WSIS Regional Commissions meeting

Regional Commissions and ITU Directors Discuss Digital Transformation and Inter-Regional Cooperation

During a recent meeting of regional commissions and ITU regional directors, chaired by Marco Llinás from ECLAC, participants discussed their respective digital transformation initiatives and explored potential avenues for collaboration. Llinás, who opened the meeting with an emphasis on punctuality, introduced himself and ECLAC’s agenda, which includes leading a productive development policy and a digital transformation agenda. He highlighted the upcoming ECLAC ministerial conference in Santiago and expressed the organisation’s focus on scaling-up digital technology adoption, particularly for small and medium enterprises, as part of a broader strategy to address stagnant productivity and growth within the region.

Tiziana Bonapace from ESCAP addressed the significant digital divide in the Asia-Pacific region, which is the most digitally divided region in the world. Bonapace outlined ESCAP’s Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway Initiative, which focuses on digital infrastructure connectivity, digital applications for SDG implementation, and the management and use of digital data. She also mentioned the upcoming ministerial conference in Kazakhstan, which aims to enhance digital cooperation at the regional level and will include a WSIS plus 20 regional review.

Felix Guimard from UNECE discussed the importance of establishing digital standards to facilitate trade and transport, highlighting the challenges of digital signatures and identity management in the digital world. Guimard emphasised the role of digital solutions in increasing trustability and accountability, which are crucial for building trust among citizens, civil society, and companies. He also invited participants to UNECE’s upcoming forum on trade facilitation and digital transformation.

Ayman from ESCWA spoke about developing a digital development framework that simplifies the intersection between WSIS Action Lines and the SDGs. He mentioned the Arab digital agenda and proposed sharing their measurement model with other regions to assess and advance digital development. Ayman also suggested that regional commissions could collaborate on knowledge-sharing platforms and participate in each other’s events to foster inter-regional cooperation.

Representatives from various ITU regional offices shared their initiatives, emphasising the role of regional initiatives agreed upon by member states and the importance of aligning efforts with the UN development system. They highlighted the need for synchronisation of activities at the regional level and the incorporation of digital components in SDG forums.

A representative from UNECA provided insights into their initiatives at the national and regional levels, focusing on the implementation of the Africa digital transformation strategy and the importance of digital ID systems. They also discussed UNECA’s role in aligning African priorities within the Global Digital Compact and the upcoming WSIS plus 20 review in Zimbabwe.

In conclusion, Marco Llinás proposed more frequent meetings among regional commissions to share best practices and experiences. He suggested organising seminars on specific digital transformation topics to foster collaboration and extended an invitation to all participants to join the upcoming ECLAC ministerial conference in Santiago. The meeting underscored the importance of inter-regional cooperation in addressing the challenges of digital transformation and bridging the digital divide.

Marco Llinás:
Good afternoon. I would invite you to take a seat. I’m a big fan of punctuality so are we expecting much more people here? Well, I think we should try to get started. Good afternoon everybody. Thank you very much for attending this meeting. I think I got the chance to meet some of you in the previous UNGIS meeting and the UNGIS working group, but let me shortly introduce myself very quickly. My name is Marco Llinás and I’m relatively new at ECLAC and also new to the UN system, so bear with me. At ECLAC, I’m the Director for Production, Productivity and Management, where we lead a very important productive development policy agenda, which is the name that we use for industrial policies, but where we also lead as part of that productive development policy agenda an important digital transformation agenda that I’m going to have the chance to tell you a little bit more about in a second. It’s my first time at WSIS, so I’m feeling like the new kid on the block. So for ECLAC, it’s a real honor to be serving as the incoming chair of the UNGIS-WSIS Regional Commission Meeting for 2024-2025. As you probably already know, the purpose of this meeting is to exchange insights on the advancement of the WSIS action lines and to identify potential avenues for collaboration among the regional commissions. As you know, as regional commissions, we play a pivotal role in bridging the global and local dimensions of digital cooperation. Our deep understanding of regional contexts coupled with our extensive networks and expertise positions us as key actors in articulating and implementing digital policies and initiatives that are tailored to the specific needs of our region. In that sense, and probably it is something that we might want to delve in a little bit later, just wanted to mention that we at ECLAC were pleased that the latest version of the GDC, of the Global Digital Compact, explicitly recognizes in paragraph 66 the role of digital commissions. So before inviting you all to share your experiences and perspective, I would suggest doing a short round of introductions so that we know who we’re working, who are we going to be working with in the next years. So let’s start with Tiziana. You have the floor, Tiziana.

