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: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the Fourth High Level Session that is themed Access and Innovation for Revitalizing the SDGs. We are more than pleased to be having you all here back again. I am a journalist, news editor with Nepal television, so I'm basically based in Kathmandu and do get opportunities like this to be a part of the assembly of minds like this, and it indeed is a matter of great privilege.
We are now getting the stage set and please welcome my set of distinguished panelists who will be joining us here at the high level session fourth.
It is with much pleasure we welcome all panelists as they take on the stage, Ladies and Gentlemen. This is requesting all our panelists to kindly be seated. Your name plates have been put on the tables next to your seats, so it won't take less than a minute to find your places.
Thank you so much. It is such a pleasure to see all of you here. So pleased to see you here again. Let's get to business right away. As I have been saying, this the fourth high level session here at the 18th IGF, and it is themed Access and Innovation for Revitalizing the SDGs. SDGs are very central to bringing the entire globe and the stakeholder communities to create a synergy, so as to create a synergy amongst all of the actions, inputs, efforts towards creating, attaining the development goals and that also in an equitable and inclusive manner.
We have, I think, talked much about this even in the preceding sessions where we did talk about the SDGs, about how, what is the status of some of the SDGs or the majority of the SDGs and how far we are and how much we need to add impetus in order to meet to the pace among all stakeholders to reach the goals we have set for us.
Inequality as stated by the major panelists in all of these sessions that preceded in the morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, you could all see that their reflection was uni vocal, and they were in consensus to state that inequality, and there are other newer challenges like climate change that are emerging in front of us, in addition to our traditional problems that have posed a lot of challenges and threats even for us to keep that pace and to reach the SDGs that we have set for ourselves.
So unequal access to opportunities and basic service as we all know such as education and healthcare, these obstruct the path, these are obstructing the path of sustainable development. Now, leveraging digital solutions can bridge historically persisting gaps as well as help us, as I said earlier, help us through innovative technologies and innovative solution, curtail and prevent newer challenges like climate change and so forth.
And applying digital technologies to secure their maximum benefit entails a specific commitment to integrating rights at every milestone of SDGs. Equality and non‑discrimination are central as we all know to the goals, especially to the, as we all know sustainable development relies on a strong rights regime that includes peaceful and inclusive societies and ensures public access to information and freedom of expression.
The synergy between access and innovation is not merely aspirational. It's a pragmatic strategy for revitalizing the SDGs and digital technology supported by effective policy can address multiple challenge.
This would be the food for deliberation in course of this one‑hour plus long session with our host of panelists. Allow me to introduce our distinguished panelists for the session. Beginning with His Excellency Junhua Li, the United Nations Under Secretary‑General for Economic and Social Affairs. Welcome to the panel.
Likewise, we are pleased to have Ms. Karoline Edstadler, Federal Minister for European Union and the Constitution Austria. Equally pleased we are to be welcoming Mr. Tshilidzi Marwala, Rector, United Nations University. In fact, we are very, very pleased to have Ms. Nanako Ishido professor, Keio University Graduate School of Media Design. It's a pleasure to have Mr. Mohamed Shareef Honorable Minister of State For Environment and Climate, Maldives. We are very much pleased to have Mr. Masanori Kondo, the Secretary‑General Asia‑Pacific telecommunications community.
We are also pleased to have Lise Fuhr, Director General, European Telecommunications Network Operators Association, and last but not least we have Mr. Kojo Boakye, the Vice President, Public Policy Africa, Middle East and Turkiye from Meta. A warm welcome to all of our distinguished panelists. Now, without further ado, let us quickly dive into the questions we have set for the day.
I would put forth a host of questions relating to the theme and would come to you turn‑wise. First and foremost, let's begin with the UN Under Secretary‑General himself. What do you think are some current global examples of leveraging digital solutions for the achievement of specific SDGs?
>> JUNHUA LI: Well, thank you, moderator.
Good afternoon. It's good to be with you this afternoon for this very outstanding issue. I'm so glad to hear from you digital is linked to the attainment of the SDGs in almost all aspects. From the UN Secretariat, we certainly believe digitization offers a very unique opportunities in many areas, and it's the key to achieving the SDGs.
For instance, digital solutions can improve the financial inclusion, increase effectiveness of public services and also accelerate climate action, education and hunger and poverty eradication.
So us, digital solution is more than technology and infrastructure. It is about tackling complex human challenges and to achieve the sustainable development.
Digital solutions should be guided by priorities and principles obtained in 2030 Development Agenda. As well as the pressing needs for Developing Countries, because we know when we implemented our SDGs goals in the 2030 Agenda, now, we don't have any satisfactory data to indicate that we achieved enormously actually. On the contrary, we left far behind. Almost all of the SDGs targets are off track. Only 15% are on track.
So the world leaders gathered in New York, adopted the Political Declaration by consensus, they recommitted themselves to take bolder action to bridge the gaps, bridge the divides, including to spread the benefits of digitization and expand participation of all countries, he is verbally Developing Countries.
That is why I am absolutely convinced that we need to embrace and harness the digitization. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much for vouching for technology and digital sector as a tool to speed up the needed approaches or energy for reaching the SDGs. Moving to Ms. Karoline Edstadler, the federal minister, what would be your thoughts to these particular questions?
>> KAROLINE EDSTADLER: First of all.
Thank you so much for the invitation. I think this High‑Level Panel is an important one and imam possible for implementing SDGs in Austria, so we are presenting the second review and we will present it in July in New York.
While I think we find ourselves in a watershed moment, and if I'm talking about we, I mean the whole international community, we have artificial intelligence in all of our hands. Everyone is using it. We use it in so many fields, and I think that this emerging technologies will be the key drivers in so many fields. Turning to one of my focus topics, the human rights side of view, I would see that we can easily use it in a better way to have the necessary skills to use it also to gather information, to organize gatherings and discussing things, and I would say this would help a lot to express and exchange opinions and thoughts freely to gather information, and, yes, organize peaceful assemblies.
So we find ourselves in a world where nearly everything is different than we thought only a few months ago, and these days and these hours we get also horrifying information from Israel, so I would say that these new technologies should be used in the best way also to get the knowledge and the information regarding human rights, and democracy to really install the rule of law everywhere, and make the world a better one.
This is really needed at that moment.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you Honorable Minister.
Let's move to Maldives, a nation that is in the forefront of suffering the consequences of climate change. If you could share your perspectives on some global examples of leveraging digital solutions for the achievement of SDG's.
>> TSHILIDZI MARWALA: Lem me thank the Secretary‑General and UNDESA for inviting us and letting us have a say here. When we look at global examples, global examples of how (Mohamed Shareef) digital can be utilized in achieving the SDGs, we have SDG1 and 2, talking about no hunger, and talking about zero poverty. If you look at the statistics over 2 billion people still do not have a bank account.
But we already know from practice that access to digital financial service is a wonderful method to lift people out of poverty. So there are global initiatives who are working on this. If you look at hunger, for example, smart agriculture. This is where emerging tech comes to play.
