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.
***
>> Good afternoon. Sorry to start late. Now, let's start our session.
Today our session will focus on digital governance in Africa, following the adoption of the Pact for the Future, as well as the Global Digital Compact. The objective of the session is to brainstorm how Africa can take the opportunity of the adoption of the GDC at the international level to overcome several challenges to fast track the implementation of digital technology at the continental level in the achievement of sustainable development goals and agenda 2063.
As you know, the track focuses on five sectors. One is sustainable development. Everything we did at the country level and economic development focused on how we sustain our development. And as you know, United Nations has Agenda 2030. And technology will be 70% to attain objects of SDGs. We are also Action Line 17. Means of implementation and technology, means of implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Also very important, we are not going to discuss, it is the international peace and security. It is one of the key objective, key priorities of this Pact for the Future. Yesterday we discussed on cyber diplomacy this can be tap tured on this.
Everything is science, technology, and innovation. Everything we are doing here is science, technology, and innovation. And the other key pillar is youth and future generation. And this is focused more on the interests of Africa. As you know, Africa is a youth country, and we can use this demographic dividend to create a lot of opportunity for the continent. But we need also to build the capacity and also to put in place sound, adequate policies to transform the opportunity we have in the youth population.
And also, the last one, number 5, is transforming the global governance. IGF, it is one of the forums where we can transform global governance. We have the WSIS forum, the World Summit for Information Society. Next year we are going to have WSIS+20 to discuss what the progress made by the world, particularly in Africa, what we have done since 2005. What are our key challenges? What our perspective is on development and digital technology across the continent.
And we have also adopted the Global Digital Compact. The objective is to have an open society, secure for everyone. And while the objectives are for the Global Digital Compact is defined across key objectives. And all these objectives has interest for African country. Because when we talk about the first objective on connectivity, how we expand connectivity in our Member States. And also make this service accessible. And you know, we are facing a lot of challenges in the continent. And we need to expand connectivity, not in the city, but in the rural area. And it is very important to bridge this digital divide, urban divide, also the gender divide across the continent.
The next focus on inclusion. As we have a lot of our population, we have almost 800 million people without access to Internet. We are 500 million people without any legal form of ID. How can we include everybody on this digital technology is why digital ID is important. Innovation is important. Capacity building is important. On objective 2.
Objective 3, if you already put this policy framework, develop application, but if you don't secure the cybersecurity, it will be nothing. Why cybersecurity is very important and everything is focused on security, because we have data. We exchange all information across the network, and we don't have any control of this network, while we have to secure all our cyberspace.
Objective 4 focused on data, data governance. We generate a lot of data. And what is particular? When we have WSIS in 2005, there is two key challenges we needed to take into consideration. At this time, this was 20 years ago. The issue of data had not become a challenge at this time. And we didn't have the issue of artificial intelligence. And why data becomes the number 4? Because we need to govern our data to make the digital sovereignty in African country.
And then number 4, it is where we expected to change the narrative. With good governance of artificial intelligence. How we can use AI to develop our agriculture. How we can use AI to fight the impact of climate change. How we can use AI to improve all activity socioeconomic. How we can use AI to improve our education system. How we can use AI to improve our health system. How we can use AI to make our space more secure.
As you know, AI we can use for everywhere. But we need to cover with AI. We have a lot of issues with AI. The ethics issue also we need to look at it. The issue of regulatory framework, it is very important. AI will promote innovation, but we need to regulate, to have sound regulation, otherwise we will not promote innovation. And Africa needs innovation. And why is this the number 5, it's very important. The policy, knowledge sharing. All on AI, we have to do it. Why today we are going to have a brainstorming discussion. We are not coming with solution, but brainstorming what we have to do in Africa, given our current situation. Given several examples in some African countries. Given some key roles played by private sector. And from there, we can have some key outcomes and we can think about the preparation or so of the WSIS+20 and the UN General Assembly next year to discuss about IGF and WSIS. Because this will end in 2025, and we need to discuss if we are going to extend until 2030 to align with the SDGs.
And today I have the honour to moderate this session, and I would like to invite His Excellency, the Minister of ICT of Republic of Namibia.
(Applause)
I would invite also a key actor in the private sector in Africa from Nigeria. Yeah.
I will invite also two colleagues from ECA, Sorene Assefa and mare Yemenry yet.
We are going to start by one small presentation to show you how AI how ICT is important for Africa. What are the key impacts of ICT on digital on African economy? We have a lot of study. ICT will contribute by 2025, 80 billion, photography point something percent of the African GDP. Now we are going to give you a short presentation on this issue. Mariemmian, please.