Tiziana Bonapace:
Thank you. Thank you very much, Marco, and a very good afternoon to everyone. I’m Tiziana Bonapace, the Director of the ICT and Disaster Risk Reduction Division of ESCAP. Thank you.

Felix Guimard :
Thank you very much. Felix Gimar, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Well, I’ve been part of ECE for nine years now, mainly focusing on information security and information systems matters. And recently, I’ve also, I’m also taking care of on-trade facilitation issues. And I’m very happy to be with you and very happy to support you, Marco, for this incoming year. Thank you.

Ruth Marlyn:
Thank you, Chair. So hello, everyone. Good afternoon. I’m delighted to welcome all the regional commissions here in Geneva. I’m Ruth. I work for the ITU and part of the WESIS team. And I’m also delighted to actually join by our ITU regional directors here. And I’m looking forward to the discussions to strengthening our regions and, of course, the group. Thank you.

Marco Llinás:
Thank you, Ruth. Let’s, I know that we have some regional directors of ITU, but I give the floor. There, please. Just to introduce yourself. Yeah. Thank you.

ITU panelists:
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. My name is Bruno Ramos. I am the regional director for the Americas region in the ITU. Hello to everyone. My name is Natalia Moccio. I’m the regional director for the CIS region. Thank you. I’m Eros Alpandar, heading for office. Hello, everyone. I’m Emmanuel Manasseh, regional director for Africa. Good afternoon. My name is Atsuko Fukuda, regional director of ITU regional office for Asia-Pacific. Hello, everyone. I’m Andrea Metasova, and I’m the project officer and work with Yaroslav for the Europe office. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Jyoti. I’m interning in the WESIS team. Thank you.

Marco Llinás:
I don’t know, Ruth, if we’re going to finally give the floor to the people that are connected online. So, if the representative from ESCWA can.

Panelist ESCA:
Good afternoon. I’m Rita from ESCWA. Working with Mr. Ayman Sharbini, he’s attending on site, I think.

Marco Llinás:
Thank you very much. I think Ayman told me he might be getting in here a little bit late, but thank you. Who else is online that we should give the floor to? The person from Diplo, can you introduce yourself? No. So, apparently he’s not hearing us. Okay. So, I think we can proceed. So, let me now give the floor to Ruth from ITU, who will serve as my co-host here in this meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Ruth Marlyn:
Thank you, Chair. Again, I would like to congratulate ECLAC, of course, as the new chair and for taking the role of this new chair for the regional commission for the period of 2024, 2025. And, of course, we wish you all the best and we assure you our support to help you in supporting the commission. And also appreciating ESCAP for being here with us and, you know, as the past chair, your contributions, of course, have set a strong foundation for our ongoing efforts. Just, of course, to highlight the regional activities in 2023, 2024. And we, I have to say that we have a really great support and collaboration with our regional commissions. And we work also closely with our regional offices and other regional bodies to implement the WISA section lines and SDGs. And ITU regional offices are really instrumental, of course, in facilitating the participation and engagement of the member states in regional activities and our projects. And, of course, we do encourage continued support and active involvement of these initiatives to further our collective goals. And just to highlight our recent engagements, these include with UNESCAP, ITU has participated in the Asia Pacific Information Superhighway in Armenia in November last year. And it’s great because we invited some of the WSIS prizes 2023 winners in the region. So it’s really highlighting the projects on the ground and for them to share these projects that, you know, could further be leveraged for the region. And with the UNECE, we did participate in the digital transformation, sorry, in the regional forum on sustainable development. I think our ITU director could perhaps share more information on that one. And then the recent one is, of course, Marko. So we participated in the CIPOL event that took place in March this year, where we highlighted our updates on the WSIS Plus 20 review as we are heading towards WSIS Plus 20 in 2025. So we do look forward to strengthening our collaborations in the region. And, of course, looking forward to the discussion in this group on how to strengthen it further. Thank you.