Technologies like artificial intelligence, Cloud Computing, sensors, drones, Blockchain can be utilized and already are being put to use in smart agriculture, vertical farming so that we can tackle SDG2.
If you look at SDG 9, for example, industry, innovation, and infrastructure, efficient and affordable ICT infrastructure and services will help countries like ours engage in the digital economy and boost our global competitiveness.
So, and this is happening. This is happening not just in the developed world. This is happening in the developing as well as the least developed world that we are investing in digital to do this. In the Maldives if you take the example of the Maldives over the last year and a half, we have been focused on upgrading our digital identity systems.
Public digital infrastructure is one of the key technologies we need to look at when we want to expedite the delivery of SDGs. As the UN SG has pointed out, we are behind. We are very, we are ‑‑ it looks like we will miss our target for the people, planet and prosperity.
So prioritizing public digital infrastructure like digital identity can help tackle things like SDG 1, poverty, SDG 2, hunger, and also things like gender equality.
So if you look at SDG 16, particularly 16.9, there is a provision to provide legal identity for everyone by 2030. I think if we can do that and concentrate on other public digital identity, other public digital infrastructure, like financial, digital finance, like digital agriculture, we can definitely expedite at the pace at which we are achieving the SDGs today. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you Honorable Minister let me turn to the experts from the policy leaders now. Just a reminder in case you are not aware of it, we have a timer on the screens, so your time ends before the color of the timing changes. This is just drawing your attention. Thank you so much for your kind understanding.
So moving to the pool of experts now on the very question, let us begin with Ms. Lise Fuhr, the Director General of European telecommunications network operators association.
>> LISE FUHR: For us, digital is an interesting concept when we think about the SDGs. There is no specific SDG about digital development or digital governance, and if you look at it with the lens of 2023, we see digital technologies and AI assume even a greater role in all parts of our lives.
So digital solution actually pervade many of the SDGs in some way, mostly in relation to harnessing of high quality connectivity to make the world a better place or the uptake of vital skills. So this year the UN SDG report highlights some of the places where digital can help us strive towards the SDGs and places where digital shortcomings are holding us all back. So let's look at SDG 4, that is quality education.
This is, of course, linked to eliminating poverty, goal one, decent work and economic growth, goal 8, and reduced inequalities, goal 10. Connectivity is fundamental, but if there is no access to devices, the networks remain unused.
So connectivity and devices are a huge step forward, and indeed billions of people today, of course, use the Internet, but we also see skills are lacking, meaning that the full benefit cannot be realized.
So when digital solutions are properly divided, connectivity, devices and skills, digital is an extremely powerful tool for achieving these people‑centred SDGs. I would like to add that we are seeing digital solutions being used right across the economy society, supporting challenge mitigation, making industry and agriculture more sustainable and making our cities, not only less harmful to the environment, but also more livable. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Let us hear Meta’s perspective now.
>> KOJO BOAKYE: Thanks very much and very pleased to be here and I thank the audience for the attention. A couple of things I have heard as my learned friends have spoken, one about the fact that we actually can't rely on the fact that people having access to broadband networks as the recent Broadband Commission suggests 95% are within range of a network, it doesn't mean that everybody has access to broadband or indeed the technologies that offer so much promise in terms of AI.
So I wanted to stress that point. 2.6 billion people remain offline and wouldn't have access to broadband or to innovative technologies that ride upon it. I will provide a concrete example in a way in which tech could be used to achieve the SDGs. Meta has been working for more than ten years using AI. Some of the biggest investments we have made using AI are in our connectivity work.
I spoke on a panel this morning about the many investments we have made in connectivity so I won't belabor the point, a positive externality was our quick understanding but when it came to understanding where people were, population density, information was scarce or poor. Even when we had census data, it didn't tell us where most people lived.
It told us broadly where they were, but not where they lived. We took a step where we took some AI satellite imagery, and applied that to the census data as well to produce some of the world's most sophisticated population density maps in collaboration with the University of , Columbia University. We then open sourced that and open sourced that to the UN humanitarian data exchange for more than 150 countries. Those maps are used by everybody from the World Bank to particular Governments and universities who are trying to drive the kind of impact we want to see on Sustainable Development Goals.
So this is just a shout out to AI in the first part and positive externalities that come from trying to achieve some business goals at the same time, and also a shout‑out basically because what I have heard ‑‑ I'm just ten seconds over -- from what I heard from New York that there is so much opportunity and risk. We understand the risk, but so much opportunity offered by AI that we are at an inflection point where we need to take that opportunity. I'm very, very keen to have a discussion about all of that now.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for this pro found sharing and your special emphasis on the positive sides. To Ms. Nanako Ishido, the Professor at Keio university.
>> NANAKO ISHIDO: I thank you, and welcome everybody to Japan. I would like to introduce the initiative as a solution towards achieving the SDGs goal 4 which aims to provide quality education for all. Before the outbreak of COVID‑19, Japan was behind in integrating digital technology into school education. We were in fact ranked lowest amongst OECD countries in terms of both infrastructure development and effective digital technologies.
However, the pandemic hit us in a significant sense. Japan gave device too every student. That marked a major step towards bridging the digital divide. We commenced this initiative in 2020 and from what I hear, it's been going pretty smoothly with no, with no significant setbacks.
I believe this could serve as a valuable example globally to ensure that everyone has digital literacy. It is crucial to provide equal access to digital learning environment of our educational institutions. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Professor thank you for your warm words and even personally I believe Japan is such a best suited hub for a forum like IGF because personally I believe so, and I'm sure many of you do agree with me that there is so much to learn for many of us, especially the curious minds and the aspiring hearts from the journey of Japan and from the achievements that Japan has achieved so far.
Thank you so IGF Secretariat and to the host country representing the panel. Let's move on and let's, yes, as we are focusing on Asia and Asia‑Pacific telecommunication community must have a lot to share with us based on their experience and their observation. Moving to Mr. Masanori Kondo, the Secretary‑General of Asia Pacific telecommunity. What are the regulatory policy and other challenges in promoting and implementing digital solutions for revitalizing the SDGs and achieving the Agenda 2030?
>> MASANORI KONDO: I would like to express my appreciation to the IGF Secretariat for inviting me for this very important session as well as the host country, Japan, for its hospitality.
With regard to the question, what are the challenges in promoting and implementing digital solution, keeping in mind that the theme of this session is accessibility, of course, accessibility, especially affordable accessibility is very important, and in this aspect, I think both technology and policies continue to be updated, but based on my experience in the organisation, I would like to share one thing here today.
So on site people don't introduce digital solutions not because they cannot use it, but because they don't think it is necessary. So people have their own daily life and business and they are too busy to introduce new things that requires time and effort to learn to use.
So then it is necessary to promote innovation including innovative idea that makes things attractive enough to move from status quo to new challenges. So but at the same time innovation doesn't come from a survey or questionnaires for potential users. So we need to keep in mind that it is important to have entrepreneurship spirit on the supply side who try to promote digital solutions.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Mr. Masanori Kondo. Coming to Ms. Karoline Edstadler, as a policy leader what are your thoughts about this?