>> Thank you, Mactar. The aim of this research is to see the effect of ICT on economic development in Africa. I am mare yes, ma'am, a researcher in digital transformation section at Economic Commission for Africa.
I will start by giving some background information about economic development in ICT in Africa.
So the African GDP is growing fast. It's projected about 3.7% in 2024, and it's going to rise to 4.3% in 2025, positioning Africa as the second fastest growing region next to Asia.
Similarly, the ICT sector in these economies are also growing very fast, and it has a significant role in driving African's economic growth. For instance, by 2025, the African digital economy is projected to reach around $180 billion, which is 5.2% of the GDP. And by 2050, this economy is also projected to reach to $207 billion U.S. and contribute around 2.8% of African GDP.
In terms of exports, it's also growing very fast. From 2000 to 2022, the GDP share of exports from ICT increased by 6.44% ICT service expectation increased by 13.81%, and the share of ICT from the total export, service exports, is also increased by 9.5%. So we can see the increasing trend since 2000.
So the aim of this research is to see the relationship between the development in the ICT sector and the economic growth in Africa. And we estimate a model to assess the impact of ICT on economic development. To do this research, we used data for 15 African countries for over 23 years. Which makes the total observation 1,150. And the source of data is World Bank's World Development Indicators, African Development Bank database, the United Nations Development Programme, and also the UNCTAD database.
The econometric technique we used is fixed effects panel regression model.
Our dependent variable is the human development Index, which is developed by UNDP, and it helps us to see the holistic nature of the development, like the health sector, the education, and living standard. The main variable of interest here is the ICT sector, which is measured by the ICT Index developed by UNCTAD. And it estimates accessibility and integration of communication systems. And it also includes server security. And we use control variables like fixed capital information to measure investment. The general government final consumption expenditure, and trade, to see the effect of trade. And the population growth. Energy is also included. Energy measures the availability, sustainability, and efficiency of power. And institutions, we measure by institutions, we measure the regulatory quality of systems government systems.
So this is the result of our modeling and the regression analysis. So we see that the ICT sector has a significant and positive relationship with economic on economic development in Africa, which shows that the higher the accessibility and integration of communication systems in the economy, the higher the development.
We also see that the government expenditure is significant but negative effect on economic development. Which shows that the lack of finance and funding for crucial sectors and/or the misallocation of resources to economic activities that are not crucial for development.
We also see that population growth has a significant positive relationship with economic development, which shows that the potential of utilizing our human resource through developing digital skills. And energy and institutions are our new variables that we trued in this modeling. And we can see that energy is significant. Yeah, the energy sector is significant for economic development, together with ICT sector, and as well as institutions. The quality of an institution, the higher the quality of Inns stawtions and the regulatory quality and the effectness of governments, the higher the economic development.
So from these results, we can make some final remarks. The study shows that the ICT sector has a significant positive contribution. And to upgrade and accelerate these contributions, governments may consider the following policy options.
The first one is strategic investment in ICT sector and its linkages to other crucial sectors, like implementing and investing technologies in agriculture and manufacturing sector.
The second one is mobilisation of financial resources for the development of ICT through South South and North South cooperation.
And the third one is promoting digital literacy and capacity building programmes for digital skills to equip the growing population of Africa for existing and emerging technologies.
The fourth one is linking the energy sector, like renewable energy, with ICT sector to fully exploit the African potential in terms of its renewable energy.
And finally, leveraging robust and harmonized institutional and legal systems to accelerate the development of ICT sector as well as its contribution to the development of African nations.
Thank you very much for your attention, and we will welcome comments. Thank you.
(Applause)
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you. This shows a connection with availability and energy. Focused on energy. Energy is very, very important for the development of ICT. And access of energy in Africa is very low. And while development and ICT will go together with energy development in the continent, and we have to take into consideration this.
There is another study we developed to show when we optimize you know, a big issue in Africa is the taxation of the ICT sector. We don't have an adequate taxation system for ICT service in several countries, almost all African countries. And because general and Ministrys of finance need to get more focused on ICT in most of the African country.
We developed a study researching in 52 African countries to show when we come up to optimizing the taxation of the ICT sector, we can have a very interesting result. We get an increase of the broadband access in the country. Also in the job creation. And we increase also the tax revenue of the government because we are going to create more jobs, more connectivity, and more activity, economic activity, for the government. We have the study we are going to launch during the Summit on the Optimization of Taxation in the ICT Sector, and I feel it will be very interesting for the Ministry of ICT. But we recommend also to evolve the Ministry of ICT in the definition on the taxation of the ICT sector. Minister of ICT should work closely with the Minister of Finance to identify the taxation of the ICT sector. It's very important for the economic growth for our continent.
