The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MODERATOR WACHHOLZ: Is it working? Yes, I see Torbjorn online. Welcome all of you to this room. You need to put on your, how it works, you will need to put on your headphones for us to hear each other.
I can hear myself.
So you need to go on channel 1. Welcome to all of you in the room and those following online to this session on the “U.N. Digital for Development: U.N. in Action.” This will be a really exciting session. I'm happy and thankful to my co-chairs, Gitanjali who has done a lot of the preparatory work and invited you to join and to UNDP and UNCTAD and all the other participants and co-chairs.
I will briefly make introductions of the panel, just say, you can see Torbjorn Fredriksson who heads the e-commerce and digital economy branch in unDESA -- UNCTAD, sorry. We see you well as a remote participant.
We have Gitanjali, to my left who is a Strategy and Policy Coordinator from ITU and most of you will know from WSIS.
To my right, we have Samia Melhem, who is a Lead Digital Development Specialist of the World Bank, thanks for joining too.
On my left, Mactar Seck, Chief of Technology and Innovation Section, United Economic Commission for Africa. Thanks for joining too.
And also Mr. Ryszard Frelek, Counsellor, World Intellectual Property Organisation, WIPO. Thank you.
And last but not least, (?) thank you for joining. And perhaps, I don't know if Robert could come too, but we are very delighted to have you with us. I don't know if Helene Molinier, she is important for our session, she will be joining online. She is also part of this panel, Advisor for Digital Cooperation, and the Thematic Lead for the GEF Action Coalition on Innovation and Technology from U.N. Women. She is pretty important for this session too.
We will showcase U.N. in Action today. As we move closer to the 20-year Review of WSIS, we have, of course, the crucial task of driving forward the creation and continued creation of a more credible, inclusive and knowledge-driven world where technology serves as a catalyst for human, social and societal development and of course, Sustainable Development.
The initial WSIS vision, inclusive information and knowledge society stays very strong and continues to resonate, I think, with all of us in our work. And we have seen, over time how this WSIS vision from 2023 and 2025 at the Geneva Summit has addressed new challenges throughout the time. Know how in the text we didn't find a notion of mobile phones or any technologies. I think it made it so lasting. And today we saw also in 2015 we could address with WSIS action the SDGs and how we link, today we will hear more about what we have achieved completely in the last 20 years but also about future action and delighted to see Helene online, this is an important way for our agenda quality work. Explicit welcome to you, Helene.
So I think I will just hand over first for some sharing of highlights of achievements of the last 20 years, and perhaps I will ask Gitanjali to start us off with some of ITU’s work in this domain.
>> GITANJALI SAH: Thank you so much, Cedric and to UNESCO since you took over as Chair. Thank you to all physical and remote participants, thank you for being here with us.
Also to add to what Cedric said, unDESA is UN in Action, we have been contributing the digital aspects to various UN projects we have been having side events and joined statements to processes like the ECOSOC partnership forum, the LLBC's, IGF, we have been organising side events. So it's a very active group of UN agencies that are members and of course we have (?)
We have been successful driving the agenda within the UN (?) so looking at ITU, the UN's on digital and ICT's. We have our mandates from our governing bodies like the Council groups where we have several resolutions that mandate us by our membership. So not only governments but sector members. We have academia, the Technical Community. And those who give us instructions what we should do to implement the WSIS process. We are the lead facilitator on capacity building, C4, cybersecurity, C5 and environments, C6. To enable all this we have various partnerships with the UN agencies and others since WSIS is a multistakeholder process. Initiative with UN UNICEF, our goal is to connect every school worldwide to the internet, addressing the digital divide in education, that equals global partnership programme we are doing with the
Digital scaling which is important, we have several programmes with UNDP on digital scaling and DPI. We started a lot of good work around that.
We have been advocating universal broadband access, child online protection. With the governments and full private sector tools, strategy, training, women, girls, children on the dark side of the internet, knowing (?)
(Off microphone)
Very important point issue I will speak about is the partnership on measuring ICT for development. A very important but kind of hidden aspect of our work. Where statisticians in our organisations are kind of measuring the achievements that we had in these various action lines and the goals that WSIS had set.