Marco Llinás:
Thank you very much, Ruth, for sharing what you’ve been doing from ITU. Given that the idea of this meeting is sharing what each of the regional commissions is doing in terms of their digital transformation agendas, but also identifying potential areas for collaboration for the next year, let me share with you quickly what we’re doing at ECLAC regarding digital transformation. Probably some of you already heard me. A cornerstone of our efforts at ECLAC in terms of digital transformation is the ministerial conference on the information society in Latin America and the Caribbean, better known as ECLAC, which will hold its next ministerial meeting in November 2024 in Santiago de Chile. This is going to be the ninth ministerial meeting. This conference serves as a crucial forum for dialogue and decision-making on the information society, bringing together governments, the private sector, civil society, academia, and international organizations. So, as you can tell, it is a multi-stakeholder platform. And the digital agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean, which is actually what we concretely call ECLAC, and the ECLAC 2024, which is the current agenda, outlines key policy priorities and strategic actions for the region’s digital transformation, focusing right now on four main axes. First, universal and inclusive digitalization, which means expanding access of ICTs and digital skills with a focus on closing the digital gender gap and reaching marginalized communities. Second, productive and sustainable digital transformation, meaning leveraging technology to enhance productivity, competitiveness, and environmental sustainability across various sectors. Third, digital transformation for social well-being, which means utilizing ICTs to improve education, health care, social protection, and citizen participation. And fourth and last, generation of new alliances, which means fostering collaboration among stakeholders, including governments, the private sector, civil society, and international organizations to achieve our shared digital goals. Despite the wide scope of this agenda, I would like to emphasize today that at ECLAC, we would like the new ELAC agenda that shall be launched in November in Santiago to focus on the scaling up of social and economic utilization of digital technologies. In particular, we are deeply concerned with the low growth and low productivity of our region. As we’ve been saying, our region just finished in 2023 in terms of growth and even more lost decade than the infamous lost decade of the 1980s. And as part of the solution to this low growth situation and stagnant productivity, we are suggesting that countries and their territories scale up and better implement this productive development policies. So as I mentioned on Tuesday, in order to unlock this productivity, we need to increase digital technology adoption by the private sector, in particular by small and medium enterprises. As I would like to put it, this should be also part of this agenda that we call leaving no one behind. And these efforts should be part of a wider agenda of linking digital transformation with productive development policies, which are again the name that we’re giving to industrial policies in the region. So we more than welcome a potential collaboration on this front. And that will be kind of like my very short summary of what we’re doing at ECLAC. And I would like to open the floor for the other regional commissions to share what they’re doing and the potential areas where they see we can put forward collaboration. Tiziana, please go ahead. Thank you very much.

Tiziana Bonapace:
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much, Marco. So from the ESCAP perspective, Asia-Pacific perspective, we have 53 members in our commission, stretching from the Pacific islands, small islands in the Pacific, through to Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia. So very big geographic area. Our key initiative under digital cooperation is the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway Initiative, as Ruth mentioned earlier. And this initiative is really aimed at supporting policies to bridge the digital divide. And Asia-Pacific is the most digitally divided region of the world. On the one hand, there are countries that have really, you know, leapt forward very fast in terms of digital innovation. We, I think, are a region that is emerging as a digital innovation hub. But there are also a number of countries that lag behind and that are in the process of being able to that lag behind, and that are at risk of further lagging behind, particularly as AI becomes a centerpiece of digitally driven innovation. So the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway Initiative is aligned with this, and it has three pillars. The first one is on digital infrastructure connectivity. The second one is on digital applications for SDG implementation. And then the third one is on digital data, the management and use of digital data. And as Ruth also mentioned, back to back with the steering committee of this initiative, we have had annual regional reviews of WSIS and WSIS implementation. And these events have always been, I think, highly appreciated by our member states. Now this year, we have for the first time a meeting at ministerial level. So the ministerial conference is being hosted by the government of Kazakhstan. It will be in Astana from 3 to 5 September. And as part of this conference, we will also have a series of side events, among which we will have WSIS plus 20 regional reviews. once again in close collaboration with ITU as our key partner, as well as UNCTAD given their role through the Commission on STD and the WSIS plus 20 review next year. The focus of the ministerial conference is on digital inclusion and digital transformation. We will be launching our Asia-Pacific digital transformation report, the second edition of this report, and this year we are focusing on digital and climate change. And then as a key outcome of this conference, we are expecting a ministerial declaration. The intention of the ministerial declaration is to set out a vision for enhancing digital cooperation at the regional level. We don’t intend to create new things, but really build on existing cooperation mechanisms, refocus the energies and impart momentum to implementation so that the digital divide can be bridged by 2030. And ministerial decisions are key for this. So I think that’s it and I’m happy to give further details or provide further clarifications as needed. Thank you.

