UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon delivered a keynote video message to the landmark World Conference on International Telecommunications (#WCIT12) in Dubai, demonstrating clearly his commitment to ensuring that ICTs continue to drive social and economic benefits globally.
The UN Secretary-General thanked the United Arab Emirates for hosting this year’s conference and also stressed the importance that information communication technologies (ICTs) are facilitating in transforming the world we live in.
The role of technology in providing a mechanism for people to voice their legitimate demands for greater human rights and accountability of governments – as witnessed during the Arab Spring – has been nothing short of revolutionary, and ICTs role in this democratization of power has been crucial.
In addition, the overarching architecture that ICTs provide has also been a key, tangible tool in attempting to find solutions to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as assisting in setting the post 2015 development agenda.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reiterated the role that ITU and the WCIT-12 will facilitate in providing a multi-lateral, bottom-up stakeholder approach when reviewing the agreements that underpin the way the world communicates.
The UN Secretary-General also denoted that the management of 21st century technologies must be done in a transparent, democratic and inclusive manner.
The objective of WCIT-12 and the role of ITU are to ensure universal access to ICTs for every person around the world, to address the fissure of the digital divide and ensure that access to ICTs are ubiquitous in the knowledge economy.
