The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF 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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>> ANNOUNCER: Please welcome to the stage the moderator, Giacomo Paoli.
>> GIACOMO PAOLI: Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and a warm welcome to the session whether you are following us in the room or online. We are here today to discuss a topic that is both critical and too often overlooked, the security and resilience of subsea telecommunication cables.
The infrastructure carries over 99% of global intercontinental data, silently underpinning every facet of our digital world we rely on, yet despite of the criticality, they remain largely out of sight and too often out of mind.
My name is Giacomo Paoli. I'm the Head of the Security and Technology Programme at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, and it is an honour to cohost the session in partnership with the Government of Norway as part of this year's Internet Governance Forum. Recent incidents whether accidental or deliberate have underscored how vulnerable these digital lifelines truly are. The growing intersection of geopolitical intentions, malicious cyber capabilities and infrastructure fragility highlights a stark reality. The risks are no longer hypothetical. They are here, and they are multiplying.
This is why this session aspires to be more than a conversation. It aspires to serve as a call for Governments, industry and the wider multistakeholder community to come together and exchange best practices, strengthen cooperation, and build resilience into one of the most vital components of the global digital ecosystem.
The session will unfold in two parts. We will begin with the high level ministerial dialogue offering national perspectives on how countries are approaching the protection of subsea cables. Following that, we will turn to a multistakeholder panel of experts who will reflect on the evolving threat landscape and share actionable insights on how to secure subsea cable infrastructure.
We are privileged to be joined by an exceptional group of leaders from across sectors and regions, their one that reflects both the complexity of it challenges and the spirit of international cooperation that forums like IGF are designed to inspire. And now, without further ado, we have the honour of inviting here on stage Minister Karianne Tung, Minister of Digitalisation and Public Governance, Norway, Jarno Syrjälä, Under‑Secretary of State for International Trade, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland; Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy of Nigeria, and Liisa‑Ly Pakosta, please join me in a round of applause in welcoming them on stage. Thank you once again for taking the time to join us to discuss this very important topic today, and I would like to start with you, Minister Tung and giving the you floor.
>> KARIANNE TUNG: Thank you moderator. Good morning, everyone, it is a pleasure to be here together with you for this important session on the protection of subsea telecommunication cables, and thank you once again for being here. The underwater cables make up the foundation of the global Internet infrastructure, enabling people, communities and businesses to communicate, share and innovate.
The recent years incidents with damages to subsea infrastructure have reminded us how important it is to increase the resilience of this critical infrastructure. We have seen the incident with the north stream pipeline damages to subsea cables in the Baltic Sea and in the Red Sea and once again we see war raging on European soil. As more than 99% of the intercontinental data traffic is carried by sub see communication cables have raised awareness that we must better protect this critical infrastructure.
Norway has intensified our efforts to increase the security of subsea cables. We are conducting service of subsea cable for detection and prevention of threats. We make use of innovative technologies to monitor the subsea cables, enable detection of threats and incidents, and quick notification and intervention.
We are also establishing a close cooperation between the Private Sector and the civil and defense authorities. This way we can combine and maximize the knowledge and strength of the civil and Private Sector and the defense sector in this important work. We have seen the importance of clarifying the roles of responsibilities of owners of subsea cable, civil authorities and the defense sector. This experience from the Baltic Sea have shown us that such clarifications are needed for swift action which incidents occur. There is no escaping that submarine cable infrastructure go across national borders and international waters. Therefore it is crucial with both European and international cooperation to identify and implement effective security measures, and the necessary regulatory framework.
One good example of such cooperation was established in 2024 for the protection of critical subsea infrastructure in the north sea between the North Sea countries, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, U.K., Denmark and Norway. In May 2025, a similar cooperation was agreed on for protection of critical subsea infrastructure in the Baltic satisfy with Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, Norway. We need a combination of national, regional and international cooperation to achieve effective resilience measures and the necessary exchange of information about threats and sharing of best practice. Threats to subsea communication cables are not limited by national borders, so international cooperation is vital for protection of subsea cable and together we can advance new ways of securing these critical cables that the Internet is fully depending on. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much for sharing these opening remarks and for highlighting among other things the importance of cooperation both between states and Governments, but also public‑private cooperation as a key enabler for the protection of subsea cable. I would like to give the floor to the Under Secretary of State for international trade Finland, please.