Marco Llinás:
Just as a follow-up question, Tiziana, do you have any ideas on potential areas for collaboration for this fall year?

Tiziana Bonapace:
So Marco, I think maybe we need to discuss a little more in detail among all the commissions, but I think our common challenge is really the digital divide. The second common challenge is how we will deal with AI as regional commissions. The requests, I think, are increasing in terms of requests and I think also suggestions from member states. And I think the key here is that commissions can serve as a dialogue platform, a discussion platform. I think we need maybe to let the standards or the norms evolve at the global level, but at the regional level, I think we can promote the discussion, the dialogue, and there’s a lot of discussion, a lot of dialogue that will be needed. Measurements is another aspect. We discussed that in our UNGES working group meeting this morning, so I think that’s another area of work that is common to all the regional commissions. Now, from an ESCA perspective on AI, we don’t have an explicit mandate on governance of AI. There is to date no consensus that has emerged on that, but we are using AI as a tool for the big earth data analysis, for earth observations, and for the management of disaster risk. So that’s basically how we’re dealing with AI at the moment. Thank you.

Marco Llinás:
Thank you very much, Tiziana, for that summary of what you’ve been doing and for those initial ideas for potential areas for collaboration. Felix, I don’t know if you want to take the floor. Please go ahead.

Felix Guimard :
Sure. Thank you very much, Marco. Well, as a transition with ESCAP, we are very happy to share among our member states the Central Asia region, on which we are collaborating very much through SPECA, but also through some other initiatives and programs. Indeed, our goal as well is to help our member states and to help the stakeholders with whom we’re working on building bridges, not only among themselves, but also through the areas of work. For example, we can combine transport, trade, and environmental issues through common digital programs, for example, by establishing digital equivalence to current standards, to current information exchanges, which are very important both to the governments, but also to private companies, to individuals who are benefiting from this improved digital capabilities. So, one area for work, we have a convention called CMR, which is helping transporting goods and also working with customs. And right now, UNEC is implementing the digital equivalent of the CMR, which not very originally we call eCMR, the electronic version. However, we are also facing several challenges in this area. For example, how do you manage digital signatures? How do you make sure the identity is properly managed and the audibility is taken into account? Because we’re all used to the paper versions of signature and authenticity, but how do you make the equivalence in the digital world? So, we believe that this is where we can help member states, but we can also help each other because it’s not something unique to our region. Everybody is facing that. An additional aspect of our focus on digital transformation is trustability and accountability. So, also, this is something that I briefly mentioned this morning in a previous session. We believe that digital solutions can help us increasing trustability and accountability, which is important for everybody. I mean, building trust is one of the most essential things. It can also help fighting corruption. It can facilitate access for companies all over the world to get integrated in the trade context of our region, but also of neighborhood regions. And we believe this is how digital transformation will not leave anyone behind, but will, on the opposite, bring solutions to everybody, both those who are very advanced. I mean, as you said, some countries are extremely advanced in this area, but some countries also need more support from outside. One concrete example of the work that ECE has been doing is that we have conducted studies on concrete examples on Kyrgyzstan, but also on Moldova, on analyzing their strengths and their weaknesses, both as developing countries, also as landlocked countries, as we know that from the transport and trade perspective, this adds additional challenges. And so, we’ll be happy also to collaborate with other regional commissions in this area. Finally, let me just conclude on our work around trade activities, as we all know that none of our regions is isolated and the trade is really conducted across the regions. So, as part of our trade facilitation section, we are helping developing digital standards, for whom we already have stakeholders coming from Latin America, from Asia, from Africa, and we hope that we can further exchange with regional commissions on better understanding specific needs of your regions, because our goal is to design standards which work for everybody. And we don’t want it to be specific for Europe. This would make absolutely no sense. To conclude, just also to make a bit of self-promotion of our events, in the first half of July, from 8th of July to 12th of July, UNEC is organizing a big forum with also a complementary plenary session on trade facilitation and digital transformation. So, I’m very much happy to invite all of you to attend to our meeting and looking forward to talk with you. Thank you very much.