>> KAROLINE EDSTADLER: Well, I think that we have to do, especially one thing, we have to connect the unconnected and we have to reconnect the disconnected because there is also a big danger in artificial intelligence and all of the new technologies because we risk that there is reinforcing of existing social and economic inequalities. And it was already mentioned on this panel also we saw that it is needed to have all of these technologies to stay connected, especially during COVID‑19 it was something where we saw firsthand how important this technology is.
Then we saw a boost of getting this new technologies to universities, to schools, to even elder people who used it to get in touch with their, on, grandsons and granddaughters, and it became normal. But now we really have to see that we get it in all of the fields of the SDGs also, and also as Lisa mentioned maybe we need SDGs for the Internet especially to do so and to be really on the right side. It was mentioned it is important for SDGs 4 and SDG8, access to education and employment, you have a lot of chances lying in these fields but also SDG3 as it was mentioned by you, Lise, I think it's important especially in times where we have a lack of trained people in nearly all of the fields of our lives, and this could really help us to facilitate these things, but the pre‑condition is to connect all of the unconnected people, and to see not only from the perspective of the western world, but also from the Global South.
And I think this is a big challenge we only can do it if we strengthen our forces together.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you Honorable Minister. Moving to the academia Mr. Tshilidzi Marwala, you have heard from the policy leaders and experts. What is your observation on the challenges facing the dill solutions for reviewing SDGs.
>> TSHILIDZI MARWALA: Thank you very much for the invitation, I think there are actually two main challenges. The first one is governance, and, of course, in governance the principles are actually quite simple. We should maximize the good use of AI and minimize the bad use of AI. And what are some of these good uses? We have talked about agriculture, which deals with SDG 1 and 2, health, education, and governance.
The second one is access. And access here means access to data. I used to be Director of the University of Joe harness burg and during COVID and when we sent people home, it was clear that not everybody has access to data. And we had to go and buy data packs for students, which was quite expensive for more than 50,000 students.
And the second one is access to technology. Maybe just back on the data today we talked about data flow between countries and so on, so forth, and security around the governance that we shall not forget. The second one is technology, whether it is devices, if I were to go back to my experience in Johannesburg, procuring 26,000 devices within basically weeks is not actually quite easy.
So we need to ensure that we are able to train countries to be able to, especially small countries to work together with other countries so that they can have economies of scale when they are buying these technologies. I see my time is up. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Thank you Mr. Tshilidzi Marwala. I want to stay with you with my other question. We in a way agree that SDGs are very much critical in promoting prosperity, equality, and also the emerging, the newer problems, that is the consensus among all. If you could shed light on which SDGs are lagging behind in terms of unlocking the value of digital solutions?
>> TSHILIDZI MARWALA: Well, I mean maybe just in general, we are lagging behind in almost all SDGs. Only 15% of SDGs we are actually off the goals, the indicators, we have actually met our goals. About 50% of them we are off track and the rest we are worse than we were before. So we are lagging quite behind.
Now, if I were to answer your question specifically on unlocking digital opportunities, it is quite clear that education is at the forefront of that. And education here varies from the specialist education to just digital literacy.
Digital literacy is actually becoming a human rights issue. My mother who received an old age pension in South Africa is supposed to be able to use these devices and I have taught her you to use these devices to collect her pension rather than go in a queue for hours. So education is quite important across the board.
And the second thing is infrastructure. We need infrastructure to be able to use these technologies. And then the third thing is data. Again, the issue of data. They say data is the new oil. I don't like the word oil. I hope data is going to be a much, much better form of oil in terms of renewability.
But those are some of the things that we need to do in order to unlock. And, of course, the issues of IP, access to IP becomes very important. There is a certain level of minimum IP that is required for us to be able to deal with issues of climate change, and, therefore, it is important that that technology is unlocked and then we will be able to deal with climate change. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Certainly, as you said, from a tool to an element of human rights, the change or the shift has been so quick that now we are really with the challenge of having to match pace and put things in order.
So on this pretext, may I turn to Ms. Lise Fuhr, the Director General of European telecommunications network operators association on this very question.
>> LISE FUHR: Yes, and let me start with being frank. I might be biased, but this is supported by also some very frank facts. The world is not on track to achieve gender equality by 2030. The UN SDG report finds that at current rate it will take 140 years to achieve equal representation, leadership in the workplace, 140. But also states that only 22 of the researchers in cutting edge fields like AI and others are women. So we lack women also in research.
Women are still only 40% of graduates in computer science and informatics. So let me say that SDG 5 is lagging behind. We need more women in leadership, we need more women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. So this is due to the fact that if you don't include women, we don't unlock the full value of digital solutions.
So if we don't have women, we cannot reduce bias in, for example, training data from machine learning models, but there are, of course, digital solutions which in turn can help achieve equality. So the UN finds that owning a mobile phone is a vital tool for connecting women to other people and giving them crucial access to information and education, but the gap remains far too high still.
Also if we look at other SDGs such as industry, innovation and infrastructure, SDG 9, I think it has been mentioned here and it is crucial, we find that while 95% of the world has at least 3G mobile broadband access, connecting the final stretch is extremely difficult, and there again connectivity is only part of the puzzle. I think it needs to be followed with skills. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for being so precise. Over to the Honorable Minister of state of the Maldives, what is your take on this?
>> MOHAMED SHAREEF: Thank you.
I think it's clear from the answers given by the two panelists before that we are definitely behind. In fact, 30% of the SDGs targets have either stalled or gone in reverse. So now, which SDG, or which technology is failing which SDG or is technology failing the SDGs? I think that's a complex question. But what is actually quite interesting to note of, I think the answer has already been given so I would like to present an alternative phrasing of it, I think the important thing is to make sure nobody is left behind.
So if you look at the Maldives, for example, we have got over 15% of our population who still don't use Internet. Over 7% of the population still don't have a smartphone. So I think we have got the foundation, we have got to get the foundations, and I think you have heard about those foundations, making sure we have digital literacy, making sure SDGs 5, we have got to get the other half of the population in play otherwise we are never going to reach our targets that we set for ourselves for 2030.
Only half of the population works. That's not going to work. That's never going to be able to achieve the targets we set for ourselves. So we know that. So we are going to have to concentrate on the vulnerable populations. So we have to actually look at Digital Inclusion. We have to look at digital accessibility to make sure that all SDGs are supported by the new technologies.
As much as we like to talk about AI, Blockchain, earth monitoring stations, well, I'm from the Maldives so for us important, digital technologies have to start from the people, and how do we get them on board? How, for example, in the Maldives we make sure that the rest of the 15% are in the digital world, and the rest of the 7% have access to smartphones that can unlock those responsibilities for smart health, smart agriculture, smart fisheries, protection of and adapting to extreme weather that we face.
So ultimately it's about stakeholders working together to kind of build those foundations at the grassroots level, making sure that our civil society is also part of the solution, and the Government and the industry works together.
It is extremely nice to have the big platform up here as well with the Government and academia. Everyone needs to work with this.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you indeed over to Mr. Kojo Boakye with your impressions of this.
