77th Plenary Meeting of General Assembly 70th Session

Bridging the vast digital divide that existed between countries and genders, as well as the importance of cybersecurity in today’s increasingly dangerous world were among the themes highlighted today as the General Assembly held its 10-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society.

• Categories: Meetings & Events / General Assembly
• Video Length: 03:08:10
• Production Date: 15 December 2015
• Asset Language: Arabic; Chinese; English; French; Russian; Spanish
• Subject Topical: COMMUNICATIONS; CYBER SECURITY; HUMAN RIGHTS; INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY; INTERNET
• MAMS Id: 1533240
• Parent Id: 1531424

Description

Opening the high-level meeting, Mogens Lykketoft, General Assembly President, said that since the 2005 World Summit, when leaders had declared a “common desire and commitment to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented information society”, huge progress had been made in the information and communications technology (ICT) field.

According to the International Telecommunication Union, he said, 43.4 per cent of the world’s population was currently online and mobile-cellular subscriptions stood at almost 7.1 billion. Information and communication technologies were drivers of economic and social development. However, challenges remained, such as the digital divides among countries, as well as Internet security and human rights issues, he said.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also raised some concerns, noting that while more than 80 per cent of households in developed countries had Internet access, two out of three in developing countries did not. Additionally, 200 million fewer women than men had access. He urged the international community to bridge those divides especially in light of the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which included information and communications technology targets.

The Minister of Communication Technologies and Digital Economy of Tunisia, whose country had hosted the World Summit in 2005, also highlighted the divide, noting that it was 50 times more difficult today for an African child to gain access to technology than a child in a developed country. It was also much more difficult for a girl to access technology than a boy.

Echoing that sentiment, the representative of Sweden recalled that the authors of the Beijing Platform for Action, adopted in 1995, had agreed to “increase the participation and access of women to expression and decision-making” in the face of new media and technology. It was high time the world delivered on its promises. Women were leaving the Internet because they were concerned for their safety and integrity, she said, adding that they were the primary targets of hate speech and cyberviolence.

Several speakers today highlighted issues of cybersecurity and the urgent need to address them. Among those was the representative of Pakistan, who drew attention to the malicious use of information and communication technologies which, she said, posed great risks to international peace and security. She urged a collective approach to confronting attacks against critical infrastructure and underscored the need to optimize cyberspace management under an institutional framework.

Another recurring theme was the protection of human rights, deemed equally important online as offline. The Austrian delegate said that the free flow of information was only possible if human rights, including the right to privacy, were protected. Stressing the need to safeguard online human rights, he said his country attached particular importance to the rights of journalists and human rights workers.

Several delegations promoted a multi-stakeholder approach to narrowing the digital divide, including the representative of the United States, who said that framework had been set out in the World Summit 10 years ago, which had encouraged bottom-up investment and innovation instead of top-down governmental control. Government institutions often lacked the capacity and expertise to make decisions quickly, which was incompatible with “Internet speed”. Moreover, Governmental control could allow repressive regimes to advance censorship.

She also touted the United States’ recently launched the “Global Connect” initiative where national Governments, development agencies, non-governmental organizations and the private sector would collaborate to have an additional 1.5 billion people online by 2020. The initiative would encourage countries to integrate Internet connectivity as part of their national development strategies and champion innovative industry-driven solutions.

Also highlighting ICT achievements nationally was the representative of Chile, who said his country was a leader in its region, with 70 per cent of Internet users in a population of 18 million. Twenty million devices connected to the Internet and the country had a goal of Internet access for 98 per cent of the populated territory by 2016.

Also speaking today, including at the ministerial level, were representatives of South Africa (on behalf the “Group of 77” developing countries and China), Estonia, United Kingdom, Qatar, Latvia, Uruguay, Paraguay, Russian Federation, Brazil, Japan, Cuba, Viet Nam, the Netherlands, Australia, Poland, Switzerland, India, Bangladesh, Zambia (on behalf of the Group of Landlocked Developing Countries), Ecuador (on behalf of Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), Trinidad and Tobago (on behalf of the Caribbean Community),the Maldives (on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States), Mexico, Turkey, Malta, Germany, Italy, Spain, Finland, Dominican Republic, Luxemburg, China, Kazakhstan, Slovakia, United Arab Emirates, Republic of Korea, France, and Colombia, as well as a representative of the European Union.

The Assembly will reconvene at 10 a.m. tomorrow, 16 December, to conclude its debate on the World Summit on the Information Society.