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2nd Inter-Regional Coordination Meeting for WTDC
Virtual Meeting  13 December 2021


Second Inter-Regional Meeting (IRM) for WTDC

Opening Remarks

Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Director, ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau

13 December 2021


Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to our members joining us for this Second Inter-Regional Meeting – IRM-2 – to prepare for our forthcoming WTDC.

Before we begin, let me take a moment to thank Roxane McElvane for stepping up to chair this meeting at very short notice.

I know that many of you are aware of discussions ongoing regarding the hosting of the next WTDC, based on the challenges related to planning and organizing the conference at the agreed venue.

In these circumstances, we have sought to ensure continuity by asking the Chair of the TDAG to chair this IRM on an interim basis, noting that the IRM was decided on during the 2020 TDAG session.

I am grateful to Roxanne for kindly agreeing to make herself available, and we hope that delegates will agree to this approach for this meeting. Once we have more clarity, it is our expectation that the next IRM would be chaired by the Chair-designate for the WTDC, as originally proposed by TDAG.

Let me assure you that the ITU Secretariat, in consultation with our members, is very actively exploring potential hosting options, with a strong focus on the Africa Region. We hope to be able to provide more information in the very near future. 

Dear colleagues,

This IRM is an important stage on our journey to make WTDC-22 a truly landmark event.  Our goal is a conference that delivers tangible, achievable and above all, impactful outcomes.

Two weeks ago, I launched ITU's latest figures on the state of global connectivity revealing that an estimated 2.9 billion people remain entirely cut-off from the online world. And my participation in last week's IGF left me in no doubt whatsoever about the level of global concern about the increasingly dire implications for those on the wrong side of the digital divide.

With connectivity now at the top of every national agenda, our next WTDC offers us an unmissable chance to accelerate progress towards a fully connected planet.

We urgently need to find effective ways to channel the unprecedented wave of political will around connectivity into rapid and meaningful progress.

That imperative lies at the heart of our Partner2Connect Digital Coalition, which opens an opportunity for a whole new level of collaboration and high-level input to the conference by bringing powerful new stakeholders to the table. The initiative is rapidly gathering momentum, with a broad cross-section of stakeholders expressing a strong level of interest in joining the four focus areas of the Coalition, and the planned launch of our Partner2Connect pledging platform this coming January.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Today's IRM will deal with several important issues, including proposals for updates to WTDC resolutions, and issues relating to the ITU Strategic plan.

We are at a critical point in our preparations. I commend the willingness of membership to engage on these and other important issues before the WTDC, so that we can dedicate our precious conference time to building consensus around more complex and difficult issues.

I am convinced thorough preparation is the key to our success, and this IRM is a critical part of that process.

So, let's keep our sights firmly focused on the once-in-a-generation opportunity ahead.  As always, the BDT Secretariat remains entirely at your disposal for any assistance you may require, to ensure that we are all empowered to galvanize our collective efforts to harness digital technologies and the power of multistakeholder partnership to rewrite the global development agenda and get the SDGs back on track.

Thank you.