Now, we show what is why ICT is very important in the continent. It is why also the participation of Africa to the Global Digital Compact process was also an important step for the continent in order to all priorities of the continent to be taken into consideration in the Global Digital Compact. We can't say all have been captured, but the more important priorities of Africa have been captured in the Global Digital Compact in September in New York.
Now I am going to give the floor to Sorene to go quickly on the process of the GDC before I go into our discussion.
>> SORENE ASSEFA: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Sorene Assefa. I am the cybersecurity and Digital Governance Expert at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
I think to set the stage for today's conversation, Africa's digital governance post the Summit of the Future, I want to set the context. We didn't talk about GDC without going back and talking about WSIS. The international community convened in Tunis back in 2005 for World Summit on the Information Society, adopting a set of outcomes now underpinning the national and global policies in Information Society and Internet Governance. Today we are talking about IGF because of WSIS.
Then this summit was a culmination of a process initiated back in Geneva 2023, which also roots back to 1998 ITU's Council process.
So for WSIS process, we did a review for W + 10 WSIS+10 to make sure the processes still align in Africa's context and priorities are included. As you can see. And also, recently, we conducted WSIS+20 review, annual review, in Tanzania, Darussalam, where 150 participants were included, and 37 Member States were part of the process. I think majority of the stakeholders from the IGF community were present. And the outcome was to make sure that all the global processes ensure that African processes are incorporated.
But I want to go back to GDC alone. So WSIS were there, IGF were there. Now GDC came into picture came into picture to make sure the governance gap that is existing has been bridged.
So the Global Digital Compact, ECA has been playing a pivotal role to make sure that Africa's policies, priorities, and context are on the agenda of the Global Digital Compact. So we have conducted a few consultation processes, starting in Cape Town, where we had Africa's Policy Declaration and submitted for the Tech Envoy consideration.
Then back in 2024 April, beginning of the year, when the Tech Envoy released Draft 0, when we started the consultation in the negotiation process with the African stakeholders. First, we started with the African regional consultation on Draft 0 to make sure that, as Mactar said, the objective of GDC is in line with the continent's requirements, and the principle and commitment in action. After that consultation, we also went ahead and we did a deep dive, specifically on data and data governance. It was held in Addis Ababa, and co facilitators were in the African region.
Later we also conduct add deep dive with private sector. We felt like the African private sector are not involved in these multilateral processes, which is supported by multistakeholder process as well. And knowing very well Africa is the youngest continent in the world, where 60% of the population are youth, we felt like we needed to engage the youth. We also did some consultation. But this consultation wasn't in isolation. It was in collaboration with different players or stakeholders, and make sure that the outcomes are presented and disseminated to the community. So we conducted some briefing sessions in the African IGF 2023, 2024, and even today, that's why we are presenting it, even we placed some of the outcomes. And also the GDC outcome consultation, it was presented at the SDC on Communication and ICT at the African Union.
We also hold the Summit of the Future side event to put in place some of the consultation outcomes. And in collaboration finally, in collaboration with the UN University, eGov in UN DESA, we put in place a forum for the Southern and Eastern African countries back in October on the implementation of GDC, where 12 Member States from the East and Southern African region was presented to make sure that after the adoption there will be a space for the implementation discussion or dialogue. And CSD had also a session I think on October that we presented our outcome.
This is the final slide. Out of the negotiation and consultation of different stakeholders, these were some of priorities in consult with communities. Being that the stakeholders stressed the importance of multistakeholderism and the issue of governance gap, meaning Africa doesn't have enough resource to involve in so many multilateral and multi stakeholder processes. So how to make sure that the existing WSIS and IGF can be used on the implementation of GDC, and also bridging the gap, the digital divide, the gender divide, the data divide, the innovation divide that Mactar raised? And the people's centre of vision of WSIS and ownership were highlighted, but the main challenges that have been arising is to make sure that infrastructure gap has been addressed and that Africa has a call for innovative financial mechanisms to be in place to make sure that GDC becomes a reality. So thank you so much.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you, Sorene. Now we have set up the picture. We have the Global Digital Compact adopted. But we have to remind also the several frameworks at the continental level.
