The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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. >>TIMEA SUTO: Hello, my name is Timea Suto, and I am pleased to join you today, even if just virtually, at the IGF Open Consultations and MAG meeting to give you a brief updated on the work of the International Chamber of Commerce and its business action to support the Information Society BASIS initiative.
As the institutional representative of over 45 million businesses, IC works to leverage the creativity, expertise, and innovation of the private sector to deliver global solutions to interconnected problems and challenges. We take a purpose-led approach to policy and stakeholder engagement, encompassing a mix of advocacy, standard setting, thought leadership and partnerships to enable genuine systems change for people, planet and prosperity by shaping global policy norms and business practice.
As COVID-19 spread dramatically across the globe, disrupting lives, livelihoods, communities and businesses, we all witnessed how global cooperation is of paramount importance and how the Internet and digital technologies provide the backbone for this cooperation.
We believe that the private sector has a vital role to play in charting an effective response to the crisis unfolding before us; however, the ICC cannot tackle such a significant challenging on its own. We strongly believe in the multistakeholder approach and have, therefore, forged several critical partnerships with key stakeholders.
For instance, in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, ICC partnered with the World Health Organization to facilitate information flows by disseminating the latest and most reliable information on the COVID-19 outbreak to businesses worldwide. Acting on this commitment, we launched ICC's COVID-19 portal that offers trusted advice to businesses, policymakers and chambers of commerce. It is our mission to help businesses adapt to new social and economic circumstances the pandemic is creating.
At the same time, we firmly believe that business must be the trusted voice in their local communities and spread knowledge and improved understanding of COVID-19 among their employees, customers, and stakeholders. We work to enable them to do so.
Focusing on the most hard-hit segment of the global economy, we launched ICC's Save Our SMEs or, SOS campaign, that is based on collaborative action and information sharing. Here again, we are working with partners from international organizations like WHO, ILO, and UNICEF, with companies like Amazon or Facebook, with nonprofits like the Cyber Readiness Institute and with local chambers of commerce from The Gambia to Canada to gather and offer resources, support, policy advice, and training for MSMEs as they are battling this crisis. Together we are stronger.
By pooling the expertise of our partners, we have been able to offer training on cybersecurity tailored for businesses and workers as they move their operations to a virtual setting or use their home networks or personal devices to conduct business. The feedback we have received demonstrates that our allied forces have equipped us to provide targeted, high-quality support at a critical time and in record time.
We shared guidance and references on digital rapid response measures by banks, relying on digital tools to continue to flow the trade and trade finance when paper transfer has become difficult or impossible. We also offer guidance documents and a series of podcasts and webinars to ensure supply chains, dispute resolution or brand protection continues to function in its current unprecedented context.
We have no intention of stopping these initiatives. On the contrary, ICC is committed to pursuing and further refining this offer in the months and years to come.
To boost policy cooperation, ICC has been engaging with G20 leaders and ministers and is working closely with key international bodies, including the U.N., WHO, IMF, WCO and others to encourage coordinated and effective global action based on information that we have gathered from our members across the globe.
On our usual activities on digital topics, we maintain our three main focus areas for 2020: cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and multistakeholder digital cooperation.
ICC is convening businesses worldwide to provide a common global private sector perspective on discussion on the development, deployment, and use of human-centric AI and to demonstrate business action as these discussions move from principles to implementation.
We continue to engage with the work of the global community to foster common understanding on how international law applies in the use of ICTs, promoting norms of responsible behavior online and deploy related capacity-building efforts and confidence-building measures.
Last but certainly not least, we are actively engaged in the discussions led by the United Nations Secretary-General on digital cooperation. ICC's first vice-chair, Ajay Banga, joins Secretary-General Guterres to launch his roadmap for digital cooperation. ICC is looking forward to engage with the global multistakeholder community in the implementation of this roadmap.
Many thanks for your attention. I am looking forward to the day we can all meet in person again. Until then, take care, stay safe, and stay online.