The EU would like to thank the ITU for organizing this Policy Forum on such an important and timely topic, and despite difficult conditions.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the role of telecommunications technologies in our lives, but also exposed vulnerabilities of our societies and exacerbated the digital divide. As recognised in the draft report from the ITU Secretary General, we must all re-double our efforts to address the particular challenges faced by developing countries in mobilizing new and emerging telecommunication/ICT services and technologies for sustainable development.  

In this regard, the EU supports the ITU’s central role in accelerating the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals by providing assistance to reduce the digital divide, including the gender digital divide, by increasing universal and affordable connectivity, and by supporting digital literacy.  

We also reiterate the need to adopt a human rights-based approach throughout all these efforts in order to achieve meaningful, inclusive and sustainable connectivity, which promotes human rights and fundamental freedoms, including right to privacy and freedom of expression, and which allows everyone to access an innovative, secure, stable, open and free internet. For this, it is particularly important to uphold a multi-stakeholder cooperation model based on consensus-building processes. 

Similar considerations are of central importance also in the development of ITU standards, which need to promote not only security but also human rights and consumers’ needs. To achieve this in an environment where technological evolution often outpaces the legislative and policy-making processes, we again reiterate the need for a consensus-based approach and for the involvement of all relevant stakeholders, including non-governmental and private actors who are driving much of the innovation. The EU also encourages the ITU to promote standards that have sustainability at their heart, and allow for climate friendly and energy-friendly ICT technologies with lower carbon footprint. 

At the European Union level, we have put citizens at the heart of our digital discussions in order to identify digital policies that empower people and businesses to seize a human centred, sustainable and more prosperous digital future. This is the goal of the European Commission communication “2030 Digital Compass: the European way for the Digital Decade”, which, among other policy objectives, seeks to ensure full respect for fundamental rights and principles in the digital space, including access to diverse, trustworthy and transparent information, protection of personal data and privacy, and the protection of intellectual creation in the online space.   

As a proud largest donor to the ITU development activities, the EU also closely cooperates with the ITU and the African Union on various projects in Africa, including the “Policy and Regulation Initiative for Digital Africa” (PRIDA). We also launched in December 2020 a “Digital for Development” (D4D) Hub: a multi-stakeholder coordination mechanism for sharing digital expertise with four regions. The first D4D Hub projects in Africa are already operational while the D4D Hub Latin America and the Caribbean was launched this Tuesday.   

Finally, the EU is looking forward to further intensifying its efforts in the framework of the new Global Gateway strategy. We are looking forward to working with partner countries to deploy and invest in new digital networks and infrastructures in order to achieve financially and environmentally sustainable connectivity. 

Thank you.