>> JARNO SYRJÄLÄ: Thank you. It's great to be here and it's my pleasure to provide remarks on behalf of Government of Finland on appropriate of subsea telecommunications cables.
The fundamental change in our security environment has implications for safety and resilience of our critical digital infrastructure. As recent incidents at the Baltic Sea have demonstrated we have a clear need to better protect our critical undersea infrastructure.
Trust in the digital systems is necessary for sustainable inclusive digital future. The security of data and digital infrastructure are key concerns for countries from both national security and an economic standpoint. The security of digital systems and data increases trust, and trust adds to investments, welfare and prosperity.
Concerning the current threat landscape and our resilience, Finland has a long history of preparedness in all areas of life including the telecommunications sector. For example, resilience requirements for public communications networks were deemed necessary several decades ago, and have been developed over time as technologies and usage needs have changed.
Comprehensive telecommunications legislation and extensive resilience requirements covering also submarine cables have been implemented in Finland's national telecommunications legislation. The NIS2 directive focused on enhancing cybersecurity across the EU was also transposed into national law in April 2025. One of the most important aspects of the telecommunications resilience is solid public‑private partnership.
Over the years, close cooperation between public authorities and private companies has been established in Finland. I would like to also underline the importance of international cooperation on the security and resilience of submarine cables.
International cross border cooperation plays an important role, for example, in terms of supervision, building new capabilities and preventing disruptions.
We encourage also other actors to engage in the international cooperation and partnership building on submarine cable resilience including the multistakeholder community.
NATO and EU have increased their resilience response and deterrence which help us protect against all incidents, intentional or unintentional. Most recent example of this cooperation to protection critical undersea infrastructure including submarine cables is the recent Memorandum of Understanding with the Baltic Sea NATO allies and the EU published in May 2025.
Within international telecommunications Union, ITU, we have endorsed the International Advisory Body Declaration on Submarine Cable Resilience adopted in February 2025 and look forward to engaging in the Working Groups.
Pleased to see the Co‑Chair of the Advisory Body, Honorable Minister Jarno Syrjälä taking an active role on these issues. In addition, the EU Action Plan on cable security defines four objectives to address the challenges in the field of submarine cable resilience and security prevention. Detection, response and repair and deterrence.
Finland endorses actions and objectives defined in the Action Plan and is committed to them. Also, we are New York declaration on submarine security. The declaration aims to encourage countries to promote the integrity, security and accessibility of the submarine cable infrastructure which is important for the digital economy and prerequisite for the trusted connectivity.
To conclude, our societies are increasingly dependent on reliable and secure digital connections that ensure free flow of information and support growth in the digital economy.
Securing critical infrastructure is of primary importance for Finland. This is why we will intensify cooperation with like‑minded countries and actors to strengthen the security of submarine cables. A lot of focus has been placed on using new technologies in protecting critical under sea infrastructure. We need a sense of urgency on this. We need to develop well working mechanisms that are innovative and willing to experiment.
With regard to submarine cables we underline three areas with resilience as a priority, adequacy of repair capacity, material preparation as well as infrastructure monitoring and sensing capabilities.
So the momentum on submarine cable security is right now, and it is important to enhance international cooperation on this topic. The multistakeholder community should also have a more prominent role on discussions of submarine cable resilience and I'm grateful for our Norwegian colleagues to place more attention to this topic. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Under Secretary for your remarks for again stressing the importance of cooperation both between states and within the multistakeholder community but also for bringing to light the importance of trust and security as vehicles towards the resilience of digital information infrastructure.
I would like now to give the floor to Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, innovation and digital economy of Nigeria. Please.
>> BOSUN TIJANI: Good morning, everyone. It's a privilege to, of course, be on this stage to contribute to this important conversation, one that is important not just because, of course, we all know that digital economy is literally the backbone of every economy in the world, but the fact that submarine cables are not just technical assets. These are literally the most important critical infrastructure that we can think of in the world today. And I think when you compare it to many other critical infrastructures, I don't think attention is being given enough to how we protect it.
