Opening remarks by Mr. Mogens Lykketoft, President of the 70th session of the General Assembly, at Stakeholder Consultation on the Review of the implementation of the outcomes of the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
19 October 2015
His Excellency Mr. Jānis Mažeiks, Ambassador of Latvia; Assistant Secretary General Mr. Lenni Montiel, ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to the second stakeholder consultation on the overall review of the implementation of the outcomes of the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society.
This review provides us with an excellent opportunity to do two things. First, to take stock of the progress made toward achieving the vision of a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society during the past decade. And second, to address the many challenges we face in this area today, including the digital divide within and among countries, internet stability and security, data ownership, privacy, freedom of information and the exercise of human rights online.
And with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development agreed by world leaders, a little over three weeks ago, the timing could not be better. Through the 2030 Agenda, we now have a comprehensive and integrated framework through which to advance efforts to end poverty and promote shared prosperity, peace and sustainability globally.
Science, technology and innovation, and in particular Information and Communications Technology, has been identified as crucial to implementing the new goals. And a multi-stakeholder approach which helped produce the new Agenda, is at the core of the transformation envisaged. We must therefore take advantage of this review in order to build synergies between our efforts to achieve the WSIS vision and the SDGs.
In some respects, this is not such a tall order because multi-stakeholder cooperation has already played a crucial role in the implementation of the WSIS outcomes over the last decade. In many countries, a wide range of stakeholders have made remarkable contributions to economic and social development by encouraging innovation and investment in ICT, and by leveraging ICT to promote dialogue across borders, to provide tools for disaster response and enable knowledge sharing on matters of health, human rights and education.
As we redouble efforts toward achieving the WSIS vision and the SDGs, it is essential that this multi-stakeholder cooperation is facilitated and strengthened at national, regional and international levels. It is critical that international cooperation is stepped up to assist developing countries to address infrastructure gaps, to facilitate technology development and transfer and to improve capacities in leveraging ICT for development.
As President of the General Assembly, I am committed to ensuring that all relevant WSIS stakeholders can participate in this review process in accordance with resolution 68/302.
At the first consultation convened last July by my predecessor Mr Sam Kutesa, stakeholders discussed the many aspects of this subject and provided valuable inputs. Based on your inputs and those of other stakeholders, the co-facilitators have now prepared and issued a zero draft. Through three panels – focussing on ICT for development; Internet governance; human rights and building confidence and security in the use of ICTs – we now seek your comments on that zero draft, which in turn, will feed into the inter-governmental negotiations.
In order to allow broad participation, we have set up a live chat via Twitter using the hashtag “Ask WSIS 10” through which interested stakeholders can raise questions and actively engage in the discussions throughout the day.
I wish you a productive day of discussions.
Thank you.