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The Powerful Dynamics of ICTs
on Socio-economic Development

Monday 4June 2012

Cape Town, South Africa

houlin zhao

Deputy Secretary-General,
International Telecommunication Union

Excellencies,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,

  • It is a great pleasure to be here with you this morning in Cape Town for the ICT Indaba 2012.
  • ITU is proud to partnerwith the South African Department of Communicationsin organizing this first ICT Indaba – and we are honoured by the presence of the Minister and Deputy Minister during this opening session and through the four-day programme. Our partnership goes a longer way and I wish here to recognise South Africa’s role as a member of the ITU Council.
  • I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of Dr. Touré, SecretaryGeneral of ITU and myself, to express our sincere condolences to the family of H.E. Mr. Roy Padayachie, former Minister of Public Service and Administration and former Minister of the Ministry of Telecommunications, who passed away recently. He was a long-time friend of ITU, as well as to the Secretary-General and myself. We all miss him.
  • This is a great opportunity to discuss the impact and potential of ICTs here in Africa – and of course across the globe, since ICTs now affect everything we do, wherever we live.
  • In our modern, hyperconnected world, it is easy to forget that just twenty or thirty years ago most people on the planet did not have access to even basic telecommunications.
  • Today, we live on a planet where there are more than six billion mobile cellular subscriptions, and where 2.4 billion people use the Internet.
  • This is very rapidly changing the shape of the world.
  • We are seeing mobile devices and the Internet bringing people – and things – together in ways that we could never even have dreamed of just a decade or two ago.
  • Here in Africa, there has been an extraordinary ICT revolution, with mobile cellular penetration growing from just 12% at the beginning of 2006 to well over 50% today, and Internet penetration growing from 2.4% to 12.8% over the same period.
  • The arrival of new undersea cables will help accelerate progress in bringing broadband to many more millions on this great continent, and helping to replicate the mobile miracle for the Internet.
  • We also expect to see more examples of the kind of innovation and creativity that delivered the mobile banking revolution in Kenya, bringing financial services to tens of millions of Africans for the very first time.
  • South Africa of course is one of the great success stories of the African continent, having surpassed 100% mobile cellular penetration just over a year ago, and leading the way in terms of mobile broadband in particular.
  • As an ICT powerhouse in the region, South Africa continues to play a strong leadership role in guiding other countries in the region on their path to ICT growth – and we should recognize the positive role played by the Department of Communications in this.

Ladies and gentlemen,

  • ICTs are helping humanity come together, making barriers of distance and time far less important than our shared social and economic goals.
  • ICTs are also rapidly removing the barriers which once separated those with power from those without power.
  • This is as true for corporations and even individuals as it is for governments – and in a new era of accountability, this is a good thing.
  • Because it is perfectly possible to respect the necessary boundaries of privacy and security, while still maintaining the right levels of transparency and accountability. Two months ago in Gaborone, Botswana, the ITUfacilitated the drafting of the SADC model laws on Cyber-security which will hopefully be adopted by Southern Africa countries later this year.
  • Ina world where there will be at least three billion smartphones by the year 2015, we are already seeing social media redefining the landscape we live in. At the ITU Regional Development Forum for Africa which took place last month in Kigali, over 22,000 individuals from all over the world participated in the forum through Twitter.
  • As people said during the wave of social protests last year, “we use FaceBook to mobilize; we use Twitter to report; and we use YouTube to broadcast.”
  • For the first time in human history, almost anyone can use the enabling power of technology. To put themselves on the map. To have a voice, in their own language. To make themselves visible. And to bypass the official narrative.
  • With quite remarkable speed – and for the first time – it has become impossible to be airbrushed out of history.
  • This dramatically affects the relationship between the governors and the governed; between the company and its customers; and even between husbands and wives; and parents and their children.
  • The democratization not just of knowledge, but of communication, is going to have a very profound – and I believe beneficial – effect on our society.
  • For those in positions of power, they will need to recognize – and embrace – their new accountability.
  • For those who may once have been – or felt – powerless, they need to recognize that they are the new agents of change. They also need to recognize that they have the responsibility to use that new-found influence carefully, and wisely.