And while we may be seeing more attention, I think we have to call out in particular the International Telecommunications Union, the ICPC for the work they have done, but also the renewed focus on mobilizing partnerships and collaboration to drive a stronger attention on this cable. When you look at countries all over the world, and I can speak to Nigeria and a lot of African countries a lot of the long age challenges we face, we are seeing communications technologies as being one of the fastest ways in which we can address so many of the challenges, whether you talk about quality education or being able to provide healthcare to literally everyone on our continent and in our countries, we see the role that digital technologies, connected technologies can actually play. We have seen the role of connected technologies in financial inclusion, for instance, which has changed the landscape significantly. I think the most popular ones would be in East Africa, how many people we have now been able to bring into the financial system because we have connected technologies. It's the same in my country as well where financial technology solutions are now changing how we do things and all of these solutions would not be possible without the Internet.
I think the introductory remarks mention that 99% of the traffic that is actually carried on the Internet is on subsea cable. So we can see why this is not just a technical asset. It is an important asset. Not only do we need to protect it. We also need to worry more about the broader resilience of this cable, which is why as a country we are extremely excited to be participating in the international Advisory Body, ITU has put together, and this Advisory Body is not just a talk shop or opportunity to gather. It's not one where we are talking about how do we come up with more laws to protect, but how do we also deploy for timely repair? Because sometimes the damages to the cable are not intentional. Natural disasters may also cause destruction of these cables. How do we ensure that nations can timely come to the point where they can fix this cable because just a day or two or three of some of these cables being down can cause significant problems for economies.
That's why we are extremely excited to be part of it. The second thing that the Advisory Body, it's about that we find extremely useful is also how do we ensure that we can mobilize people to think more of the protocols around building of frameworks to improve the resilience around which means in some countries you have only one cable. Can we have opportunity for countries to be connected to more than one cable. This is also a part of the framework that can improve the resilience within any country.
In many countries you have these cables, of course, these cables are not cables that you deal with in silos. We have about eight subsea cables in Nigeria. All of them actually came through Portugal. And while coming through Portugal, it passions through so many other countries so this is something you have to be in collaboration with so many countries.
So we are working on just repair, we are working on ensuring we can increase resilience by ensuring countries have multiple access. We are also working on the diversity they need to have more of these cables in the first place, not just the ones we have, do we need to have more cables. And from that Advisory Body we are being inspired to set up of up a dedicated desk within our communications commission that is responsible for ensuring that a protocol within country is clear, but a clarity within country is also then translated to neighboring and partner countries because you can't do this in silos. And this is one thing we extremely enjoy.
The second thing is the talent and resources to be able to make this repairs when they happen. We have seen on the African continent there are limited amounts of ships that can quickly go and be deployed to help with fixing, and there is a limit to how much investment you can track because it's not something that happens all of the time as well.
So it has to be an extremely calculated investment. What's the optimal way to do it? This is something we are thinking of. The other is talent. There is a need for talent that can actually support the maintenance and the repair of subsea cable. That's something that Nigeria is prioritizing as well.
And we extension to subsea cable, we are asking difficult questions around fiberoptic network as well, because that's what will take the advantage of subsea cable to the people and we need to think about when we are thinking about sustainability and resilience, can we be thinking of these things in conjunction, not just one in isolation. Because one feeds into the other.
So we are extremely happy to be part of this, and I think it's something we will urge other partners to take seriously, that we don't just look at lost only to protect them, but we look at how do we make them a lot more resilient as well.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for highlighting how resilience is not just about protection as you just mentioned. There are many other components. There is definitely the part of securing to protection, but there is also a very strong component that relates to redundancy, relates to mitigating and being able to react when incidents do occur.
And also thank you for highlighting how the work conducted under the ITU is helping driving change at the national and regional level, and being a representative of the UN, that's ultimately our best hope is that the work of this multilateral bodies we could actually impact and drive change at the national and regional level. So thank you for sharing your remarks.
And last but, of course, not least, I would like to give the floor to Liisa‑Ly Pakosta, the Minister of Justice and digital affairs of Estonia.