Marco Llinás:
Thank you very much, Felix, for that summary of what you have been doing at ESSE. I would like to ask you the same question I asked Tiziana. In addition to the things that you’ve been doing, what do you think could be potential areas for collaboration this next year?

Felix Guimard :
Well, I’m very happy that I went after Tiziana. This way, I could think already a little bit getting ready to this question. One answer was already provided during my presentation. So, I think that transport and trade areas are really when we can have not easy but very concrete results from our collaboration. First, by sharing good practices, but also hopefully going beyond and making standards which could apply in all our regions. Another aspect, and this was also slightly present in my initial intervention, let’s think how we can increase transibility and accountability for the sake of serving the citizens, for the sake of serving civil society within our region. We believe that the digital transformation should really put those whom we are to serve first. In Europe, this is something which is present maybe more historically, but helping everybody to use technology to show citizens, to show civil society, but also possibly companies who are also part of the civil society, how the trustability and accountability can help everybody in this digital transformation.

Marco Llinás:
Thank you very much, Felix. I don’t know if Ayman, who I think is connected from UNS co-op, want to chip in and provide a summary of what you’ve been doing. Ayman, please go ahead. The floor is yours.

ITU panelists:
Hi, how are you? First of all, my apologies. I was stuck in a meeting, as I told you an hour ago. Second, regarding our initiatives and main focus areas is in the idea of linking all the action lines of the WSIS with all sustainable development, being a regional commission puts us in this privileged position. The idea was transferred into a practical framework through our development of a digital development framework that simplifies all the intersections between the two worlds in five clusters, and we will be happy to share that with other regional commissions. This can help us also in sharing some kind of case studies, and as well as some indicators that are based on the five clusters. If there is more time, I will be in the room in a couple of minutes. I’m ready, almost there. Thank you.

Marco Llinás:
No worries, Ayman. Thank you very much, and we’ll be waiting for you here. Please be ready for my question on what potential areas for collaboration we could work on for the next year. I don’t know if we’re missing, Ruth, any other regional commission. Sorry? Is anyone from UNECA connected? I don’t think so. If that’s not the case, I would like to give the floor to the regional directors from ITU, so they can also share the agendas they’ve been working with each of the regions. I don’t know who wants to take the floor first.

