity as an opportunity to give ourselves to the world in a new way. We hope that we will be with the world for the first time, together in achieving the transformation of the world. Thank you. Thank you very much for your excellency. It was a great past track for ending your intervention and your game and for your inspiring remarks. We take away one of them is, yes, leaving no one behind. We have a tendency to forget IPv6, which is mandatory, and also reaching SDG number five, gender equality. Thank you very much, Sudan. And now I would like to invite Mr. Tembo Nyombi, who is the director of Uganda Communication Universal Access Fund. And Tembo, you have the floor for making your pledge. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Friends, the Republic of Uganda is pleased to participate in this IT-led initiative, Patata Connect. The Universal Service Fund of Uganda, on behalf of the Uganda government, has worked this journey for the past 20 years. The outcomes of this journey are phenomenal, though a lot is yet to be done. Achieving meaningful connectivity requires working the whole length of broadband, blockchain and ecosystem, comprising of connectivity, appropriate content, digital literacy, and last-inch connectivity. Uganda broadband coverage by population current stands at 79 percent, and the target is to extend this 90 percent. A study in 2019, a state-of-the-art city reviewed at 36 percent of non-internet users of digital illiterate. It further reviewed at only 6.6 percent, so neural areas have used the internet. We're there for working towards intervention that are sustainable to tackle barriers to connectivity at both commit and individual levels. Uganda commitment shall therefore focus on three thematic areas, access, adoption, and value creation. We're there for pledge, a minimum of U.S. $6.7 million over the next four years, as subsidies for establishment of passive infrastructure in unsolved areas. Reviewing costs of tower services to improve connectivity avails of one-giga spectrum to facilitate low-cost deployment of radio access network, collaborating research and innovation. Our second plague lays the ongoing implementation of our digital illiteracy program that seeks to empower Ugandan population to utilize and enhance the RCT for social economic transformation. Over the coming four years, we pledge to set up this program through committing a minimum of U.S. $10 million for digital scaling for small and medium enterprises, people with disabilities, girls and women, personal living, poor communities, ETC. Relatedly to further supplement our digital inclusion efforts, we're implementing a pilot project that seeks to improve the level of device ownership among households. Our third plague involves implementing our household device project that seeks to address one of the key challenges of device ownership. We are pledging $4 million in the next four years. Lastly, in a bid to strengthen our digital ecosystem, Ugandan leveraging on its useful population is moving towards strengthening this digital innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. This objective facilitated the development of implementation of local digital solution to address critical social economic challenges. Here, we are pledging $700,000 to pilot this strategy. Overall, the government of Uganda pledges to commit U.S. $30 million towards interventions that will enhance RCT inclusivity. May I use this opportunity to provide our friends with great humility at a tea break starting at 4 at Terras 2. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Mr. Nyongbi for outlining your pledge, which will cover access adoption and value creation using the Universal Service Fund, and I will reiterate this invitation this afternoon, and we will be delighted to join you. Thank you very much for the invitation. Let me now, ladies and gentlemen, call Mr. Sadia Reyes with the director of Telcor Nicaragua, and I apologize in advance for my Spanish Directorate Digitalization and Attention Operators and Users. I think I deserve a very good round of applause for mine. Thank you so much for trying. Good morning, colleagues, in the name of my country Nicaragua, in the name of my Telcor institution, the regulator of telecommunications and in my own I want to thank you for the opportunity to be on this panel and in this beautiful country. I would like to start by telling you that for this year 2022, my country Nicaragua has drawn a series of ambitious goals to develop in the next year 2023. I consider that of all the ambitious is the modernization of our current regulatory framework which dates from 1995. That is to say that for the next year 2023, my country Nicaragua hopes to have a new law of telecommunications modern and in line with the best international practices as well as all its application instruments. In this sense, naturally we will have to admit specific rules that are in line with the new law of telecommunications as they are the normative of sharing infrastructure which is a matter of importance for our country, the normative of numerical portability which is a right of the users, the normative of providing telecommunications services of a valid title among others. Likewise, Nicaragua is taking the steps for the strategic planning and the corresponding development of the implementation of the 5G technology. Recently, our country published and updated the regulatory framework of the data and we consider that for the next year and in a period of three years, the 5G technology is implemented and we as citizens can make use of all the benefits that this technology implies. The estimated amount to set all these goals is of four million dollars. Thank you. Thank you for your excellent pledge and I wish you good luck in the deployment of 5G. I would like now to call open my dear brother Mr. John Homo, Secretary General of the African Telecommunication Union. Thank you very much, Boka. Welcome to Africa, the cradle of mankind yet the youngest in terms of technology. Now, we are the ITU of the region and so with the sort of disparities in terms of access in Africa, in terms of gender, in terms of youth, we the ITU rather is keen on investing in innovation and empowering Africa's largest population that is the youth. For that reason, the ITU pledges to develop and foster Africa innovation ecosystems and digital industries. To implement this pledge, the ITU will build the capacity of innovators and expose Africa's talent to potential seed funders and venture capitalists on a sustainable basis. The ITU also intends to create an innovation portal that will serve as a focal point for innovators and ecosystem stakeholders. We target at least 5,000 talented young innovators from Africa to be the beneficiaries of this