Some key things have been the WSIS forum that we jointly organized with UNESCO and more than 14 UN agencies. It's a platform for all UN-agencies and stakeholders to get together to advance the Sustainable Development agenda. The other is 7-11 of July in Geneva, we will do it for AI for good so WSIS will also have access to AI for good, and the IGF.
IGF has been one of the successes of the WSIS process.
Many of you have been contributing to the database, the repository, we have more than 13,000 plus initiatives in the database. So please do have a look. Because they align the WSIS action item in SDG. If are looking for case studies, projects on the ground you are more than welcome to please have a look at those. The smart villages, smart islands. Digital skills for jobs campaigns. Cedric said a lot to summarize but these are the main things to connect with many of you and the regional implementation has been crucial for working with reasonable accommodations, the offices, UNDP and other partners. We can continue our contributions but this is kind of what I would summarize.
>> I know and understand, it's very difficult to maybe summarize in a few minutes only all the work your organisation has been doing.
>> Thank you, Cedric. UNECA is pleased to attend this event. Almost 20 years and we have seen a lot of progress in the African continent. Today we are at 38% internet participation. When you go to mobile penetration, it was almost 8% in 2005, today we have more than 60%. This is good process and ACA work with all countries to support them in the implementation of the WSIS action line, in collaboration, ITO (?)
We can highlight some key achievements during the 20 years.
First, we work together, African Union to have this African aid transformational strategy, 2020-2030, for Africa on digital economy. We already worked with AUC to develop this African Union. It is a one key achievement on the continental level.
Also we can talk about artificial intelligence, last year the achievement in the continent and support more than 40 countries for strategy. The WSIS implementation. On digital ID, very important because we were more than, 500 million resolve and work to develop a digital ID see a lot of digital ID developed as a result of that level.
Also on policy cybersecurity, it's a big issue of the continent. Despite the 10% loss of the GDP. We work with the African Union. The framework on cybersecurity, guideline framework for cybersecurity. There's key strategic element we have developed. In the C5, C3, we need to build the capacity of our Member States. Establish African center of excellence on artificial intelligence. As well as establishing a STEAM center in Rwanda. We work closely with ITU and UNICEF in the (?) project. Also we didn't forget the digital skills for young generation. This initiative African telecom and now we develop almost to more than 40,000 girls across the continent. 284 project developed.
We are gathering a lot of initiatives at the original level.
To the Member States for GDC a few months ago and now we are supporting African countries to implement the GDC in line with WSIS action line.
In 2005 almost key issue was integrated in the WSIS. And we seen 20 years later two key challenges for the continent. One for all the world, the AI issue and (?) issue. That's something we needed to contextualize in the WSIS (?)
We will have our WSIS plan event next year in May. And we are going to have African IGF in May. We think all this outcome, for partnership of ICT.
Wi have a lot of process. I think we will accomplish in the continent in the implementation of the WSIS action line, we thank all partners for supporting on this task, thank you.
>> Thank you, this is really most impressive, and I know just scratch the surface of all the work you have been doing. I want to keep it a little interactive but I will go to first co-chairs. So I will give the floor to UNDP followed then by UNCTAD and then (?)
>> We were okay with the interactive. I will keep it short. There's so much work the UN agencies are doing together, great to hear who might want to ask questions of UN agencies. I want to pick up a little bit where (?)
How global digital cooperation must be implemented at the country level. Digital for development cuts to the heart of what we are doing. We are the development arm, in over 170 territories in the world, supporting 120 plus countries in harnessing digital SDG's, this is the cornerstone how we address development.
In order for us to realize our mandates across the system and to deliver on all these very important things our partner countries have entrusted us to do we need to harness the potential.
Chief digital office from where I sit has been in 62 countries conducting digital readiness assessments, fulfilling the ambition that was laid out in WSIS, co-facilitator for C4 capacity building and C6, environment.