>> KOJO BOAKYE: I will make a quick correction. There is a part of the SDGs that speaks to universal Internet access anybody that drills down and was around in 2014 knows that 9C speaks to the needs of connecting people in the least developed country. It does speak to it. The people that wrote the SDGs and finalized them assumed the ICT would be mainstreamed within.
Like my colleagues, I'm not completely too optimistic about our ability to achieve it at this time unless we make the bold steps so I will not go through each of the SDGs that we are failing to get to or look like we are going to fail to get to in part because of their interconnectedness. They are all dependent on each other.
You can't remove or decrease poverty and the impacts of poverty if the environment isn't right. There is an interconnection between them. One of the things I feel we are doing well on and it may be an echo chamber I'm in so it may be careful is the idea around partnership. I know SDGs 17 is around partnership for sustainability, but I believe partnership towards all SDGs goals is particularly important. I say in part because of Meta's partnership. Meta has developed these population density maps as well as other AI‑driven solutions that we think will have an impact on the SDGs.
As part of that there is a partnership with more than 700 institutions. World Bank, international organisation of migration, UNHCR as well as other academic institutions. What we have seen, this is why I'm infused by it, is what we have seen is an impact on, for example, Holt immunization programmes in Malawi, clean water and Sanitation, goal 6, in Rwanda and Zambia, electrification maps in places like Benin and Somalia and much more. So for that reason, yes, we are far away, but as we all know about this, and I have to be careful about the echo chamber, ICTs can have profound impact on our efforts to achieve them if we release their potential impact.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for this profound sharing.
Coming to the Under Secretary‑General himself, you have been quite up front in admitting that the SDGs, majority of the SDGs have been off track and that has certainly been aided by the facts and figures. So what would be ‑‑ I mean, which SDGs do you think are lagging behind in terms of unlocking the potentials of digital solutions?
>> JUNHUA LI: Well, first of all, let me say to UN, to all of the Member States, all 17 SDGs are equally important. Certainly due to the various set of factors now we have such a situation that is the sum of the SDGs or SDGs targets left behind far more than others.
For instance like our panelist underlined, SDGs 4, education and women and girls and poverty eradication, but let me just add one more example, that is SDGs 11, that is about the sustainable city and the communities, and we now talk about digitalization would have helped the local Government to launch the Smart cities.
But we have to recognize that, yes, digitization would help the cities with more sustainable transportation management and also reducing energy consumption, managing water, but, however, many cities in Developing Countries due to limited infrastructure and very limited resources, they even don't have an online presence.
Based on the latest study conducted by my department last year, 47 countries, in 47 countries, the most popular city does not have such a facility Internet. So we can imagine with those challenges how can we talk about digitalization or digital economy, and we talk about the attainment of the SDGs. The SDGs should be people centred, but what is the essence to us, it is equality and inclusion.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Your Excellency. In this very pretext and from reflexes just shared by all of our panelists as they talk or try to dissect the challenges, the prospects, the disparity and inequalities, let me turn to Ms. Nanako Ishido. What do you think are the risks of applying digital innovations and solutions that need to be considered in terms of tackling global challenges and how can these risks be mitigated?
>> NANAKO ISHIDO: Thank you. I think the fundamental risk here is the diversity in perspectives regarding digital technology uses. The technological advancement is exceedingly rapid specially Generative AI and varying opinions on how to interact with AI, and that was the major point of discussion during this year's Summit held here in Japan.
Also their global company like Meta, and the company, I think it's clear that we have yet to establish international consensus on this model so everyone thinks differently, and simply deciding whether to use AI for a particular purpose can lead to different opinions, and that is a risk we need to take.
Let's take goal 16, pleases as an example. Digital technology can promote, it is clear that digital technology can promote peace. In current conflict within some countries, the digital technology can be extensively used. The technology has power to access people, yet it also has the potential to cause harm. Ultimately, the intentions of humans can be risk factor depending how they use these tools.
So to reduce these risks it is important to have discussion involving multiple stakeholders, and I think with the right intention we can guide digital technology in a positive direction. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. This gets me back to Mr. Li with the very question. Sir. We are talking about risks on applying digital innovations and solutions to the global challenges.
>> JUNHUA LI: Yes, if we say that we consider the application of the digital solution will bring enormous benefits but certainty we have to think about the potential risks. A few observations from me, first, inequality is a pressing concern. We all learned a very striking figure, that's the 2.6 billion people are still unconnected.
So if the majority in the developing world or particularly in the LDCs, Least Developed Countries, remain unconnected, how we can assure them the benefits of digitization could also become their part of life, and second is digital literacy that my fellow panelists have delivered on this very adequately. I won't talk to it any more on this.
The third thing is environmental challenges. We know digital brings more benefits, but at the same time, the digital infrastructure also contributes to increased carbon emissions. This is a very alarming tandem with this AI technology. So the crucial point is how we can manage it, either we adopt sustainable practices in technology to mitigate environmental damages, that's something when we talk about digital, we need to bear that in mind.
So in promoting digital innovation for SDG challenges, it is imperative we focus on solutions that directly address those challenges at the same time we need to focus more on the potential risks.
>> MODERATOR: It couldn't have been understood better. Thank you. Moving with the same question to Mr. Tshilidzi Marwala.
>> TSHILIDZI MARWALA: Thank you very much.
Without repeating the good things that have been said by Professor and the Under Secretary‑General, I think we have a challenge of ethics. I think it's a big challenge we need to be honest about. Just to give you an example, the amount of environmental degradation that data centers leave in their wake is quite huge. Issues of E‑waste. And, of course, this is embedded in issues of ethics. Then the second one, in terms of privacy and cybersecurity, I think the two things that really worry me is the asymmetry of capabilities globally. It's not just between the global south and Global North. It is even within the Global North where you see this asymmetry of capabilities. And, therefore we need global agreements, and this is one area which proves to be difficult to have global agreement, even if you have global agreement, there is always cyber warfare is a big threat that we really need to worry about. About.
I think the issue of access is really important, and for me, when it comes to issues of access, I think the cost of technology if we do not find the cost that ensure that there is equal, there is equity in access to these technologies, then we are not going to be able to tackle global challenges.
So and also quite lastly, I think is the issue of education, the fact that education is not evenly available to people across the board. Educating the lawmakers so that they can be able to craft rules, regulations and laws that are going to focus on tackling global challenges.
Of course, global and local challenges must be seen as one. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. We would now request Mr. Masanori Kondo to build on this.
>> MASANORI KONDO: Yes, thank you.
In line with what previous speakers mentioned in terms of cybersecurity, I would like to provide another aspect from different angle.
So global challenges, challenges are global and not a single project can tackle and solve the issue alone. So which means one way or another we need to consider collecting and sharing data or information across different stakeholders domestically, regionally or internationally.
So in the future, as digital solutions evolve, data interoperability will be an issue. And in this context, we need to be mindful so called digital patchwork vulnerability, which means vulnerability comes to the lowest level of security in the network.