pledge. Connectivity is another significant disparity even though the continent is recording a steady increase in internet usage. Africa is lagging in the migration to IPv6 yet it is increasingly becoming evident that in African countries we need more IP addresses to connect objects and devices to the internet. The more disturbing issue is that even for IPv resources that exist in the continent some of these resources are already under attack by middlemen out of this continent and so we need to sensitize our people working with various registries to ensure that these resources are used for the benefit of the continent. ITU is committed to accelerating the development of IPv6 in Africa and we have developed a strategic framework and roadmap for that purpose. Our pledge is to train a minimum of 2% of the country on the migration from IPv4 to IPv6 and also to engage experts in assisting countries in setting up the necessary institutional reforms in our countries. We will also engage in capacity building in that regard. Thank you Mr. Omor for this great pledge focused on migration from IPv4 to IPv6 and I'm sure that will be essential for accelerating the digital development. Our next speaker now will be speaking from Korea I think we should have him virtually. I would like to call upon Mr. Kepin Jaoh who is a senior governance and public administration expert in the digital affairs in Korea. Please Mr. Jaoh the floor is yours, you can make your pledge. Thank you so much moderator. Excellencies, distinguished participants I'm very pleased to deliver this short intervention on behalf of the United Nations Project Office on Governance part of the division for public institutional digital government of UNDESA. I would like to highlight the capacity development support that our office has been providing facilitated digital government development and digital transformation. Our office is a dedicated strengthening public administration capacity and promoting effective accountable and inclusive public institutions. During our recent capacity needs assessment of public institutions in Asia Pacific and East Africa regions, our customer countries are also requesting capacity development support advancing digital government. I would like to address three dimensions of our capacity development support in digital government and digital transformation. Firstly, we conduct research and develop training tool kits and assessment tools. Our office has been contributing to the bi-annual UNE government survey. This flagship publication of UNDESA presents a systematic assessment of the use of ICT to transform and reform the public sector with analysis on trends of global digital government. We're also developing training tool kits and assessment tools based on the building blocks of digital government and digital transformation. For example, we have developed the curriculum governance for SDGs including the training tool kit and innovation digital government for public services delivery. We also provided handbook and digital government capability assessment. Currently, we are developing a handbook series on innovation innovative local governance for implementation of SDGs including digital transformation local governance and promoting local innovation for inclusion of people in vulnerable communities. We are also developing training tool kits on digital data governance and also the capacity for digital government transformation. For capacity development activities, we strive to include digital government case studies, exercise and study visits for the digital government workshops. We also implement technical assistance project at a request. We also provide advice services to countries at their request. We also organize capacity development webinars and training tools for the digital government to address the COVID-19 pandemic. We also organize study visits. Our office has been also put great emphasis to facilitate the digital cooperation including the south-south cooperation. Our office has been organizing any original symposium on effective governance and digital transformation as a platform for policy dialogue on digital government and innovation. Our office has also been working very closely with ITU as well as other diverse partners. We also apply a holistic approach to digital government and transformation with an interconnected focus on strengthening public governance. Lastly, we will continue our endeavor to support the member states in the efforts to accelerate digital transformation and advance digital government. We also welcome government institutions from developing countries especially affluent countries to send their official requests to the U.I. Department of Economic and Social Affairs for capacity development support. Thank you for your attention. Back to you, Director. Thank you very much, Mr. Yao for your approach. Very importantly targets a holistic approach for supporting digital government in the developing nation and fostering the digital transformation. Excellent. Thank you very much. Do we have Ben on the stage? I would like now ladies and gentlemen I would like to thank the ITU Technology and Innovation Officer of Liquid Intelligent Technology from the U.K. Mr. Roberts, the floor is yours. Thank you. I love a technology problem. So thank you to the ITU for putting this event together and I think it's been very good. I've enjoyed taking part in it and it's also we've just become the newest member of the ITU-D. I think of the back of this work so I've got two pledges to make today. The first is around approximately three building digital ecosystems and it is our program for hub of hubs connectivity for innovation. Through our hub of hubs connectivity program Liquid Intelligent Technologies aims to provide affordable meaningful ultra high speed connectivity to connect communities of hubs enabling young entrepreneurs to access digital learning and digital tools and to grow their skills and incubate their innovations. Furthermore partnering with interested organizations such as hub associations, we aim to assist innovation hubs in smaller towns and cities and focus on those that are manufacturing making products to not just software. So that's how we want to improve inclusivity. Our second pledge is around focus area one connecting people everywhere and focus area four incentivizing investments and that is a focus on schools connectivity at the heart of our strategy. So Liquid Intelligent Technologies we have a vision for a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind but earlier this year the UN Secretary General said that since 2019 millions of students have lost months even years of learning. The reality was that the pandemic exposed the digital divide with education being the most affected area. To date