Our key framework for the development of the digital technology in Africa is African Union Digital Transformation Strategy7, 2020 2030, adopted by Member States. We have also, as a framework, we have this African Data Governance Framework. We adopted also recently, this AU/AI strategy framework. We have also another framework. And we have also as a global framework for discussion, exchange idea, like the Internet Governance Forum, we have also the WSIS Forum. Now the question is I am going to ask the question to the Honorable Minister as policymaker, we have also this implemented Africa free trade area. It is a basis now because we want to develop economy in Africa. We have also the digital threat protocol. We have several protocols, several frameworks to deal. For you, according to you, based on your experience you have a lot of experience in the sector. What kind of strategy African country should put in place to implement the GDC objective in line with the continental regional framework and also the agenda SDG 2030 and the Agenda 2063? Minister?
>> Thank you very much, Mactar, and a very good afternoon to everybody. Very happy to be discussing this very important discussion, especially geared towards Africa's digital governance, which I think all of us can attest to is still a growing, is still growing in our individual countries, and still growing on the continent.
But first I think I should address the holistic picture. Namibia, as you know, was the co facilitator of the Summit of the Future and plaid a pivotal role in coming to this Global Digital Compact, together, of course, with the main document being the Pact for the Future.
And as co facilitator, it was Namibia's responsibility to carry the interests of the Global South, and particularly the interests of the African continent. And that was very important to us to take charge of that at the United Nations, of course, led by our president.
When it comes to your question, Mactar, on strategies we can adopt at countries and continent, I think I can throw it back on all of us as a continent. We have the African Union. And I remember we met last June as AU ICT Ministers to look at, one, issues around data governance and artificial intelligence, especially around the regulatory part. We do not need to be that continent that always needs to catch up. We are always catching up. There must always be something that we have not put in place. We are always catching up. And that's why these discussions are starting now.
We have all kinds of protocols. We have the Budapest protocol, all kinds of protocols. We are now reviewing WSIS+20 in July next year. We have now this Global Digital Compact, which is supposed to accelerate and to ensure that we reach the goals we need to reach by year 2030.
I think the issue needs to come into taking the decision and the financing along with it. Everything looks good on paper. But if there's no implementation plan that is costed, that each country will need to set aside $2 million U.S. in the first year, another $2 million in the second year, to put the goals that we have set aside for ourselves to fruition, then it's all talk. And I think that's what the biggest challenge comes. Because there is a will, perhaps there is political will, sometimes we cascade these goals and these objectives at country level. Sometimes we even cascade them to sector level. But we need to take care of the young people, we need to take care of the healthcare system and digitalize it, the education system and digitalize it, but it doesn't come along with the dollars. So what's the point of it all? So I think the issue is we need to cost our plans, our implementation plans. That's strategy #1.
But of course, governments can't do it alone. The World Banks of this world need to come on board, and they need to seriously invest in making sure these programmes are implemented.
The UN, as implementing agencies, when they say UNDP, UNESCO, very strategic UN agencies need to come on board and help us, as countries, to do this. Because unfortunately, as we know, ICT sector is now an umbrella sector. Almost every sector now depends on ICT to innovate, to grow, to be more efficient, to be more effective, to reach more people than it has ever before. Whether you are talking about health, whether you are talking about education, agriculture, energy. Energy is a very big one. And Sunday I was in another discussion. It's very clear that you can't actually connect people, whether it's the middle mile or the last mile, if they are in the dark. Network infrastructure will not function without energy. So it's multifaceted and multidimensional, Mactar. But if I can say in the end to say that in Namibia we observed during the COVID 19 pandemic, when we did our analysis in 2022, our economy indicated that the only sector that grew during the COVID 19 pandemic was the ICT sector. Every other sector went down. But in that year, the ICT sector grew 17% in the midst of the pandemic. Because that's when we all woke up and realized we can't do anything without actually investing in ICT and digital infrastructure. And it was able to carry other sectors when they were unable, literally brought to their knees during the COVID 19 pandemic.
So the issue around energy, to ensure we have data sectors, we have data collection of the data sets that we have, is an important discussion. But it has to require all of us coming on board and implementing this, all the strategies, all the conventions, you know, all the papers, call to actions, all the digital compact documents need to be escalated down to things that are costed and States putting money aside to ensure their full implementation. Thank you.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you very much, Honorable Minister. You are fully right. We need to have this costing because we have a lot of strategies, a lot of frameworks, a lot of implementation plans at the continental level.