>> LIISA-LY PAKOSTA: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me here. It's a great honour for Estonia to participate here. So I have in a way a possibility to summarize, so why we are talking about this topic now, it is the situation that has changed at least around this region where we physically are now. Let us remember that it was 1884 when the Paris Convention of undersea telegraphic cables was agreed. This was already then because if the good countries established the undersea connections, there were at the next moment the bad guys who wanted to cut it down.
So this is actually the situation where we are just now as well within the broader geopolitical situation. What we see around this area where we are physically now that the Russian shadow fleet is cutting down our connections, and it has been underlined several times here how important these connections are for our people, for our security, for our economies, for our hospitals, for our transport, name only. Estonia is a fully digital state, so all of our Government services are digital. Attacked by cutting town the undersea communication cables is not only a hybrid threat to our country, but it is a very actual threat to our country's services to be actually there for our citizens.
So we have seen a dramatic rise of accidents, so called accidents during the full scale war in Ukraine, and I fully agree with my colleague some of the incidents beforehand have been unintentional, but what we see now is that we see definitely the intentional cut down of the undersea cables, and the only way to handle this is to, I will put it very short, that the good guys from like‑minded countries, from likeminded organisations work together against to stop the bad guys who want to take down the security of our people, who want to take down our hospital services, economy, transport, heating system, name only.
So this is the actual question we are discussing now, what we can do together in order to beat the bad guys who want to harm us.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you Liisa‑Ly Pakosta for sharing your perspective on Estonia has been driving innovation for many years. We still have a couple of minutes before we wrap up this first part of the panel. So I want to give all of you the opportunity if you wanted to add anything to your remarks or to react anything you have heard from your colleagues, this would be a good moment. We do have a couple of minutes left. Please.
>> KARIANNE TUNG: Thank you, moderator. I think the panel has shown that we are completely dependent on the submarine cables. Our society, our digital society for healthcare services, education, transport system and so forth. So being able to work together both multilateral but also multistakeholder, since many of these cables also are non‑governmental and so forth, it's important to bring the different actors together and to discuss how we can make them more resilient so we keep connected, both as society but also internationally.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, please.
>> BOSUN TIJANI: I think the point is building resiliency into subsea cable shouldn't be afterthought. I think for a long time this is a we have concluded that risk is not severe and we are seeing intentional and unintentional risk to them will become severe.
And because of their critical nature, I think resilience should be intentional. It shouldn't be something that is afterthought. And what's gotten me extremely passionate about this as a Minister was when the cable cut in the West African region happened last year in March, and I saw firsthand the impact on society because we are all working daily to move literally everything online and if we are moving everything online if the backbone to this is at risk, it is a big challenge. And I was surprised at how, of course, we were fortunate, the Private Sector because a lot of these cables are owned by private companies.
The Private Sector came together but as a Minister I didn't have an answer to give to people, and people don't often complain about companies when you have natural disaster. It's the Governments that they look to for an answer. That's why I think the work of the Advisory Board, the fact that ITU is prioritizing this is extremely important. I don't think it's something we should push away. Some countries and regions have the expertise, the framework they know how to address this. You would be surprised at how many countries and regions in the world have no clue where to start from. So having things like regional redundancy in protocol I think is something we should mainstream more. We saw the Minister talked about the one in the Baltic region, and but there are so many other parts of the world without some understanding. So we should collaborate more, share more, and ensure that collectively we can actually protect this critical infrastructure.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
>> LIISA-LY PAKOSTA: Thank you very much for underlining this because this is absolutely essential. We know for ages connecting the whole world, not just regions, that is the fantastic part of sea. And not only the Ferries, but also the undersea tables that we know as technological possibility, and this is nothing we can do alone to protect them. So I think Norway has put it very well and very timely this topic here on the agenda because really, it is a global issue. Although we have some local issues, but in general what we need is a very clear universal set of rules to protect our citizens in all of the continents. That is absolutely what we need.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Please.