Distinguished guests,

  • The Internet is also having a huge impact on the global economy, with businesses increasingly moving online, and billions of dollars worth of online transactions taking place every week.
  • We are witnessing the very rapid virtualization of many goods – from books and films to music and software. And while most physical goods are still being shipped into the real world, they are very often being ordered online.
  • Globally, manufacturing increasingly depends on the very short supply chain management processes that only the Internet can make possible.
  • We are also seeing unprecedented collaboration online when it comes to research and development.
  • We should not forget, however, that two thirds of the world’s people – and more than four fifths of Africans – still do not have any access to the Internet.
  • This is why ITU and UNESCO set up the Broadband Commission for Digital Development in 2010 – to encourage governments to implement national broadband plans and to increase access to broadband applications and services.
  • Broadband has the power to radically transform society and to deliver sustainable social and economic progress – through an environment of constant innovation and a wealth of job creation opportunities.
  • This is why broadband networks must be considered, in the 21st century, as basic infrastructure, just like roads, railways, water and power networks.
  • In a more populous, ageing world, broadband will be vital in helping to deliver essential services such as health, education and good government.
  • It will help us address the biggest issues of our time – such as climate change and environmental sustainability – and it will revolutionize the way goods and services are created, delivered and used.
  • In the process, broadband will also help us accelerate progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals, now only just three years away.
  • We also need to be looking beyond the MDGs, and the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development, happening in just two weeks, is an excellent place to start.
  • It is very clear to all of us that the Rio+20 outcome document, ‘The Future We Want’, should recognize ICTs and ICT networks as an essential catalyst for the achievement of all three pillars of sustainable development: social, economic and environmental.
  • Indeed, in the hyperconnected world of the 21st century, ‘The Future We Want’, will lack credibility if it does not reflect the fact that ICTs are all around us, and that a more sustainable future is already being created through the proliferation of ICTs.
  • So let me ask you today, and over the coming weeks, to keep ICTs high on the Rio+20 agenda, and to make sure that ICTs feature in the appropriate texts, both going into and coming out of the Conference.
  • ICTs are the future, and we must therefore work hard to ensure that everyone – wherever they live, and whatever their circumstances – has access to the benefits.
  • This is not just about delivering connectivity for connectivity’s sake – or even about giving people access to the undoubted benefits of social communications.It is about leveraging the power of connected technologies to make the world a better place.
  • We are already seeing this with the extraordinary wealth of apps which are available for mobile devices – and whose number increases by tens of thousands every day.
  • This is the true beauty of the Internet: it finally makes the world’s riches accessible to everyone, at any time, wherever they are.

Ladies and gentlemen,

  • There are those who argue that we do not need high-end technology to solve the world’s most pressing issues – such as hunger and poverty – and that these can be addressed by having enough people willing to help, and through the use of simple technology such as 2G mobile phones.
  • But without the broadband infrastructure humming away in the background, and without the power of large servers and big data storage capabilities, we can achieve very little.
  • SMS messages to remote and rural patients only work if there is a proper broadband network – and powerful computers – in place.
  • The innovative use of ICTs will also play a crucial role in ensuring the world’s seven billion people have affordable and equitable access to adequate food supplies.
  • This is true at every step of the process – from delivering the right information to farmers; to helping them improve yields and prices; to improving supply chain efficiencies; to ensuring that consumers understand nutritional needs, both for themselves and for their children.
  • Similar principles apply to smart water management and distribution – and here too, ICTs will play a vital role in the 21st century, as water resources become much more scarce, and much more valuable.
  • ICTs will also play a critical role in helping to create a more sustainable world in the 21st century – and this is a key message that we must reinforce at the Rio+20 Conference, as I mentioned earlier.
  • ICTs can help drive the transition to a low carbon economy, while better adapting to the effects of climate change – through smart grids, environmental sensors, intelligent transport systems, dematerialization and the digitalization of goods and services, and new ways of improving energy efficiency.

Distinguished guests,

  • At ITU we firmly believe in the right to communicate, and it is our mission to bring the full benefits of ICTs to all the world’s people, wherever they live, and whatever their circumstances.
  • One of the key activities we undertake, at the request of membership, is to hold global conferences covering specific areas of work, and at the end of this year we will be having three in succession, hosted in Dubai – and I encourage you to attend where possible.
  • The first of the three is ITU Telecom World 2012, which is being held from 14 to 18 October, and which will bring together top-level representatives from government and industry to debate and discuss the shape of the future world of ICTs.
  • We will then be holding the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA) and the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) back-to-back in November / December – and we are very much looking forward to Africa’s participation in these very important events.
  • WCIT-12is being held to look at ways of revising the International Telecommunication Regulations – the ITRs – which in short is all about keeping the Internet open for business, to sustain growth in the massively inter-dependent global digital economy.
  • It is also about keeping the Internet open for people – in order to continue leveraging the social and economic benefits of access to knowledge and information; access to one another; and access to applications and services delivered over the Internet, including e-health, e-education, and e-government.
  • WCIT-12 is clearly going to be a tremendously important conference, not just for ITU, but for the global ICT sector – and we are looking forward to the debates there which will shape the next 20 years of the most exciting business in the world – the business of ICTs.
  • Some of the topics currently being debated for inclusion in the revised ITRs will also be discussed at the Ministerial Forum being organized here tomorrow at the ICT Indaba.
  • Personally, I feel it is very important to remain optimistic, and I firmly believe that we are on the path towards a brighter, better-lit future.
  • Together, we can achieve so much – and it is our most profound duty to do so!

Thank you.