Now, you are from the private sector. One key issue in Africa is meaningful connectivity. How private sector can be involved? Because we need private sector to be involved in the development of the infrastructure in Africa. How do you think, following the adoption discussion we had in GDC, IGF, WSIS, how we can evolve the private sector? Because we talk about this since 20 years. But we are still at 38% access and 28% in the rural area. How can we enable access?
>> Thank you very much, Mactar, the Honorable Minister, and Distinguished Delegates. Good afternoon. My name again is Jimson Alufiea. I am going to be the Chair of the Advisory Council of the Africa ICT Alliance, which is a private sector organisation of concerned associations, companies, and individual ICT professionals across Africa.
In 2012, we started with six countries membership, and today we are more than 40 countries. And Namibia is one of the members.
And in my private life that was about advocacy. In my private life, as a businessperson, an entrepreneur, I run an ICT firm, contemporary consulting, as the principal consultant. And we are into digitalization. We are into data centres. We are into cybersecurity, and so on. We play well in the digital space.
Mactar, if you will permit me, let me first say this. I commend the two presentations we got earlier. Very, very relevant. And reflecting on that, I want to really commend UNECA and you, in particular, for the way you have championed, you know, UNECA programme and your team in the African region.
As a matter of fact, the second presentation by Sorene was quite comprehensive. But I want to mention there is something there about the outcome of WSIS 2005 meeting in Tunis. While one outcome talked about the IGF, which you are in right now; the second one talked about enhanced cooperation on public policy matters to the Internet that will enable government and stakeholders on equal footing to relate. Which is one. And that eventually is what has brought about the Summit of the Future. Because the resolution was not complete in 2018, and so the SG called for a digital panel of Melinda Gates and Mactar, and they submitted a report. And they said let us convene a Summit. It was a great outcome, and thanks to Mactar for talking about it comprehensively.
So we now have the fulfillment of the second part of the WSIS. Now, the UNECA has done a great job of WSIS annual follow up in Africa. Excellent job.
Now, in terms of governance, well, I don't see anything wrong with WSIS. WSIS can also be an opportunity where we can discuss. Because the Global Digital Compact is from WSIS, so it should also still be in WSIS so we can all have those strategies that have come out of WSIS discussed during.
Now we get to the private sector. We know private sector is very important. We implement. We provide solutions affordable solutions enabled by the government. And as such, we are always ready. But there's something that's important, Mactar. There has to be meaningful participation. We are seeing that with UNECA. I was wondering perhaps UNECA is connecting NETmundial principles and processes. Because all the things are here, that there should be meaningful participation, meaningful connectivity, and meaningful dialogue. Scoping of issues, involve all stakeholders.
Honorable Minister, you asked a question, are we doing continuous catchup, catchup? This solution is ensuring all stakeholders come together, leaving no one behind, so that we can scope the issues together, we can talk, bring everybody at the table. Because we need their buy in. The private sector is engaging because we have a stake in it, and you are right during COVID, the GDP the same in Nigeria. How do we sustain the momentum? We need to have all stakeholders together, have buy in. Let's bring all of us, and WSIS, civil society, other stakeholders, business. What I will say is the private sector is always ready to provide solutions to enable increased connectivity. In fact, there are a lot of solutions that have been discussed here that will enable connectivity at the local level, lots of solutions, possible solutions.
Finally, the private sector needs support, support in terms of some form of subsidy, usually the USPF funding. This funding can easily be provided to subsidize with the provision of infrastructure in the underserved areas. So if countries have not been collecting, say, USPF funds, they need to do that so that they can ensure maybe, like in Nigeria, about 25% can be connected, and another is even higher. Private sector, in conclusion, is always ready to support. We have seen that Internet connectivity leads to GDP growth, as the research pointed out. Research last year also pointed out. Thank you.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you. A lot of issues. Very important.
Now let me come back to Honorable Minister. We have one big issue in the continent. We have several issues, but one biggest, it is now this gender digital gap: Last year, in 2023, we had a difference of ten points between men and women connected. This year it will increase. The difference is 13.13 points between women and men. We have less women connected now to the men. And this is decreased at the continental level.
And there are several studies showing that if we leave out women and girls from the digital technology, developing countries can lose from 1 to 1.53 on their GDP. How can Africa what kind of strategy can you put in your country to make sure more women and girls are connected in the network?
>> Thank you for asking that question, Mactar. We actually had an earlier panel with this this discussion was had around the gender digital divide and what we can do, different actors to try, we continue to close it. Because we anticipate it getting bigger and wider if we do not intervene right now.