>> JARNO SYRJÄLÄ: We are in a different kind of situation, and I think there are different lessons to be shared. And, of course, where we talk about telecommunications cables in general, so that only part of the issue what is there laying beneath the waves in Finland. So we have for a long time, decades already, we have applied this kind of comprehensive security. So these are also things that you have to connect to the other areas. So how to keep the society keeping enduring peace or during time of peace or time of crisis, but you have to have a holistic understanding of what is it all about.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. As the screens in front of us are suggesting, we have come up to time for this first part of the panel. I would like to sincerely thank you for taking the time to share your experience and expertise with us with the audience here in the room and online, and I do invite our audience to join me in a round of applause for minister Tung, Minister Bosun Tijani, and Mr. Liisa‑Ly Pakosta. Thank you very much.
(Applause).
As we reconfigure the stage for the next part of the panel, I do invite you to watch a very interesting video on a specific application of a subsea cable technology distributed acoustic sensing and in the meantime we will prepare for the continuation of the panel. So over to the screen.
I'm now very happy to introduce the next set of speakers on stage. This distinguished panel of experts comprising representatives from Government, industry, Academia and civil society will really help us unpack different perspectives on the evolving threat landscape as well as on actionable measures to protect subsea cable infrastructure and we heard through the remarks of all four Ministers that preceded this panel how multistakeholder cooperation is indeed a key component to building resilience.
Over the next hour or so the panel discussion will focus on four components. First, we look at emerging threat landscape. We will try to unpack what are some of the vulnerabilities in the digital systems that monitor, manage and secure subsea cable networks. We will be diving deeper into applicable international law, voluntary norms and emerging best practices real to cable protection. We will try our best to come up with recommendations for strengthening subsea cable through technical policy and legal mechanism including the role of public‑private partnership.
>> Without further ado I have the pleasure of inviting here on stage and online, Steinar Bjørnstad, Strategic Competence and Research Manager, Evijs Taube, member of the management board from Latvia State Radio and Television Centre, Sandra Maximiano, Chair of the Board of Directors of Anacom, and Kent Bressie who is joining us online, legal advisor for international cable protection Committee. Please join me with a round of applause to welcome our speakers on stage.
(Applause).
So we have structured this as a conversation. We have some questions that we have prepared for our experts. If there will be time towards the end of the session and if you would like to intervene please do let me know. But I can't make many promises because we have to finish at 1:00 p.m. sharp.
So Steinar Bjørnstad, I would like to start with you. From an operator's perspective, how do you integrate resilience into the design and management of subsea cable infrastructure both technically and strategically in high risk regions like the North Sea?
>> STEINAR BJØRNSTAD: Very good question, to we are an off shore telecom service provider. This type of service is really important these days because it's also important for oil and gas. So we have a critical infrastructure. It's both mobile, it's satellite, and it's fixed links. And the thing is it all depends on the optical subsea fiber cables so they are really important for the services. And the capacity of these cables is enormous and it's carrying a lot of traffic and also for data centers out of Norway.
So how to protect these cables, how to enable resilience? The thing is that you need to be able to do this already in the planning. So we have multiple cables. That's the first thing.
And if something goes wrong, we need to repair it quite fast. So we are a member of an alliance. So ensuring that we can have repair within a couple of weeks if something goes wrong. So also because it's very high capacity, it's not that easy to switch this traffic electronically if something goes wrong from one cable to another, but we use optical switching and even off shore we have optical switching.
So it switches the light in the optical fiber cables and by doing this we are able to protect, very quickly put the traffic over to another cable if one cable fails by some reason. So I think that is maybe the key things that we are doing for the traffic.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you., I would like to come to you, and we have heard in the profession part of the panel how different regions are potentially experiencing slightly different considerations when it comes to the threat landscape, but building on the work that you have done and if I would ask you to Zoom out and consider more what is the broader picture, how is the threat landscape for subsea cable infrastructure evolving and what are some of the key challenges that you have identified?
>> CAMINO KAVANAGH: Thank you for the invitation to speak here, it's a real honour to be on this panel with the other panelists. So I think I will Zoom back in and Zoom out again. What I found interesting from the Minister from Estonia, she mentioned the 1884 Convention and what's very interesting in some of the research I have been doing on damage to subsea cables if we are looking at the submersed element of submarine cables or subsea cable, was in 1881 already a group of countries concerned about damage to cables in the North Sea raised the issue in the prenegotiations to the 1884 Convention. In 1882 specific Government brought statistics to the negotiations of the Paris Conference, and highlighted that 60% of damage to cables was caused by natural events, 35% by unintentional acts due to accidents at sea or force of nature, and 5% due to gross negligence and malign activities.