( low mic volume )
Key outcome of the SDG summit. And digital, hallmark of the entire system where we present a lot of works in collaborative fashion to think about how SDG's have been enable and accelerated by the use of technologies together with ITU skills and capacity building to open source ecosystem supported by the commission, that's looking at countries such as Trinidad and Tobago and how we can have the open source through development of open source in these developing countries so we can co-create more interoperable open source that achieves the digital transformation. I can list more, but it would take time, I want to call the area of artificial intelligence where I think other colleagues will also raise as something we really need to look forward to in the update of the WSIS plus 20 revealing the action lines. I think this area of artificial intelligence will be cornerstone to the way the United Nations develops and uses technologies and indeed something we have been working on together. With UNESCO (?)
These areas are critical.
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I think this is something where there is potential, also reflected -- particularly important for instance for the UNDP is the fact we co-chair coalition on digital environmental sustainability with the ITU and (?) and international science Council, German environment ministry and other NGO's, this is really a multistakeholder coalition, looking at sustainability and how we collectively can really push forward this global effort towards ensuring this is how we deliver make sure it is an empowering source for people -- I just want to end there. I look forward to questions from other members.
>> Thank you so much. This is really impressive and for highlighting so many areas where we really work well together across the UN on key topics.
I will go to Torbjorn.
>> Good morning, Cedric, good morning from Geneva, I wish I could be possible in Riyadh, this time it was not possible, I'm afraid. Thank you to the Chair and ITU for organising this session. I think the world is digitalizing faster than ever before, affecting more and more aspects of life.
While this is creating more opportunities it's also raising many new challenges. This is clear not in the least of e-commerce and digital economy the part of digital for development that UNCTAD is particularly concerned with. With achieving the Sustainable Development Goals all of us need to explore every possibility for making use of digital technologies to continue towards improving progress, because unfortunately we are currently not on track to achieve the SDGs.
In the area of digital economy and digital trade we are observing widening digital and data divides, growing market concentration and an expanding environmental footprint from digitalisation.
The super fast evolution of digital economy where AI and other data-driven applications are increasingly important is making it ever harder for countries at low levels of digital readiness to keep up and harder still to catch up.
This increase is now the risk of wider inequalities.
And if we truly endeavor to achieve an inclusive and sustainable digital economy we need to do better. And this can only be achieved through more effective collaboration.
Both domestically and internationally, across stakeholders, across policy areas and across borders.
We very much welcome that Member States came together to agree on the global digital compact last September which provides additional impetus for us as U.N. Entities to support collective efforts towards achieving the SDG's.
In this journey UN group on society represents a mechanism to make sure we make use of the entire network and expertise. UNCTAD looks forward for perspective of digital for development. Under auspices of the GDG, UNCTAD will play its part in fostering better data governance under objective 4. The e-Trade for all initiative which has 35 member organisations including many UN. And we look forward to taking over baton in 2025.
In partnership with the International Trade Center at Universal Postal Union will be -- in the context of World Summit on the information society, the first 20 years of which will be assessed next year.
Last but not least next year UNCTAD will hold ministerial conference, this time it will take place in Vietnam. That will open another opportunity to bring to the fore at the ministerial level. For that, thanks a lot for your attention and good luck with the rest of the events in IGF.
>> MODERATOR WACHHOLZ: Thank, Torbjorn. Can tell us the dates in Vietnam?
>> I will tell you as soon as I can.
>> MODERATOR WACHHOLZ: Thank you so much. And of course the digital economy aspect, you are working with and UNCTAD has become increasingly important. From the beginning of WSIS to today, the work you are doing in this field.
Over to you unDESA. (Inaudible)
( low microphone )
Also together with UN (?) sitting next to me, we are expanding the service into the cities, so we are bringing at the local level, how we can measure economic development (?) and we are also partnering with entities on a number (?) to apply in several countries.
Related to C11 IGF, the digital forum and the next one will take place in 2027 (?)
Finally, I just want to talk about this (?)
( low microphone )
We will meet (?)
Core agency support in this process. We will not be able to undertake this important process without your support. We will make sure that all your contributions, will be fully reflected. We are expecting the General Assembly (?) by mid-January.
Right now, they are just waiting for the ITT (?) resolution to be adopted by the G-8.