Liquid has deployed over 100,000 kilometers of fiber connecting cable landing stations to cities including data centers the first mile national backbones to all population centers so the middle mile but also on the last mile metro networks connecting buildings, towers universities, internet service providers and last mile wireless access providers and also getting to home in other locations. We have connected over 4,000 schools to a meaningful broadband across this continent when we've been doing this but there are very many more that can be connected and many of them are extremely close to each other. So what we do on our edge is to focus on connecting schools to internet at the heart of our strategy in our rollout strategy using our assets and partnership to deploy meaningful connectivity by mapping locations of schools planning our background networks with school coverage in mind working with partners like UNICEF on this linking sources of financing to large-scale education connectivity projects partnering with development finance, export finance, universal services using our fiber access wireless broadband last mile ISP partners or satellites in most remote locations all of this will be achieved through global and local partnerships to solve this difficult challenge to make sure that no learner is left behind. Thank you Mr Robert for sharing your pledge and especially in the area of education by connecting the schools thank you very much. Now we are coming to our last speaker and I would like now to turn to Mr Srinivore Wang who is the Vice President of the ZTE Corporation from China. Mr Wang, you have the floor. Thanks my friend. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen first of all to President Kacami and the government for hosting this fantastic event and I would also like to thank ITU for launching this partner to connect initiative that's absolutely needed. In terms of time I don't want to skip our lunch just here go to my class I will use one of the official languages which is my mother tongue Chinese. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for attention. Welcome back to you. Thanks. Right on time thank you Mr Wang for outlining your question I would like also to thank again all the panelists who have made pledges during this session across So very quickly, as a takeaway, what our session itself alone has demonstrated is that the E2C Digital Coalition has really helped bundle some existing and new initiatives together and put the spotlight on the many different ways that partnership across access, adoption, value creation and acceleration can help contribute to achieving our targets of universal connectivity and thereby achieving the sustainable development goal. Now there is not much time left, so before I close the session, let me present what Samina Council has pledged and implemented and is pledging to the E2C initiative and as a complement to our own collaborative effort that we are undertaking to ensure that digital economy and societies are inclusive and human-centered and ultimately sustainable, Samina has made official pledge to support and advocate the objective of the ITU's partner to connect digital coalition across all the four focus areas by using its advocacy channels and committing to collaborate with ITU and its E2C partners. Our pledge were made officially and launched during our leadership summit on May 9, 2022 in Dubai, as follows. We have pledged to publicly support and promote to media-rich articles in Samina brand, hold the objective laid out by the P2C digital coalition and the action claim work during 2022. We have also pledged for a period of six weeks during the months of May and June to publicly support and promote the objective laid by the P2C digital coalition, the P2C action framework during 2022 in the Samina Daily newsletter. We have also pledged and targeted the active promotion of the objective laid out by the coalition and its action framework during the summit on May 9 on the session 360-degree review. Furthermore, we would like to announce our joint pledge with Smart Africa, which targets the implementation in 30 Smart Africa member countries of the first recommendation of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, which is broadening the base of contributors in the financing of digital infrastructure. And just very quickly to summarize, but will lead to encouraging mobile network operators to adopt data-driven business model, facilitating the collaboration between mobile network operators and non-network operators in the investment related to the digital infrastructure, improving the taxation models of the government to adopt with the current trends of digital economy, alleviating burdens on the operator with some incentive likes in the spectrum allocations, encouraging the implementation of blended finance models where all players can contribute in the investment of the digital infrastructure, meaning using new instruments, and lastly facilitating new contribution models that can go beyond the traditional models with more impact in the ecosystem. So with that, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, a big thank to all panelists for the extraordinary contribution to the P2C digital coalition. And I believe together we stand strong and can contribute to achieving our goals of universal connectivity and the SDGs and Agenda 2030. With this, I declare the session, but just, John, I allow you one minute. You can take the… It's less than a minute. Thank you very much, Bocca. I think even as we sit in this panel, let me take from the continent where the continent where I work, you still get the feeling that the idea around P2C is to put all these little gigs together so that people work in partnership. Even as we sit here, you still get a sense of pledges that are about around the same thing, but each and every person is making a pledge. Yet working together, I think we could achieve a lot more. So the ITU, the comment I have is that the ITU needs to probably still work a little bit more to ensure that ideas that are certain common threads are put together so that the partners that are pledging them work together as much as possible. And while I have the mic on behalf of the Gambian minister is inviting you for lunch straight after this. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. That was actually something I was about to say that we have two lunches coming up now, one at 12.30 on terrace three hosted by Gambia. Thank you. And then a second lunch at 1.30, which will be hosted by Thailand in the square tent. So we will resume here again at 2.30. Thank you so much, Bocca and panelists. It's been an incredibly interesting morning and I know the afternoon will also be fantastic. So see you back here at 2.30.