 Welcome to ITU Telecom World 2018 here in Durban, South Africa, where I'm very pleased to be joined in the studio today by the Honourable Nomvula Mokonyani who is the Minister of Communications for South Africa. Minister, thank you very much indeed for joining us in the studio today. Thank you. Now I'd like to start off by talking about smart digital transformation. It's something that's being banded about here. What does it mean to you? Well, it means, with smart, it means it can be in a position to penetrate both urban and rural so that it becomes inclusive. Secondly, it also means adapting to new technologies and being able to even have the skilled capacity to deal with that, particularly the participation of young people. And thirdly, it must also be cost effective for access and most importantly, there must also be some ownership, particularly through the participation of new role players and all that will be highly dependent on research and development. Now we've heard some inspiring words here from the President this morning. What are the challenges and the opportunities for telecommunications and ICTs here in South Africa? Four challenges come into mind. One it is about the production where the country continues to be the consumer and not a producer for the world. Everything produced in the world lends itself on our palms and we all become excited about it but by the time it reaches our shores there's already a new and upgrade and stuff and therefore that requires a lot of innovation in South Africa to also become competitive in producing. Secondly, it is also about the quality of product, quality of product in terms of environmental challenges because as we deal with innovation, as we deal with the advanced technology, what we have to guard against is the impact on the environment and that is one of the things that we also are looking at working together with various other role players including those that are in the environment sector. The third one is around the skills. The skills that are quite important for the management, for the distribution but most importantly for participating not only as consumers but as owners of products and therefore again the young people become very important, women become critical role players not only as those who can afford to purchase but also as those who can be lend at their hand to become part of the industry, part of those who make the final determination. It's quite exciting for South Africa in Africa to be hosting this conference because it also shows that we also have the capacity which then takes me to being competitive and the last issue, it's about issues around cyber crime because as technology advances there's also privacy that gets compromised particularly when you look at the issues of women, human trafficking, children, cyber bullying and so forth. Those are some of the things including fake news and for a democracy that is still maturing you definitely have to look at that because besides the gadget, besides the instrument what is important is the content, the content that goes with the product becomes therefore important and hence the regulatory environment that is very protective of harm but also very protective of anti-competition but of importance that also takes care of the security not only of the individuals but security of the country. Now ITU is a United Nations agency for ICTs and in terms of the United Nations one of the key goals at the moment is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals I wanted to ask you about the relationship you think between ICTs and SDGs, how important do you think they are? That's exactly why I was raising the issues around environmental management, that's exactly why I raised the issues around women because for the first time there's a stand-alone outcome in the SDGs that deals with women and the issues around people-to-people relationships becomes also quite important and therefore the issues around telecommunications do also contribute towards a sustainable development agenda that does not undermine the realities of global warming but also that takes along women, young people and those who have been historically disadvantaged because primarily majority of the SDGs seek to also take along developing nations whilst also making it obligatory on developed nations to invest in correcting the inequalities of the past and I think even with telecommunication it is all about that because we know how it can be used as a security threat, as a bullying tactic, we also know how it can just undermine the sovereignty. I mean with the advance of technology there's no border, information reaches everyone on real-time and therefore part of what we should all be doing as we look at smart, innovative development solutions we need to also be concerned about the recipient, the human being who must not actually whose rights will not be compromised but whose responsibility on handling technology also must not undermine peace and stability in the world. Finally we talked briefly about hosting this event here at ITU Telecom World, it's in Durban, South Africa, what's been the value of hosting this event, of course we're very pleased to be here but I wanted to find out from you as hosts. The value has been on three-fold, one it happens in a year where we're celebrating two of our very well-respected freedom fighters. We know that President Mandela is referred to as a world icon but for an ordinary South African this is a freedom fighter, he fought for this freedom. For us to celebrate Albertina Sisulu a woman it's also very important, the coincidence is quite important because the emphasis he has here has also been about don't leave women behind. And I think remembering this freedom fighter, a professional health worker, an intellectual like Albertina Sisulu, it shows that African women have never not been incapacitated. So the African woman is also celebrating this event being hosted here for the first time in its history in Africa and South Africa. We don't even see it as South Africa hosting, we're hosting it as part of Africa and on behalf of Africa. The second issue is about heritage, it happens in the month of September, it's a very important month in the calendar of the Republic of South Africa and part of it is that communication has always been part of our heritage through song, dance, music as you saw with the opening and therefore even with the advanced innovative solutions our heritage can now reach, stands a chance of reaching the world. I saw how international guests were excited watching the beauty of the African culture united in our diversity. Indian to all of them in unison that was very important and is very important for us. The third one is that in the midst of the global economic recession we can still inspire hope that the telecommunications sector can contribute towards growing our economy. And that's why I'm saying here are the three opportunities that we see as the hosts of this world conference. Minister of Communications thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much for inviting us. Thank you.