We are expecting to see a roadmap and make sure that the process is multistakeholder and we take all stakeholders input transparently and fully in the process. Again, we rely on (?) support.
The view from here is what we heard right now, use existing business mechanisms to implement the GDC. We very much appreciate the GDC, SDG. (?) put together (?) this is an excellent mapping.
All our existing business processes GIS is not perfect, but we should contribute to work.
For example, IGF recently had a Leadership Panel.
We expect to continue to the Leadership Panel.
(?)
We should be sensitive to resource constraints and shy away from creating new mechanisms.
(?)
>> MODERATOR WACHHOLZ: Thank you so much for this update. I really appreciate also that everybody is trying to be short. For those online, we have a room full of people.
We would like to interact with them too.
It's a unique opportunity for us as, I'm really happy about all the interest we have generated here.
We will do a rapid round. And then also hand over to the participants who might have any questions for us. And we look forward --
Also Helene, I just wanted to highlight it's good to be short, we can't speak about all the achievements of our organisations, it's impossible, but the update is appreciated.
>> HELENE MOLINIER: Thank you, Cedric and to the organisers and partners and host country. I will be very brief.
Is three minutes okay? I could spend three days. Okay, when the process started almost 20 years ago we were talking about the next 6 billion. We are talking now about the next 2.6 billion, so kudos to those who have taken that agenda forward and taken it very seriously. I think this is one of the most -- stakeholder processes I have ever witnessed in my career.
The road is full of challenges we talked about mobile phones and telecom regulators, these were the new kids on the block. We have climate change, A.I., data poverty everywhere and huge digital divide in data caused by all the challenges we know and a huge divide in languages that are so needed for A.I., for developing these large language models that we talk about.
For us, at the World Bank it's been a story of growth. I would say, I want to leave you with one message. It's very serious about digital, our president has been a big champion of it. When I started, we were a unit of 20 people with a bigger unit with water, financial service, transport. We have our own (?) now, our project size was 10-20 million. Rwanda where I work, 10 million to start, now projects of 100 million. The message is really scaling up. Both in people capabilities and in partnerships. We partner with all of you around the room.
Is it enough? No, it's not. Sometimes we invent things. Sometimes we are not completely aligned from the very beginning. So that's something we can definitely improve. Use one another's research, facilities, et cetera.
The way we are looking at it very strategically now for the next couple years with our new Vice Presidency, not only are we investing more in public infrastructure but we want to invest in the human capital. And that of policy makers, that of people, youth specifically and have a lot more participatory approach in digital development, digital transformation, as we call it now.
This is really the ideal table to discuss all this. I want to leave you with one point on the capabilities. The World Bank launched its academy programme. We will have a digital academy with different chapters around the world.
We just piloted a Tokyo chapter a couple weeks ago. We are looking at the Middle East region chapter, we are looking at partners with new government, such as Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan, other governments not traditionally our partners because of their keen interest and leadership in the agenda and we look forward to collaborating with you in the most impactful way. Thank you.
>> This is incredible. In three minutes only. You did an incredible job. Because World Bank has numerous projects across the world.
Now I hand it over to (?)
>> Good morning, everyone again and good afternoon to those who may be joining online. It's great to be here with our friends and family from the U.N. System and beyond, connected with the U.N. GEIS.
WIPO, we are cutting edge IP issues and data and information guidance, decision makers and impact driven projects to make sure IP benefits everyone, everywhere. Essentially all development work has to take into account (?)
Secondly, of course, we have a range of initiatives and that specifically focused on digitization and development which contribute to WSIS, GDC and implementation of SDG's. My work is easily cut out for today, we also submitted our report for (?) where we cover wide range of issues on (?) and development.
We also contributed to the (?) which was mentioned as well. Because time is short, I will give you three examples of initiatives. Technology and innovation support centers, these are typically located in patent offices, research centers, and enable them to get support in accessing for more than 150 million published patent documents and scores and scores of scientific and technical publications.
( low microphone )
Currently 93 countries established national networks.
