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ICT4ALL 2013
Wednesday 13 November 2013
Hammamet, Tunisia
Opening Speech
Houlin Zhao
Deputy Secretary-General,
International Telecommunication Union
Your Excellency, Mr. Ali Larayedh, Prime Minister of Tunisia,
Your Excellencies, Minsiters of the Cabinet of Tunisia and
ICT Ministers of Foreign Countries
Your Excellencies, Ambassadors,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
· It is a great pleasure and an honour to be here with you this morning at the 2013 ICT4ALL event.
· The idea of the World Summit on the Information Society was first proposed by Tunisia at the 1998 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, and Tunisia went on to host the second phase of the Summit in 2005.
· Since then, Tunisia has maintained the excellent tradition of organizing annual ICT4ALL events that mirror the multi-stakeholder spirit of WSIS while assessing the implementation of the WSIS Action Lines in this region. I noted that this regional Event is one of a few regional Events in the World. ITU highly appreciate the strong desire of the Tunisian hosts to invite the Events, to share with their members of this region, their experiences and achievements as well as lessons learnt and to work together for a better future for Africa.
· I participated in ICT4ALL in 2010, and I am pleased to return to this important forum once again. I have heard from the Minister that this is a critical moment for Tunisia. I am very impressed by the good participation from the public and private sector and a good presence of delegations from foreign countries, which clearly demonstrates the recognition of ICT’s contribution to the eco. And socio- developments. I warmly congratulate the host for the success of organizaing this Event at this critical moment.
Distinguished guests,
· The WSIS Outcome Documents and the UN General Assembly Resolution 60/252 resolved to conduct an overall review of the implementation of the Summit outcomes in 2015.
· According to the latest ITU report, ‘Measuring The Information Society 2013’, there will be nearly as many mobile phone subscriptions globally as there are people on the planet as we come into 2014 – and in Africa, mobile penetration will surpass 63%. In this connection, I would remind you a story that at the ITU Telecom 2004 held in Cairo, Egypt, May 2004, there was a minister’s statement that they wish to see a telephone penetration changed from 4 % in 2004 to 10 % in 2010 in Africa. Today, the reality is far beyond the wish in 2004.
· Even more spectacular has been the rise of mobile broadband, which is bringing Internet access to more people than ever before, and which continues to show the fastest growth of any technology in human history, with growth rates of over 30% per year.
· We have seen extraordinary progress in ICT development, but at the same time we need to recognize the enormous challenges facing the ICT sector today – particularly in an era of rapidly growing data volumes; revenues which are static, or even falling; and of endemic under-investment in ICT infrastructure.
· We should also recognize that the digital divide still exists between developed and developing countries; between cities and rural areas; and between citizens at different socio-economic levels.
Ladies and gentlemen,
· The main challenge and opportunity we face together at the ICT4ALL Forum this year is to build vision for the WSIS Process beyond 2015 – and let me assure you that ITU is doing its best to provide the necessary means for developing the vision that corresponds to the real needs of the knowledge society.
· In this context, following the guidance of our Membership (PP-10 Resolution 172 and ITU Council Resolution 1334), ITU has initiated the preparatory process leading towards the WSIS+10 High-Level Event to be held in 2014.
· It will address the progress made in the implementation of the WSIS outcomes related to the WSIS Action Lines under mandates of the participating agencies, and will provide a platform for multi-stakeholder coordination of the implementation of the WSIS outcomes, with the involvement and participation of all WSIS action line facilitators, other UN agencies, and all other WSIS stakeholders.
· The WSIS+10 High-Level Open Consultation process was initiated in July 2013, with the aim of developing multi-stakeholder consensus on the proposed texts for the zero drafts of the two outcome documents, ‘WSIS+10 Statement on the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes’ and the ‘WSIS+10 Vision for WSIS Beyond 2015’.
· The zero drafts, have been made available for comments by 17 November 2013.
· In a concerted attempt to collect regional emerging trends and challenges as an input for WSIS+10, ITU-D has organized Regional Development Forums, RDFs, in the six ITU regions.
· As part of the WSIS+10 process, we would also like to invite you to share your ten-year self-assessment reports capturing your accomplishments, challenges and trends in the ten-year country reports.
· Let me also encourage you to submit your projects for the WSIS Project Prize contest for the next year, as the deadline has been extended until the end of this month. The WSIS Project Prizes provide a unique platform for recognition of excellence in the implementation of WSIS outcomes.
· A metadata questionnaire aiming to collect information on data availability for the WSIS Target indicators will be used to prepare the final quantitative ‘Assessment Report on the Achievements of the WSIS Targets’, which will be launched on the occasion of the WSIS+10 High-Level Event in 2014. We encourage you to submit your data to this database.
· I hope I will see you in Geneva or at another place where we will discuss the WSIS process.
· I wish you all the best, and would like to thank you for your attention.
Thank you.