ITU panelists:
This session, which is very much informative and leading towards strengthening our cooperation with the economic commissions, is up on the heading of the Europe office. From our side, we are very much excited regarding the follow-up to the WISEs, but also strengthening the means towards the implementation of the SDGs, thanks to the digital. At the European level, we are working very closely with the UNECE, where we have established a very firm mechanism, digital transformation group, where ITU Europe office and ITU office for CIS is co-leading this group with the UNECE, putting together all community of UN agencies working around digital. This is anchored under the RCP within the development system. We believe that this is very important that all activities happening at the regional level are also linked to the development system, also providing the support to the country teams, making sure that those being on the ground can really build upon the expertise, guidance, regional trends, and the real impact for the countries. This is very much appreciated by the UN country teams, where also we see that gradually, this digital and ICT is more and more reflected in the SDG frameworks. This is something that WISEs was advocating already for many years from the beginning. This was our dream to have the UN process, which will allow also prioritization of the digital at the country level, at the programmatory level, and also at the level where the UN as the one family can sit at the table together with the government and setting the top prioritization of the actions of the country, but with the support of the UN. On the other hand, of course, the ITU at the regional level has also the priority, which are coming directly from the countries. Here, we are coming to the mechanism of the regional initiatives, which are agreed by the countries based on their inputs coming from the member states and the other stakeholders. We are just kicking off the process of preparation towards the development conference, which will be held in 2025 in the quarter three. A series of the regional preparatory meetings will be held in the beginning of 2025, which offers a great opportunity also for the synchronization of this, what we try to do at the regional level to make sure that the efforts of the implementation of the WISEs at the regional level, those done by the economic commissions, are synchronized with those done at the level of the ITU, but even more important, are synchronized with the efforts and objectives defined by the development system. Therefore, we see a huge value of cooperation, strengthening cooperation with the DCO at the global level and the regional level to make sure that also the all regional players within the context of the digital development are in the discussions and we are supporting each other, building upon the mandates and specific mandates in the given areas towards the impact on the ground. The last item, you were talking about different conferences, different meetings. I think we, together with the economic commission, we find it very important that the SDG for us, held and led by the economic commissions in all five regions, are also incorporating digital components. This is something that is happening already since a few years at the Forum of Sustainable Development. for UN ECE region. We’re very much excited about this development because this gives us also the possibility of providing some concrete inputs towards the discussion at the HLPF level. Being reflected in the final takeaways of the HLPF outcomes. And I think that we should strengthen this mechanism, making sure that it’s also happening in the other regions, at least at the scale which we are doing with the UN ECE. And just closing, I would like to thank you very much to the UN ECE for great collaboration in this regard. Thank you.

Marco Llinás:
Thank you very much, Jaroslav. Who else want to take the floor? Thank you very much and really appreciate to be invited here.

ITU panelists:
Again, I’m Emmanuel Manasseh from the regional office for Africa. In Africa, we’re doing various initiatives on digital transformation and also on creating conducible, the glassware environment that will accelerate the uptake of digital and ICT in various projects that we’re doing. And also we are collaborating with other UN agencies through the UN cooperation framework. Some of the projects that we’re doing includes GovStack that is helping governments to streamline their systems in transforming services that are offered by the government to go digital, but also to be able to scale up based on the needs and demand that raises is more services are transformed, it means more data generated. So GovStack is a framework that’s really helped the governments to collect data once and use many times, but also we have various projects of connecting schools, but not connect and as well as a Giga project. Other projects that we’re doing is National Emergency Telecommunication Planning, which is really helping member states to have their emergency plan for the case of disaster and other unforeseen events. So that one we have done for almost 16 countries with around SADC and we are still strengthening it and we would like also to cooperate with you. The last one I would like to talk is LR warning for all, which also I had some of you are interested with, we’ll be happy to collaborate as well. We have done it to four countries, but the plan is to extend and the original plan was according to UN by 2027, each country should have early warning for all systems, but we are lagging behind. So we’ll be happy to see other commissions collaborating with us to progress this. Thank you very much.

Marco Llinás:
Thank you very much, Emmanuel, for those inputs. And I think someone from ECA is actually raising his or her hand. So we’ll give the floor to the representative from ECA. Go ahead.