And the first one we need to look at now is ensuring we have the necessary investment at local level, at country level in education for tech for girls. And I know it seems like, but no girl is necessarily cut out from pursuing a career in tech. But believe me you, there are many factors, cultural barriers, normative barriers, that make it difficult for girls and women to actually pursue careers in tech. Right now, 25% of the tech Workforce is women, which means 75% is men. So if a woman gets into an environment like that, she would almost always be a minority. Only 11% of all executives in tech companies around the world are women. Which means the rest are men. So it's quite slow in the number of women getting to that. But that's a bit high level.
Let's get back to the basics. The basics of basic digital literacy. How many girls and women have access to a smartphone? How many can navigate on the Internet? How many can afford data? How many can afford a smartphone?
Sop that we see the real inequalities in real life, where women would not have the necessary money to even afford a smartphone already cuts her out in having access to Internet or having access to digital skills, access to digital literacy. And that's a problem. A problem because, one, they are unable to harness the opportunities that might exist online. And that's a problem in itself. Imagine a small scale woman who runs a small business, because of the fear of going online, they are unable to scale their business with more customers, with more markets. Something their male counterparts would likely have. And you know, it might seem like it's a small percentage. I believe it's 69% of men in the world compared to 63% use the Internet. But that's a difference of over 200 million women. So it's in the numbers. So that's 200 million women, between men and women, who are unable to leverage the opportunities their male counterparts are leveraging on the Internet and online.
So it has detrimental effects on our GDPs as countries. But it also puts us at a loss. This is why in Namibia, we have tried. We have Girl Coding Camps, which are not very popular with everybody else because they feel we are discriminating against the boy child. But it's a catchup mechanism for young girls to feel comfortable that coding can also be for girls. Video games can also be for girls. Because we are seeing that more and more these sectors are growing, and women and girls are seen as an anomaly when they enter them.
Secondly, we have now created a digital literacy framework at a national level. Because we know we can't do it alone as a government. So anybody who would like to give digital literacy, they need to follow the framework so that we know that even if you are a volunteer or a small organisation or a small business and you want to impart digital literacy, the quality is still there. So whoever gets that knowledge, we know that the quality is standardized across the country and people don't take chances.
So these are small efforts. We also have what we call the ICT Centres that we have across the country. And we collaborate with our Ministry of Youth that has multipurpose youth centres to try to equip them with even one laptop at an ICT centre goes a long way for that rural area to access Internet. To access a laptop. To access a printer. To teach them how to switch on and switch off a computer. How to create an email. How to show you have a social media platform to get a wider market. So my point is let us get back to basics. There are so many high level discussions, so many high level things we can talk about. But it means nothing if the average person in our communities cannot confidently go online. It means absolutely nothing. So let us go back to basics. Let us empower our people in using the basic knowledge online. Then you will see the demand. Because it will be automatic. If somebody has no more fear of the Internet, cannot fear going online, banking online, you know, running a social media platform online. If everybody is on par with the basics, the demand will be automatic. And governments and private sector will be forced to bring that service closer to the people because the demand will be overwhelming.
Thank you.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you.
(Applause)
Well noted, Honorable Minister. We are now almost at the end of one minute left. So I would like to thank you for your participation. And also thank you, all our panelists, for key messages and key insights and reflections through this meeting and the key outcomes of this session.
I would like to thank also Namibia for the work done as co facilitator of the Summit of the Future. It was very proud of the work done by Namibia and also by the Government of Namibia, and thank you once again. And congratulations for the work done.
(Applause)
As you are the our co chair, please close the meeting. Yes, you can close.
>> Since you are giving me the chair, I am going the opportunity over.
>>
>> One more thing since we are running out of time.
>> Honourable Minister, smart regulation. You said it all. Smart regulation, bringing all stakeholders together will really help a lot. Thank you.
>> I want to say thank you very much. Digital governance in the continent is an ongoing project. And now that we know that there is a demand for us to actually get our ducks in a row, the multistakeholder approach is the one to go. Civil society, governments, private sector, UN agencies, all of us need to find ways to collaborate, find the necessary financing to implement all these efforts and all these very important documents we have already adopted. The roadmap is clear. It's just the vehicle that we need to use, the fuel that we need to put into the vehicle, and the people and the planet that we need to use as centre principles as we move forward, especially towards WSIS+20 Review. Thank you.
>> MACTAR SECK: Thank you very much. We have to find a way to implement, find funding resources, and collaborate. Thank you very much, and see you soon.