Remarks by Mr Guy Ryder

ITU Councillors and distinguished guests, thank you for the opportunity to address this High-level Segment.

At a time when communication technology is central to achieving Sustainable Development Goals, your leadership is critical for the continued success of ITU and beyond.

To secure a better, greener, and safer future for all, we will need to build more inclusive and networked approaches to digital governance, like those practiced at the ITU, if we are to harness the benefits of new technology while mitigating its risks.

OUR COMMON AGENDA

In his 2021 report, Our Common Agenda, the Secretary-General presented a vision for effective multilateralism based on this inclusive and networked approach.

In it, he called for the rapid and safe adoption of new technologies to turbocharge achievement of the sustainable development goals. He also acknowledged the digital domain as a global public good that should benefit everyone, everywhere, which is a key mission of ITU. 

He also called for global and national governance of the digital domain, which requires close engagement with the private sector and civil society.

In many ways, the ITU, despite being the oldest body of the UN system, presents a very modern example for effective multilateralism.

Your multistakeholder approach, which enables the private sector and non-governmental organizations to participate in ITU deliberations sets the standard for the rest of the international system.

We are heartened by the collaborative approach of your Secretary-General and her team, who are championing the implementation of Our Common Agenda.

Critically, ITU was an essential partner in the drafting of the Secretary-General’s Policy Brief for a Global Digital Compact.

The Brief envisions digital cooperation that is collaborative, with humanity at the core, no one left behind, and anchored in human rights.

I should also acknowledge ITU’s role in leading the digital elements of the UN Transforming Education Summit, because digital technologies and universal connectivity are critical to extending learning to everyone, everywhere on our planet.

Looking towards the Summit of the Future in 2024, we will rely on ITU’s continued support and engagement to achieve a transformative Pact for the Future and accelerate achievement of the SDGs.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS OPPORTUNITIES

Our success in achieving these goals will depend largely on our ability to harness the opportunities presented by telecommunications and frontier technologies.

As evidenced by last week’s AI for Good Summit, ITU has shown global leadership in applying new technologies to solve problems, and for developing the standards that support their development and diffusion.

As Doreen made clear in her opening address this morning, meaningful internet connectivity is among the most important of these new solutions, a key to unlocking progress where we need it most.

But that key is difficult to turn at the last mile of internet connectivity, and here also, ITU is leading.

Through projects like Partner 2 Connect and the Giga school connectivity initiative, ITU are bringing innovative and effective solutions.

In the critical domain of outer space, ITU’s work in satellite registration and frequency allocation has been essential to the rapid scale-up of low earth orbit satellites.

These satellites are delivering internet connectivity, monitoring climate change, and exploring the universe.

And we know that you’re already at work on emerging issues like artificial intelligence, robotics, and quantum computing.

It is this forward-looking, inclusive and networked approach at ITU that we count on to inspire our work and to help the international community deliver for the 2030 agenda.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS RISKS

But as you well know, these telecommunications breakthroughs are not without risk.

Absent standards and effective guardrails, new technologies can amplify existing divides and destabilize social structures, rather than accelerate development.

Generative AI, among the newest of these transformative technologies, has the capacity to for tremendous good but also to serve evil. And it can do both at speed and scale.

At your AI for Good Summit there was exciting discussion about innovation and breakthroughs in public health, energy, communications, and robotics.

But we also heard about the impact of deepfakes, data biases, dis-information, and catastrophic risks.

To consider these opportunities and risks, the Secretary-General will assemble a new High-level Body on Artificial Intelligence to provide options for the global governance of this critical technology.

This Body, and the Secretariat that supports it, will rely on the experience and advice of the ITU.

Throughout your history, you have succeeded in bringing order and governance to new and powerful digital technologies.

Your experience in building and delivering fair standards and spectrum allocations serves as an outstanding example of the utility of international organizations.

Through this work, you have contributed to the building of “digital Geneva”. A term now synonymous with inclusive, collaborative, and effective governance approaches.
 
FUTURE DIGITAL GOVERNANCE

This brings us to an important governance question moving forward.

How do we ensure that this effective model for governance is amplified beyond “Digital Geneva”?

Collectively, there is an urgent need to increase digital governance expertise and exposure across issues, pillars, and places.

One of the options to accelerate this work is for a Digital Cooperation Forum, which the Secretary-General has presented in Our Common Agenda report.

This Forum would help amplify the successes here in Geneva, build on best practices and help improve the capabilities of the growing number of digital diplomats in New York and globally.

It would not seek to “centralize” digital governance, but rather to promote and support what already exists and identify any gaps that may emerge.

As the Secretary-General said in his Policy Brief, this Forum would in no way seek to replace the existing work done here.

Rather, it would promote communication and alignment among existing digital governance mechanisms, bodies, and panels.
This collaborative hub-and-spoke model presents in innovative and inclusive approach.

Digital and technology are not fields that can be governed in one place, by one group of people.

We need to work together to build agile, coordinated, and innovative solutions at a global scale, commensurate with the wide reach and transformative power of these technologies.

Over the coming months and years, we have before us an extraordinary opportunity to shape the future global digital governance.

Beginning with the SDG Summit in September and the Global Digital Compact and the Summit of the Future in 2024.

We have the annual gatherings of this Council, the STI Forum, the CTSD and the Internet Governance Forum.

And, importantly, we have WSIS+20 in 2025.

If we work collaboratively and creatively, we can emerge from these processes with a cooperative, agile, and global approach to digital governance.

And that is why the ITU is so important to our shared success.

Who better to model an effective 21^st century multilateralism, than an organization that has had networked, inclusive and effective governance at its core since the 19^th century.

I look forward to working with you on this important project and wish the best of success on your work this week.

Thank you.