So we don't, I think we don't need a detailed specification or standardization, but it is not practical, but I think a concept of minimum requirements will facilitate our future work in order to collaborate each other.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. Ms. Lise for your impressions, please.
>> LISE FUHR: Yes. I mentioned before that while digital purveyed many of the SDGs, there is, of course, no single digital SDG setting standards for the digital economy and society how it should look like. I think this is also one of the risks we have, because we throw around the term digital, digital innovation without necessarily considering what underpins the terms.
So connectivity does not necessarily lead to achieving the SDGs in itself or greater prosperity. I think digital solution must be based on an Internet that is open, inclusive, safe and security and respecting human rights.
So we might think that rolling out connectivity is, of course, a very important part of the puzzle, but that must be coupled with an open Internet where decisions are taken in a multi‑stakeholder way. So this means Government, academia, private sector, civil society, and never, never, never forget the technical community, which defines the crucial standards for the way the open Internet works.
While we are working on this in the IGF Leadership Panel together with my esteemed colleague Ms. Karoline Edstadler, we are also launching a process to reach out to hear from all of you how you see and how we should define the specific ways that the Internet should work today. And I think this would be an essential step to drive digital innovation, and solutions in the right direction for the future, making sure digital solutions and innovation work for all people. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, and with this I come to honorable Mohamed Shareef for its insights on this.
>> MOHAMED SHAREEF: As a practitioner, some of the challenges that I face include the complexity of technology. Digital innovations we are talking about here, be it AI, space technologies are becoming increasingly complex, and there are many challenges that arise from this including cybersecurity risks, including the risks associated with data privacy, and especially in the small island developing context or in developing context as a whole, there is a huge lack of expertise when we come, when we try and do this at home.
And, of course, there is the financial risks. We often tend to throw money into the IT black hole, so we, there is the risk of overspending on innovations that may not provide, that may not actually get, that doesn't have the benefits while at the same time what often happens is the opposite that we do not fund enough the technologies that have true potential.
And then, of course, there is the environment. So as we invest more and more in technology, we have got to think about E‑waste, and that also has a financial implication to it. Then how do we good about resolving this in the Maldives we have established a dedicated team in the last couple of years so that we know resources are dedicated for this. We are working towards implementing robust security measures, integrating systems into a unified security architecture, making sure that we are in compliance with local, but also international data privacy standards and regulations, and, of course, investing in people, training, and development.
And above all, I think something that struck to me just a couple of weeks, a couple of days ago during a cybersecurity seminar someone pointed out to me that it is good to actually take up an entrepreneurial idea to this digital transformation in Government where we think Luke a startup. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. I come to honorable Karoline Edstadler.
>> KAROLINE EDSTADLER: Well, having heard some of these smart interventions some longer and some shorter, I could be very short in my answer. The risk is that we forget that we are human beings. I won't stop here. Being human beings, means that we need human rights and we need a human rights based approach, and this is, I think, in the heart of mitigating risks in connection with new technologies, and especially also artificial intelligence.
If we do have to have a human rights based approach, it contributes essentially to make sure that technological progress is inclusive and does lead voluntarily or unintendedly to discrimination. There is also something I heard a few months ago someone told me that we human beings, need in average 100 years to adapt to a new technology.
When it comes to the Internet, we are half time there, so about 50 years ago Vint Cerf and others invented the Internet, so it's high time now to do something in regard of mitigating the risks and using all of the chances coming out of these new technologies.
I think there are three things we have to do. We have to keep to human oversight. We have to keep transparency and explainability because if we are following these paths, then I think we really could do the best and use it the best way for all of us in all of the fields of the SDGs and in all of the fields of our societies.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. I couldn't have said any better, especially as human‑ness has been a word that has been central to debate as we advance forward into the age of AI. Thank you for this very, very important statement and the human quotient that you add to same.
Now, let me come to the penultimate question if I may say, let's turn to this question, policy in this entire debate and in all of these deliberations that have been running since the many, many decades policy has been so central to all of these debates, deliberations and actions. The urgency at the moment as we sit here and discuss the issue we have brought to the table is because we are running out of time to meet the goals that we set for ourselves, and then there are newer challenges emerging in front of us, and then we are also equally eager to reap or harness from the opportunities that we have in our way.
So in this pretext, may I turn to Mr. Masanori Kondo first. Sir, how can we generate more support for digital innovations and solutions to address the SDGs challenges in policy making?
>> MASANORI KONDO: Thank you. The simple answer is to demonstrate the importance of the project and ask the policy makers to support.
But seriously, let's consider a question when and why you think you want to support. It may be because you are asked by someone or you think that you need to or you want to do. So when do you think you want to do? It may be when you see people in need with your own eyes. It may be because you are happy when you receive gratitude from others. It may be when you think you can change the situation.
So whatever it is, you take an action when you understand necessity, it's importance, and the fact that you can do it. So one of the ideas here I would like to share with you, this is my personal idea, is that we may consider to create goodwill Ambassador for digital SDGs through conduct, digital enlightenment movement to educate policy makers and other stakeholders.
Another idea is digital policy hackathon. Among policy makers, take experts and innovators, I think you are usually on the organised side of hackathon. But you have to be part of the hackathon as a player so that this kind of opportunity will help and facilitate to make things its own affairs.
So if it's mindset, I think people will tend to support those necessary projects and activities. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Indeed great to hear these inputs from you. Let's hear the experts inside from Mr. Kojo Boakye on this.
>> KOJO BOAKYE: Moderator, can you indulge me, repeat the question for he me, I know it's about how do we get policy makers to get behind tech for the SDGs, but help me?
>> MODERATOR: I didn't quite get you maybe because of the distance here, but I'm sure that your expert views really can because we are the one in the field dealing with all of the ‑‑
>> KOJO BOAKYE: I was asking do you mind repeating the question for me so I can get it spot on.
>> MODERATOR: We are having the same problem. So the question was how do we generate more support for additional innovations and solutions to address the SDG challenges in policy making.
>> KOJO BOAKYE: Thank you ever so much. I'm not sure we need much more support from policy makers. In part my assertion stems from the fact that having traveled over the last few weeks to Ghana, across, Aman, Jordan, Egypt, New York, and then come here, I feel like we have a ground swell of support for the use of tech. I agree with my friend from APT who suggests that actually what we need to do is demonstrate that tech even more. I also agree with my Professor here from Japan who spoke about the need to have consultation between Government, academia and private sector including the biggest players to determine how we are going to leverage this tech.
The one thing I continue to stress having had all of these conversations over the last few weeks is the need to recognize the opportunity in front of us. And to not overplay the risks. And I say that because one of the conversations I had recently was with professor from the African school of mathematics, science and mathematics who spoke about the fact that actually the kind of technologies that people seem to have such a fear of AI is very much inception phase.
I'm not an engineer, but I believe him. Very much an early stage of development. It isn't going to be AI machines that take over and as I speak to policy makers and as Meta has with other companies, for example, the U.S.'s voluntary commitment towards AI, and I speak to others in places like Saudi Arabia with their AI ethics and many other places who are developing these things, I do feel that many Governments are trying to harness the opportunity, but put the guardrails in place. I think that's the most important thing at this time alongside the many examples that Meta and so many other companies play as academics have to provide to those Governments to prove that we need to take this opportunity.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. Over to Ms. Nanako Ishido, what would be your say on this?
