By Emmanuel Elebeke THE Broadband Commission for Sustainable
Development in its 2017 Spring Meeting in Hong Kong, SAR of China, weekend,
announced its commitment to concrete actions that will spur the roll-out of
broadband around the world.
Currently, some five billion people are without mobile
broadband access, meaning that the paths to access digital services and
applications are currently blocked for much of the world’s population, thereby
holding back progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.“This
prompted the need for a new deal between all broadband stakeholders to roundly
debate at the meeting how to bring renewed commitment to work towards full
global connectivity and digital transformation. In particular, emphasis was
placed on remote and rural areas – especially to support Least Developed
Countries – which represent the biggest challenge and where barriers to access
also need to be viewed through the prism of affordability and content, notably
local and multi-lingual content. “Co-Chair of the Broadband Commission,
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda at the meting noted that, “ICT and broadband
are linking everyone and everything for the betterment of economies and
societies. We are motivated by wanting to have the global community connected,
especially the billions of unconnected.
We will succeed when we work together: government, industry and civil
society leaders,” he added. Secretary-General of ITU and co-vice chair of the
Broadband Commission, Houlin Zhao, stated that: “Our central conviction is that
broadband and ICTs are critical if we are to achieve the Sustainable
Development Goals. ICTs he said,
underpin vital achievements and modern services in many sectors, and
governments and insisted that industry must increasingly work together to
create the conditions so badly needed to facilitate the growth of broadband for
sustainable development. The 2030 Agenda provided the context for discussion.
On his part, UNESCO Director-General and Co-Vice Chair of the Broadband
Commission, Irina Bokova, noted: “The framework
for all our work is the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17
Sustainable Development Goals. We must ensure the digital revolution is a
revolution for human rights and promote technological breakthroughs as
development breakthroughs. The importance of scaling efforts in digital
education and mobile learning was a priority which received full support and
agreement from Commissioners.” Ethnic Cour Hong Kong Applications China Actions
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