Second example, Accessible Book Consortium, ABC in short. Production and international transfer of specially adopted books for people who are blind or visual impairments easier. We launched a multistakeholder alliance of organisations that will present people with disabilities, to increase the number of books in accessible formats around the world.
Developing in LDC countries. Available for cross border exchange.
Supporting ICT applications, we help offices to enhance efficiency of IP registration and adopt their own strategies. This includes online services, IP systems and enable that exchange of data and documents.
And 91 IP institutions across the world are actively using one or more of our modules in our WIPO office suite. We have many more, of course with partners gathered at the table, I will just mention WIPO, academy, training programs for women in STEM. Game and app developers. Tomorrow if interested you can join at 1545, hosting event on women in games and apps where we will showcase some of our activities in that area. Be here first we have a lot of work on AI through WIPO conversation. Open and inclusive discussion to support policy choices on IP including also on AI.
(?)
Last session took place in November, focused on IP and AI outputs. We also provide tools on IP and AI. I won't go into that right now but you can find all that on our website and reports. I know the time is running out so just finishing. We always look forward to supporting all countries and stakeholders and working together with all our partners from the UN system and beyond that to help to ensure that each and every (?) pride looking forward to working with the UN GIS. Thank you for the invitation.
>> I hand it directly to Helene.
>> HELENE MOLINIER: Thank you, Cedric, I will try to be brief, good morning and afternoon. What we want to report, probably the last five years there's been years where we have seen the most conversation on digital agenda happening. It was mentioned the -- knowledge for ideas, all this turned that into concrete outcomes and commitment. The first of which was last year, the CSW, Commission on Status of Women written a conclusion technology and innovation. The first one on this topic that provided an important thematic framework. It was helpful last year when we were doing advocacy for better integrating gender in the GDC.
Thanks to all this work we can see the digital divide is now front and center in many of the discussions. I think there's an agreement the best way to approach is to reach the hardest to reach, often women living in rural areas, marginalized groups.
The challenge now ahead is to make sure we don't work in silos on this topic. I believe WSIS and UNGIS are a space for collaboration on that.
We did an event yesterday specifically on this topic. And many voices called indeed for an action and agenda as part of process.
They also called for digital track on review, also happening this year. And actually, UN women has identified digital gender gap as top cross cutting topic for the work to come in Beijing.
It was mentioned here, colossal task of implementing the GDC, the stakes are high to make sure mainstream and across all the sector.
We want to make sure that we bring the conversation in all this work stream together. And that we have one clear action agenda that is amplified in March and WSIS in July and every other important movement that are going to come in 2025 and the years beyond.
And again, what was said by many participants is if we want to be impactful on this topic, we have to have one line of action.
I hope this article we can create this year on the topic. Thank you.
>> Thank you, so much, Helene.
Can you hear me?
For those who don't know here, we have chosen to take gender equality as one of the cross cutting themes this year, together with environment and capacity development for civil servants in the (?) transformation.
This is a topic all are committed to and I'm also very keen to coordinate and work jointly there.
Perhaps we could have another UN GIS session online with members dedicated to that theme already. We have already to plan for '26-'29, outputs, indicators and so on. We are quite concrete planning ahead, I would like to have a session to see how we can coordinate our work on this specific topic. But thank you so much for trying to keep a shot view on that.
Now over, I don't know, Gitanjali if you would like to say something.
>> It's important we understand what is happening and contributing to this issue, so we can align our efforts and get what we want.
Very quickly, basically, digital is our main business. We just do that. Do to the digital part and now governments are using it, considering all the aspects already mentioned here.
We have three main focus. Focus on policies and evaluation and innovation and emerging technologies, particularly A.I.
And also people. People like to send this digital transformation, and here we include many things you have also been working associated with human rights and all the aspects, participation, et cetera, et cetera.
So we have been working with most you. Let me share that we work a lot, a lot with countries. With government agencies spread all over the world. And we have been working also with many of you in our activities.
With UNECA, for instance, we have initiated, we signed an M.O.U. and initiated some, we are proud of them. Cooperation and multistakeholders that we launched two fora, in Africa, that gather representatives from this area of digital governance in multiple countries.