>> NANAKO ISHIDO: Yes. Thank you. The benefit of using digital technology is to enable a wide range of actors, including stakeholders to participate. In the short term, it is important to create an environment where a large number of students can participate in policy making. In the long term, enhancing digital literacy for everyone becomes crucial. It is also important to be proactive in using new technology such as AI, Blockchain and so on.
We are already using Generative AI to come up with solution to pressing problems and we are starting decentralized autonomous to kick start action. These efforts are already in progress, and should be shared worldwide. And most important of all, as Mr. Kondo said, take action. The SDGs are goals. The important thing is to take action towards the goal.
So it's about setting priorities, determining which goals are most important to each of us to our respective countries and translating these priorities into concrete actions. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. The stress is on action here.
And we wouldn't do justice without putting this question to Your Excellency, Mr. Junhua Li.
>> JUNHUA LI: Well, thank you. I fully agree with the previous panelists. The action actually will bring the difference. With regard to the enabling, enabling environment to digital innovation, it is very important to have the policy dimension there. How to do it? My answer is to maximize the participation of all stakeholders in developing a global framework on the digital innovation in addition to the bilateral or national policy. How to do it? Secretary‑General proposed a Global Digital Compact which will be discussed and decided by world leaders in next September when they gather in New York again.
So we hope that all of the stakeholders would be involved in this consultation process including Government, Parliament, private sector, business sectors, academia, technical communities, individuals including youth and women, of course, the UN systems.
So by going so, we would ‑‑ doing so, we would put all of our efforts, our perspectives, our suggestions together to ensure a better environment for digital innovation.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Your Excellency. Thank you very much. Now, ladies and gentlemen, allow me a moment now to introduce and invite for a quick thought in this ongoing deliberations on this theme and to facilitate with High Ministerial respondents please be introduced as I invite Ms. Jewel Forde, the television producer and presenter of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation. Over to you.
>> JEWEL FORDE: Thank you so much, and thank you to all of our high level members on the panel. I will start by asking Mr. Ernesto Hernandez to give us a short response of what he has heard here today. Over to you, Mr. Hernandez.
>> ERNESTO HERNANDEZ: First and foremost, I would like to thank all of the organizers for allowing me to take the floor. It has now been 20 years since the very first Summit on the society of information, the documents were approved by Heads of State and Government from 175 countries.
When we look at the debate, Developing Countries made it possible to try to answer this call in bridging this digital gap. They limit access to knowledge and information in our very own language. Twenty years after, we have born witness that information technology and Internet specifically help build fundamental tools for the development of societies. We have also seen that this pact has been especially important for Developing Countries as opposed to Developed Countries.
There were commitments that have not been reached after this very first Summit. One of these major tasks was to abide by the various requests from all of these stakeholders which hinder social and economic development by, from all of these countries that have been impacted by this.
The topics that have been mentioned were addressed by the heads of state and Government at the G7 in China and also in Havana, Cuba which was held last month, September 2023, and the role of technology and science in development. At the end of this Summit, we ratified the Summit to be completed by 2025, and China has put forward a direct link between this Summit and the information technologies in fostering development.
We also launched a call between this World Summit of the Society of Information and the other outcomes in Addis Ababa, and other multi‑stakeholder policies and also the future Summits that will be held. We need to foster the work by the G7 in China, and reviewing the work in this society of information, the G7, the global pact among many other Summits in order to make sure that we bridge this digital gap between Developing Countries and Developed Countries.
We iterate that the Tunis agenda, we stated that we would focus on working on these digital tools. The very first stage in this society of information which was called building, the society of information, this is a global challenge for the new millennium, it set forth a common vision for the Society of Information among many other attributes, it must be focusing on a whole holistic individual focusing on development.
This document was meticulously devised and negotiated in full force today. This crystallizes the dream of creating this Society of Information which was implemented over 20 years ago.
>> JEWEL FORDE: I now invite Rodney Taylor, Secretary‑General of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union to give his comments.
>> RODNEY TAYLOR: Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. I bring perspective from the Caribbean as pointed out which represents a diverse group of Small Island States and for whom the achievement of the SDGs is critical, and their non‑achievement represents an existential threat when it comes to environment and climate change. The innovation is the engine of sustainable development and it enables us to find creative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges as pointed out previously by many of our panelists.
Likewise, access is the bridge that connects innovations to the people who need them the most. This is not new to any of us in the room or online today. This is nothing that has not been said. So I think it's now a question of what we, not what must be said, but what must be done differently.
Government action alone will not suffice, and I think we all understand the value of multi‑stakeholder approaches. Within this forum, you have the capacity to refocus in different Sears according to our individual areas of expertise, passion and common interests. We need to promote and fund research and development that addresses the unique needs of vulnerable populations such as those in SIDS, encourage social entrepreneurship that places the planet and environmental sustainability and equality above profit maximization. Affordability of access is critical in particular to the LDCs in the Global South.
Affordable access will expand access to education, and healthcare as pointed out before. The ITU's Partner2Connect initiative is worthy of special mention here and should be given the full support of the global community, in particular those making the most financial gains from the Internet economy.
We need to accelerate international cooperation and partnerships in other areas as well to share knowledge and agree on workable solutions. The work towards a Global Digital Compact as pointed out on the panel being undertaken by the UN is fully supported and endorsed by the Caribbean.
Lastly, education and awareness are important so that those who need it most embrace technology and can be empowered to participate in their own development. The IGF should continue to encourage organic and independent formations to discuss these issues in a culturally relevant context. The Caribbean celebrated our 19th IGF this year and have supported youth and SIDS IGFs as well.
In including the SDGs in rack is being accelerated action an endeavor. It is possible to make significant progress. Thank you very much.
>> JEWEL FORDE: Thank you very much, Mr. Rodney Taylor, the Secretary‑General of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union. Joining us by video is Armida Alisjahbana, Executive Secretary of the UN Social and Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific, ESCAP.
>> ARMIDA SALSIAH ALISJAHBANA: Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates and participants, allow me to extend my sincere appreciation to the Government of Japan, DESA and ITU for offering me the opportunity to speak at the IGF 2023 in Kyoto. Under the overarching theme of this year's forum, The Internet We Want, Empowering All People, I'm cost that with the epic engagement of all stakeholders, this event will help build global consensus for an empowering future for people and the Internet.
While digital connectivity brings significant digital dividends to society, if such dividends are note equitably shared, risks will be increasingly difficult to address, I'm, therefore, pleased to see that the eight sub themes chosen for the forum this year are all topical, notably the sub themes on AI and emerging technologies and digital divides and inclusion.
Allow me to share some regional perspective. Digital divides and inclusion challenges in Asia and Pacific remains the most divided region in the world. Our study has highlighted that limited and unaffordable Internet access as well as the gender digital divide continue it worsen in countries in special situations during the pandemic.