Online panelist:
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Sorry for the noise. I’m in the big platform now. At UNECA, we have several initiatives at the regional level and at the continental level. I work at the regional level and at the national level. At the national level, our work is focused how to implement the digital transformation, Africa digital transformation strategy. The unique blueprint for Africa digital development in the continent. We have supported several countries to implement also their national digital strategy on digital technology. As well as we have a more focus also on digital IT. As you know, we are in the continent where 500 million of people doesn’t have any legal form of identity. And we focus more on supporting some countries and we focus more on supporting some countries to develop their digital IT like Nigeria, Gambia, Botswana, through digital use case also. This is something we do at UNECA. On AI also, we work with, we already established this African Center of Artificial Intelligence in Congo, Brazzaville. And we work with the government to build this center and to make it operational. As well as in this, on the development skill, it is very important to build the skill of the young generation. We are working with the government of Rwanda to establish a skill center in Kigali. As well as, as you know, cybersecurity is a big issue in the continent. We’re still working with the government of the world to establish the African cybersecurity in Lomé. And now we have also support from World Bank to join us to develop, support the development of the business plan of the new center. At the regional level, we have also several initiatives like, but this year we focus more on the GDT, how African priority can be taken into consideration in the GDT. And we organized several regional forum on the GDT to have more than 34 African member states to be part of this meeting on South Africa. And then they provide quite a good input for the GDT. And then last week, when we get the first draft, we organized several side, several discussion, webinar with several parts, but private sector, government, youth on the discussion on the zero draft to see how private African country have been taken into consideration in this zero draft of the GDT. We organized very good, interesting meeting with UNV, UN university on a deep dive on the data regarding the global digital compact. And we plan also to organize a WSIS plus 20 in July in Zimbabwe, Victoria, Poland, and to discuss how we can align the WSIS with the GDT as well as with the IGF, Internet Governance Forum. And to think about also the WSIS action line, because there is a lot of discussion about the level action line. If we need to change it, if we need to propose a new, there are several ideas on the table and we’ll discuss during this WSIS plus 20, Africa WSIS plus 20 in Zimbabwe to come up with a strong proposal on the WSIS action line and how we can align the GDT to the Internet Governance Forum as well as to WSIS. And also we are planning to organize the Africa Internet Governance Forum by November, probably in Ethiopia, and also the AI Summit in Mozambique, probably in July, we are going to have a meeting with the government of Mozambique next week. Overall, I think we have a lot of, we work also with several organization, UN organization. We are partnering with ITU on the Africa, on the Connect Africa for the school. And we are making progress on that. We work also with other UN organization, UNESCO, UNCTAD and UNIDO. And we are ready also to continue to collaborate with all UN agency. And also we would like to propose a meeting on the UN Regional Commission to come up with a proposal on the WSIS at the regional level. And I think it is something we can align our position on that to come up with one solid proposal on how we are going to plan and organize this WSIS Regional Forum, because it is a role of the UN Commission to organize this. And we need to align all our five commission on what are the expectations and what we need to, what kind of information we need to share during this WSIS Regional Forum. These are some input I would like to provide. And thank you very much. And sorry also for the noise, it’s difficult to talk here. Thank you.

Marco Llinás:
Thank you very much, Magdar, for your inputs. I know that we already ran out of time because this meeting is scheduled to go until 2.45, but I just want some additional and short interventions for the people that want to take the floor. Actually, Ayman has asked me for the floor. So go ahead, Ayman.

ITU panelists:
Thank you so much. Actually, building up on what I’ve said, 10, 15 minutes ago, we have developed a model for the digital development, simplified model between the WSIS Action Lines and the 2030 Agenda SDGs. And we use this model in two different aspects. First, we use it for assessing the situation of ICT and ICT4D at the national level, at the regional level. And the second thing that we use it in advancing or targeting a change in the region through that model also, as well at the national and the regional level. So simply speaking, we have worked on national digital development reports and Arab digital development reports. And then we worked on an Arab digital agenda for like six to eight years after the conclusion of the elapsing Arab ICT strategy, there was a void. And ESCO joint forces with the League of Arab States and all its member countries, in addition to all our UN bodies and our less subsidiaries, League of Arab States subsidiaries to work together to develop the Arab digital agenda 2033. And we have managed to fill that void, not only by having a strategy per se, no, actually we have an agenda, similar like the 2030 agenda in the sustainable development, we have it in the digital development world. We develop the digital and we use the digital for development. We have 35 goals and we have also a measurement model, maturity measurement model that we use in assessing and advancing using targets. Our agenda has been approved by the heads of states in the Arab region and has been also including of a very robust deployment mechanism. So some of these elements can be a room for answering the question of joint cooperation. For example, why not that we share this model and we have also a plan to do national digital agendas. So why don’t we do like doping or interoperability with other regional agendas and measure or pilot the measurement in other countries in other regions and we compare notes and so on and so forth. So this can be a very important project for inter-regional, let us say capacity building, DA project between regional commissions across the world to build capacities of member countries in assessing and advancing their digital development across all regions. This is one thing. Part of the measurement itself can be a project and we share it with a partnership on measurement that we discussed in the morning on this. The third thing we has also collaboration partnership framework. We have data bank for all the projects in the region, digital projects in the region and we need to like twin them or also synergize. So why don’t we do it across regions as well? Because it makes more sense. I have once led a dialogue between Asia and Arab region on digital economy, it makes more sense. So this kind of platforms we have already, we can work on, share what we have, not duplicate and so on. This is a story of the instrument related to knowledge. Other story related to instruments, related to advocacy. We have had last week an important event consultation on the WSIS and GDC, which is a talk of the year and it was very successful. And we wished we had time to invite all our sister regional bodies to be part of it. But we will try really and we suggest to become a norm that each one of us has like a slot for two or three guests from the other regions for every mega event we do, this way we can also share and connect the dots between the regions. So this consultation was successful. We need to do more of it or to share or contribute with you on what you intend to do, I know with CSTD in the next few months after or before the GDC. And last not least, we are organizing the IGF in the Arab region this year. And we open invite all our regional commissions to be part of our workshops on internet fragmentation or an open forum for original commissions. So there is very quick wins that are low hanging fruits. We can do it together. Thank you so much.

