Video transcript: Highlights of UN General Assembly 2020 Side Event 'Action Today for Future Generations'

 

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António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General: In my roadmap for digital corporation I made a call to connect, respect and protect all people everywhere. I count on all of us, government civil society and the private sector, to carry forward the road map for the benefit of all. The time is to act now.

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H.E. Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister, Bangladesh: Around half of the world's population do not have access to basic internet. We must close this gap.

Henrietta Fore, Executive Director, UNICEF: Hundreds of millions of children and young people are unable to access learning and skills. Quite simply, they're losing out on an opportunity to build better futures for themselves.

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Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web, Co-Founder, Web Foundation and CTO Inrupt: This century we must lead a global push to connect everyone and make sure all children have access to the internet's transformational benefits.

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Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairman, Bharti Enterprises: If you really want to achieve the SDGs in the next 10 years, the only and only way is to rely on technology and that is digital technology connectivity.

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Jayathma Wickramanayake, UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth: I think I speak for young people and the digital native generation that the risk of having our human rights violated through surveillance, repression, censorship, and online harassment are what we are most concerned about.

H.E. Simonetta Sommaruga, President, Swiss Confederation: International law, including human rights law, applied to the digital space in the same way as they apply offline. All states have a duty to protect and respect human rights and human dignity in this space.

Nick Read, CEO, Vodafone Group: Companies must accept that they have a duty of care towards their users and take steps to prevent the spread of harmful or illegal content that they host.

H.E. Erna Solberg, Prime Minister, Norway: It is our joint responsibility to counter this and misinformation and to join forces to close the digital divide.

Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook Inc.: We want an open universally accessible internet with safety and respect for human rights at its heart.

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H.M. Queen Silvia of Sweden: Leaving no one offline means ensuring that everyone is safe online, especially children.

Brad Smith, President, Microsoft: First, we have a huge responsibility to put in place protections and safeguards around security, around privacy, around online safety.

Sinead Bovell, Futurist, Founder, Waye: In a world where a new child goes online every half second, it is time we bring proper regulations security measures and universal standards to the online world for young people.

H.E. Epsy Cambell Barr, Vice-President, Costa Rica: It is of utmost importance to address and eradicate the experience of discrimination and exploitation in digital world, especially for girls and adolescents.

H.E. Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister, New Zealand: We need considerable and again collaborative multi-stakeholder work to ensure that we rid ourselves of some of the things that undermine the benefits of digital technology.

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Jack Ma, Co-Chair of the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation: Over the next 10 years how the world adapts to the digital area will be very, very important. We have no choice but to understand engage and embrace the digital area.

[Read more: un.org/techenvoy/]