Digitally advanced economies such as Japan are raising help to embrace emerging technologies, accelerating the transformation to digital societies through frontier technology, digital hubs and digital governance while others with limited digital infrastructure and digital skills are adapting more slowly to the rapid stream of digital innovations.
On AI and emerging technologies opportunities, the deployment of emerging technologies is particularly promising for SDG 13 on climate change, which is the only goal in the region where implementation is in reverse. For example, Singapore, there is smart nation initiative is using AI to drive growth and innovation in a resource efficient manner. While in Japan, a number of AI‑driven applications have enhanced disaster resilience and climate adaptation. Similarly the Republic of Korea is investing in AI to develop curriculum and teacher training aimed at instilling advanced digital skills that prepare students for an AI‑driven future.
Work on directing the development of AI through a people‑centred approach based on commonly shared human values and rights has just begun. And much remains to be done. Notwithstanding the slow pace and often messiness of multi‑ facetted, multi‑stakeholder and multilateral approaches, it is our best hope for evolving the future we want. Moving forward, I conclude with three messages. We must double our efforts towards closing digital divide by scaling up investment in digital connectivity infrastructure that is ready for the data intensive traffic of the future.
We also need to promote digital literacy and skills that encompass fundamental human values for the productive use of the Internet in a responsible manner. Finally, we need to strengthen cooperation between Government, private sector and other stakeholders. In this regard, we are working with Member States to implement the Action Plan of the Asia Pacific information highway initiative from 2022 to 2026. This Action Plan serves as a blueprint for cooperation, action on bridging the digital divide and accelerating digital transformation.
I look forward to collaborating with all stakeholders to achieve universal digital connectivity and digital transformation for all and the future we want. Thank you.
>> JEWEL FORDE: Thank you, the Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, ESCAP. And also joining us by video is Mr. Axel, senior Managing Director for the World Bank.
>> Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests,.
>> JEWEL FORDE: I hear somebody whispering behind me AI. Where there is technology, there will also be hitches. I'm not sure if that's going to come back to us later, but I will hand back over to you, and if it comes back later, we will finish up.
>> MODERATOR: We sure will, thank you so much. Digital gives are bound to come. That's why all of these great minds have been put together in one platform. So it's been a pleasure, and in fact a matter of gratitude to incorporate the high level respondents' views and thoughts in this very enriching panel, and as we move forward to winding up the panel, we cannot do without the very concluding thoughts from our esteemed panelists. So let me begin from my most distant panelist Kojo Boakye, the Vice President Meta.
>> KOJO BOAKYE: Thanks so much. How much time do I have? I will try to pull things together. I think everybody in this room and as I said earlier many of the people I have engaged with over the last few weeks, indeed months and years believe in the opportunity that tech presents. I think that towards the SDG's and achieving those goals which we are all behind on, I think all of the panelists heard us speak about that.
I think at the same time there is recognition that there are risks with greater inequality being caused by tech, the fact that 2.6 people remain offline and don't even have access to broadband, let alone the more innovative technologies that will ride on the broadband continues to be an issue.
I think my friend from APT mentioned it best that there is convincing to do with regard to how we move things forward and get technology to play its role in an optimal way. Part of that is the onus is on companies like ours to provide examples like many I have mentioned today using our population maps and much more, but also to engage in the kind of policy discussion that we have engaged in in the U.S. in places like Europe, in places like Africa and also in places in the Middle East as well, and Asia. I'm sure my colleagues will remind me to say.
But to drive towards action, and I think my learned friend from the ITU and many of the other panelists have said that this is not a time to rest on our laurels, that we need to take action, and my earnest desire is we are not, we don't suffer paralysis by analysis in terms of some of these things and we take action.
I think I'm speaking or at least preaching to the choir when I say that. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: I have the privilege of only availing two minutes of each of our panelists for quick concluding remarks and moving to Ms. Lise.
>> LISE FUHR: Thank you. First, it’s been a great honour to join this panel today, and among such esteemed colleagues and it's an important time to stop and think how can we revitalize the SDGs. The SDGs were assigned many years ago and the world has changed a whole lot, much more than we expected. We had a global pandemic that put our societies' health services and digital structures, infrastructures to the test.
And we have latest technology, cutting edge science, the best minds in research actually delivered vaccines for COVID in record time. So while we also saw the world marveled at the new potential of artificial intelligence, we all sat at home or in the offices testing large language model chat bots and modeled by chair new fang willed magic, I think we are still far from achieving all of the SDGs as we discussed here today.
And the outlook might be pretty bleak, but I think listening to the panel today and the sheer numbers of SDGs we have mentioned, I think it demonstrates one important thing, and that is digital innovation for me is the unsung hero of SDGs. It's not the only solution, but, and it cannot do it all alone, but digital is our fast track to achieve the SDGs.
And we need to do this by including all of the stakeholders, and we need collaboration of all of the stakeholders. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so well said. Now, I will come to Mr. Masanori Kondo shortly. I will have to wait for a bit as I get the good news that we can now play the video. So this is inviting via the video message Mr. Axel van Trotsenburg, Senior Managing Director World Bank.
>> AXEL VAN TROTSENBURG: Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, it is a great pleasure to address you at the opening of this year's Internet Governance Forum in Kyoto. My sincere thanks to the organizers of this forum, the Government of Japan and the United Nations for inviting us to the event and for the long standing partnership with the World Bank on the digital agenda.
We recognize that today the world's many challenges have become intertwined crises and that the digital agenda has a role to play in the resolution of these crises. The World Bank has made significant efforts to lift a billion people out of poverty in the last three to four decades.
The COVID‑19 pandemic has meant an important setback for economic growth and poverty reduction. Renewing progress in our fight against poverty and addressing the many global challenges and crises requires a new approach. That is why we are moving to scale up our financing, our knowledge, our data and partnerships to deliver. Digital plays will be taken to play an ever increasing role for development. Together as people, prosperity, plan and infrastructure, digital is one of the five verticals aiming to communicate more clearly our work and how we aim to put knowledge at the core of the bank's business.
Digital is the transformative opportunity of our time. Digital technologies have become a driving force for development to create new jobs and open new markets to create opportunities and to improve Government efficiency and transparency. But we also need to be attentive to the risk of exclusion of widening the digital divide and worsening the poverty divide.
Today's digital development agenda requires both technical solutions and sound foundations to govern the Internet and the world's digital spaces. Nearly 2.6 billion people are still offline. More than 90% of the population in high income countries use the Internet in 2022 as compared to only 25% in low income countries.
Many people do not have the basic skills to use the Internet effectively, but there will be an estimated 150 million new technology jobs over the next five years. 850 million people lack any form of identification keeping them excluded from the analog and increasingly the digital world and its development promises.
Digital solutions were a main fragment in many countries, meaning a missed opportunity for a radically new and efficient Government service offering. But simply advancing technical solutions will not be enough because the main foundation of the digital sector is trust.
And this trust can only grow where the use of technology is based on open, inclusive, secure and resilient digital foundations. These trust foundations include access to information for everyone worldwide. Protection of privacy and personal information both whether data is kept in a country or traded across borders, minimized risk to get scammed, hacked or otherwise compromised by cyber criminals, and the freedom for everyone to participate in the Internet.