Marco Llinás:
Thank you, Ayman. I think Atsuko would be kind of like the last person or I don’t know if somebody else, Atsuko, go ahead.

ITU panelists:
Also I wanted to speak, so let me be very brief. And I’m very happy to share with you that we have an excellent relationship and partnership with ESCA. For example, we were invited to AI seminars organized by the Energy Division, Trade Division, Transport Division, and of course, Social Division. And on the work of statistics, we are currently discussing a collaboration on data analytics. So I believe that we are capitalizing on the cross-sectoral role of regional commissions to cross the work and introduce ITU’s AI work, for example, to be mainstreamed in those key sectors of economy and society. And thank you, Ayman, for your proposal. I would like to also share with all of you that ITU opened a new area office and innovation center inaugurated by the Prime Minister Modi of India to promote digital innovation, which is global in nature. So we will cover the global activities where there’s a demand and such activities would benefit. And I look forward to working with all of you through our innovation center. And without further ado, I’d like to give the floor to my colleague, Natalia, who also raised her hand. Thank you very much. I will take literally a minute because as you might know, the CIS region is covered by the, or is part of the two economic commissions, UNICEF and UNESCO. And I think my colleagues, Yaroslav and Natsuko, have shared what is happening in those regions. So basically I am working jointly with my colleagues and with the colleagues from economic commissions to support the countries in the region, to benefit or to multiply the impact and the benefit of being part of two regions with regard to SPECA, which is specifically for North and Central Asia. Indeed, this year there was a meeting in this region in Armenia that I think was mentioned at the beginning. Later in June, at the end of June, we’ll have another meeting of the working group on innovation and, which I do not recall the full name, but nevertheless, it will take place in Bishkek. And my team will also be attending and sharing about GovStack rollout in the region and other developments. So I think in this sense, we try to use the synergies and the benefits of being in both regions to enhance or bring in as much as possible to the countries. So with this, we remain at your disposal and happy to collaborate and continue to strengthen our engagement. And I’m very happy to hear the confirmation from Tiziana on the ICT ministerial conference, which I’m sure we’ll be in touch on. Thank you very much, colleagues.

Marco Llinás:
Thank you, Atsuko and Natalia, for those last comments. We have to do a very quick wrap up because I know there’s a meeting coming right after. But first of all, I just wanted to thank for sharing all the things that you’re doing in your respective commissions and your respective agendas. Actually, I would like to, and it’s one of my proposals and with a suggestion in line with the proposal being put forward at the UNGIS is that we should try to meet more frequently. I think there’s a lot of best practices and experience here that we should try to share. So you’ll be hearing from us to convene these meetings. I would also suggest not only meeting more frequently, but actually thinking on probably doing some seminars on some specific topics. I think many of the topics that you put today on the floor are very interesting for all the regional commissions. So I think that will be a way of actually fostering the collaboration. And finally, you are all invited to join us in November for our ministerial conference in Santiago for the ILAC meeting taking place in Santiago. And it’s gonna be the ninth ministerial and we will be more than happy to have you there. Thank you very much again and we’ll keep in contact. Thank you.