We have been also cooperating with UNDESA for some time now since 2018. With ITU too. Particularly with UNDP. We have some projects in these countries we have been working.
Regarding the main topics, I need to close, AI is an important topic that we are also working on data but also with measurement data, these are key aspects for countries to be able to achieve what they want. So thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR WACHHOLZ: Thank you for trying to keep it short. When you do interviews, you are never supposed to give away the mic. I have different control, here it is a different set up. Is there anyone institution I have overlooked? Nope. Rob, thank you for joining us. We had an excellent intervention by (?) Rob is Chief Digital Officer of UNDP. He could spend three days speaking, but will keep it short.
For UNESCO we have six action lines and we have eight minutes left.
So I will just say, we are covering education, sciences, ethics, access to information, culture and media.
And of course we are trying to address key challenges which the world is seeing today. And there are sometimes even going across action lines.
In education, of course, we have integration of technologies into the education systems, across the education systems, with pre and in-service teacher trainings and guidelines and trainings how to use A.I. and how to deal with A.I. as a teacher, which is sometimes a challenging thing.
But if we are speaking, for example, about disinformation, hate speech and so on, another part of education is about meeting information literacy. Dealing with information overflow and learning to be able to look at information critically. But also to think before you click and send on possibly disinformation is an important aspect of this work.
And related to that, I just highlight one second thing, I will mention a third. It is our guidelines on the regulation of online platforms. Which is related to the media work on section of freedom of expression. It's not censorship online. It's freedom of expression. It's a process where one and a half years with different versions and 10,000, a little bit more than 10,000 inputs and big conference of 4,000, we developed these guidelines with regulators and private sector companies and so on. As an example of our media and WSIS related work. Just as a last thing, 4th and 5th June we will have a conference in Paris in the public sector, part of our WSIS +20 process. I could speak longer. But we have a unique opportunity of participants so I want to give a few minutes for those who want to take the floor and ask any of us a question. Now is the moment. Yes?
>> Also, we acknowledge the presence of our Chair from South Africa of the Council Working Group on WSIS and SDG. They also have the Presidency of G-20. Cynthia, we hope you will also like to take the floor.
>> MODERATOR WACHHOLZ: Cynthia?
>> Thank you very much. And I really enjoy talking in this session, we appreciate to be here South Africa.
Really for us, South Africa, taking over the G-20 presidency we are looking forward to the great work of the agencies implementing WSIS. But more than that, we are also looking forward for the WSIS, the IGF to continue in the implementation of the GDC and there are a number of activities that South Africa is the G-20 presidency, they have actually identified as key priorities, not only for South Africa but for the African continent, issues such as digital public infrastructure, the issue of looking at capacity building around AI. But also the issue of data protection and the privacy of data.
And also the issue of the open source. So these are the key issues South Africa is looking at. We are looking forward to the support we have received not only in South Africa but Africa as a continent and other developing countries to ensure the implementation of the GDC is sufficiently done and done by yourself.
We still rely on you in terms of doing all these key issues in relation to the transformation. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR WACHHOLZ: Thank you, Cynthia. If I had seen you in the audience I would have highlighted our A.I. work. You will have of course UNESCO and other agencies for support on the work streams there advancing on data governance, on A.I. and where we have a lot to offer and to share with you too.
Is there anyone else who would like to make a point or raise a question?
Fantastic. Just to say too, on data governance we are working with a Co-Chair ITU, Chair UNDP, Co-Chair African Union on Data Governance Toolkit. Which we are also developing with many private sector companies and also governments and building on their experience.
So that will be very useful for all us.
Should we take a photo before? I have several minutes left and we just take the last minute left to perhaps, please stay online and perhaps all the participants too, come in front of the screen and take a photo with all of you. Is that good?
Thank you.
So while everybody goes to the screen, I continue to speak a little bit, thanking all of the participants. Thanking all the panelists. And we look forward to our continued cooperation. We will have special sessions on environment, we will have special session on the gender equality aspect very soon in the next. So thanks to all of you who joined online and those in the room for your keen interest and for your active participation. Thank you.