If we can advance this agenda, digital will maximize its power to drive human, economic and social development. It will be a global public good serving all of us. I'm encouraged to see experts, Government representatives, the private sector and civil society all come together at the Internet Governance Forum in Kyoto.
At the World Bank, we are looking forward to deepening our collaboration on this agenda with our partners from around the world. Let us leverage the power of digital to eradicate poverty on a livable planet. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Well thank you to all of our high ministerial respondents for their great thoughts and inputs. I still have two minutes each for panelists for final words. Onto Mr. Masanori Kondo.
>> MASANORI KONDO: Thank you. So from Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable Development Goals, issues in front of us have been changing and increasing. And one of the most influential phenomenon in the last decades is emergence and dissemination of ICT services.
So I believe as a resident of this ICT community, ICT offers possibilities. It transforms challenges to opportunities. So when we navigate towards our SDGs, it is imperative for ICT community to cooperate with other stakeholders. With cautious optimism, ICT communities should play a role of architect of the future.
Our commitment and creativity to construct a proud and inspiring future is required. So this is a message I would like to share with you today, and once again. Thank you for inviting me for this wonderful session.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much for your very beautiful and great thoughts. We move to honorable Mr. Mohamed Shareef.
>> MOHAMED SHAREEF: We have heard the potential for digital technologies in achieving SDGs is immense. Yes, but we are behind in achieving our targets that we set in 2015. We also heard that we need to maybe rethink these targets. The world has changed, but so has technology. The current trends in technology gives us more hope, but also raises questions, questions about cybersecurity, questions about data privacy, where does the balance lie? Definitely as we move forward, we can harness the power of digital technologies to accelerate the progress towards the SDGs.
That is a given. Let's ensure that no one is left behind while we are doing it, so inclusivity and accessibility should be front and centre of this. Let's work together to create a sustainable and inclusive future that is cognizant of the changing environment and climate change. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for your great call. Over to Professor Nanako Ishido.
>> NANAKO ISHIDO: Thank you. In 1997 the Kyoto protocol was established here at this venue setting targets for greenhouse gas emissions and addressing environmental issues. That was 26 years ago. Now, we look at Kyoto through the lens of SDGs, we see that Kyoto has been committed to sustainable development for a long time. It serves as Japan's capital for over a thousand years starting 1200 years ago. And even a tea shop nearby has been in operation for more than a millennium.
There are 50,000 companies in Japan that have been in business more than 100 years, the largest number in the world, and 3,000 companies that have been business model 200 years, the majority in the world.
In terms of corporate management, Japan symbolizes the sustainable management. Kyoto, Japan is such a place. So thank you very much for coming to Kyoto. Enjoy Kyoto.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, ma'am. To Mr. Tshilidzi Marwala.
>> TSHILIDZI MARWALA: Thank you very much. It is clear that we are lagging behind on SDG as we noted the SDG Summit, but it is actually up to all of us. We have personal responsibilities to make sure that we consume and produce responsibly to make sure that we put pressure on our lawmakers to ensure that they take the correct decisions, to ensure that we invest in education and infrastructure, and increase access within the countries, and across different countries.
But first, to be able to do all of this, we need a strong public‑private partnerships. It is clear that digital technologies you actually have more knowledge and capacity in private hands. And, therefore Government cannot do this thing alone. So we need to get all of the people together to be able, intentionally to be able to come up with a way forward that is going to be sustainable. Thank you very much.
>> KAROLINE EDSTADLER: Thank you for the invitation. I would like to agree with you, we are lacking behind but it's never too late to turn to action, and I would say I conclude the same way as I started this conversation, by mentioning again that this is a watershed moment, and that big challenges are always accompanied also by chances and changes, and I would say we should really take this moment and get to action, and there is one action I don't think we discussed in detail. I would like to mention that as democracies, as rule of law and human rights‑based societies, we should really get actions also through our parliamentarians because they are representing us, and, of course, the Governments.
I'm representing the Austrian Government in this regard, and I think we should take a moment and set the right measures. It's not up to the economic enterprises to set the measures, but it's up to the parliamentarians and to the Governments and together we can do that in a way we are doing this today sharing our experiences, our expectations, also what we already achieved because don't always blame what we are not have to achieve and what has not been done so far, but let's also see what we already achieved.
And I think this is a lot when we are thinking back to the boost of digitization also during the phase of the horrifying pandemic, and let's use this also for the future so it's never too late. Let's get to action now.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Madame Minister, and for the final thoughts, over to the Under Secretary‑General Mr. Junhua Li.
>> JUNHUA LI: It is great pleasure to join panelists to share their own perspectives. Eight years ago the world leaders agreed to launch this 2030 Agenda, 17 SDGs. We know, we recognize that we lagged behind, but certainly there is still hope. It's a time for action. It's time for change.
How to revitalize the SDGs, absolutely digital serves as one of the most powerful means or instruments, and then how to do it? Three points from me, first, accelerate digital application for SDGs. Focus on achieving SDGs specific targets, and added values for Developing Countries and vulnerable communities. We must ensure that equality and inclusion will still remain at the centre of the digitalization.
Second, enhance infrastructure and digital capabilities. The special focus should be given to how to bridge the gaps or digital divide between countries, especially for those countries in vulnerable situations like LDCs, SIDS, and our LDCs, and those we need to think about how we inject more focus for the local community to make the digital solution for the local community and the local economies.
Last but not least, strengthen digital cooperation across all countries. We must ensure that safe, inclusive, secured and affordable digital access for every country, for all individuals. Our promise to all individuals. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much Your Excellency, and I believe this very much addresses the much raised queries, concerns, and the gaps, the challenges that we have talked about in the course of our discourse, and an observation that's so general in all of the stakeholder community.
It's been a distinct honour for me to be moderating this very, very enriching panel, and I cannot thank you to each and every panelist herein for sharing your very valuable time, and for the value that you have added to this very, very pertinent discussion.
Thank you for granting me this honour. And ladies and gentlemen, this deliberation is meant to be a path forward. We have challenges, we have limitations, shortcomings, there are multiple realities to address, but then the idea, gesture of all of us is to look forward. So the session certainly is a way forward and not that digital solutions is a magic wand, not so.
And coming from, I mean, reaping from the reflections of the panel, if we are looking to digital solutions to add to the pace of our development, certainly more care, more precision, planning and strategizing our action will help us attain the need for and avoid the unwanted. And the emphasis certainly has been on the increased investment of actions, innovations, ideas, thoughts, and most of all collaboration and cooperation amongst all stakeholders, entities at all tiers.
So with this notion, I rest my mic here. Thank you to the members in the audience as well for being a great part of this deliberation. As we end, may I invite all of our distinguished members in the panel to kindly take to the left of the staining for a quick group photo opportunity, and as I thank my fellow moderator, I also have this privilege of inviting Ms. Jewel on stage for this group photo opportunity. Thank you so much. That's all from this discussion.
(Applause).