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IGF 2021 Day 0 Event #125 Partner2Connect Digital Coalition: Connecting people everywhere

    Time
    Monday, 6th December, 2021 (13:35 UTC) - Monday, 6th December, 2021 (14:35 UTC)
    Room
    Ballroom C
    Speakers

    Speaker 1: Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Director, Telecommunication Development Bureau, ITU
    Speaker 2: Pamela Coke-Hamilton, Director General, ITC (video address)
    Speaker 3: Walid Mathlouthi, Head, FNS Division, ITU
    Speaker 4: H.E. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Minister of Communications and Digitalization, Ghana
    Speaker 5: Joakim Reiter, Chief, External and Corporate Affairs Officer, Vodafone Group
    Speaker 6: Eleanor Sarpong, Deputy Director & Policy Lead, Alliance for Affordable Internet, World Wide Web Foundation
    Speaker 7: H.E Mohamed Shareef, Minister of State for Environment, Climate Change and Technology. Maldives.
    Speaker 8: Heidi Schroderus-Fox, Director, UNOHRLLS
    Speaker 9: Maria Francesca Spatolisano, Officer-in Charge, Office of the Secretary-General's Envoy on Technology, and Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs, DESA, United Nations
    Speaker 10: Maikel Wilms, Partner & Director, BCG

    Online Moderator
    David Kirkpatrick, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Techonomy Media
    Description

    The digital divide continues to be a challenge particularly for Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). 

    As a response to this challenge, in close cooperation with the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology, and in line with the UN Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, ITU has launched the Partner2Connect Digital Coalition (P2C). This multistakeholder alliance aims to foster meaningful connectivity and digital transformation in the hardest-to-connect communities, and to offer a platform for all stakeholders to engage and mobilize resources, partnerships, and commitments to achieve universal and meaningful connectivity. The work of the P2C coalition is built around four focus areas:

    Connecting people everywhere

    Empowering communities

    Building digital ecosystems

    Incentivizing investments

    This session is the first one of the P2C Global Dialogues and it will concentrate on the Focus Area 1 of the Coalition: Connecting people everywhere. The session will expose the key issues that currently condition universal, affordable, resilient and trustworthy connectivity, as well as the types of pledges and commitments needed to address them.