But that was in the build up to World War I, and as we know during that period as well, state backed interventions or damage, sabotage, espionage, et cetera, was increasing and being introduced into battle planning. Let's move forward a century plus, I think 143 years later, and those statistics wouldn't have changed very much. Although I think maybe of the stats between natural causes and unintentional damage caused by accidents and so forth would slightly change in that sense.
The number of accidents caused by intentional damage, the stats, it's very hard to know because as we know it's very hard to ascertain responsibility for some of the incidents, but we do note that it's a great concern for states, and particularly in the European context, Nord stream, we know it's not just a concern with regard to states in this region, but also in the Baltic Sea and the Irish sea, the North Atlantic and so forth. But that differs significantly across regions as was mentioned by Bosun Tijani as well.
Different regions are experiencing very, very different problems. So that call for coordination especially coordination from a regulatory perspective from an operational perspective is very difficult when your problem set is very different.
So reaching some kind of alignment there is absolutely key, and absolutely key is also engagement with industry, but I'm not going to go too far on that because I understand there are others that will talk about that problem.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for this first stab at the problem. I think it's interesting because statistics are normally built on the data we have, and it's always hard ‑‑ it is hard in the cyber domain and it's probably just as hard in the specific context of subsea cables to really have strong data on malicious or malign activities because we don't know how much of the malicious activity that threatens or targets subsea cable infrastructure isn't successful and if we had more visibility into that we could do something even more.
But I would like now to give the floor to you Evijs Taube, and your organisation has recently experienced direct impact of a subsea cable incident. Could you walk us through what happened and the actions taken to respond to the disruption of service, please?
>> EVIJS TAUBE: Some say that the cut cable or unplugged cable is the best way to protect against cyber threats. Just unfortunate side effect is loss of communication. Joke aside, but my big pleasure to be here and to tell the story. And about the incidents in subsea cables especially last few years or especially last couple of years the incidents in this area, Baltic Sea, North Sea has dramatically increased, like in a normal life, before the geopolitics changed, the incidents happened time by time. That's not any news. The fishing nets, et cetera. But the big incidents in numbers has significantly increased.
So also our company has been prepared. So we had the plans before we had the drills, procedures, table exercises, algorithms, et cetera, et cetera, spare parts, but when the incident happens, basically everything becomes crystal clear, so loss of communication, our company, our company's customers, end users immediately feel it. And talking about the impact of the incident there basically are, let's simplify, the networking so basically there are two parts, one is the public Internet, and thanks to the designed, great design of Internet, we can say it heals itself. So rebalances in the public, normal users don't feel it. And there is other part, let's call them enterprises or data centers, data centre connecting A to B, those guys usually they should have a second, third or fourth route if one breaks, everything switches over like my colleague explained. So about the first part, as far as we know, nobody felt the impact because the capacity of the connections is very huge, and just losing one cable or one cable connection normal public don't feel it.
Of course, we are speculating that there might be some minor examples, for example, somebody was doing the stock exchange trading where the latency is critical. Maybe somebody lost some. We don't know that. Maybe somebody lost a game in counter strike for something like that where latency is important talking about the latency.
So our cable is connecting Latvia, Sweden, so very important in terms of latency. When we lost the connect, the latency increased five to ten times because the speed of light is constant, and then we cannot fight physics in that sense, but otherwise everything continued to work.
How we fix the thing? So we said we need to fix it as soon as possible, but it really depends on situation, do we have right spare cable, the right joints? Do we have the vessel standby agreement? Do we have right weather? The waves shouldn't be higher than two meters for special vessels, so in our incident, we tried three times to recover. The third time was successful and despite of February being a short month, we managed to fix it within a month. So 28 days which is a good result in the winter storms.
So all in all, we really had a good lesson. You cannot compare that practical lesson to the table exercise, and we learned a lot from it.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you also for bringing to light some very concrete examples of the sort of incidents that can occur, but also the 28 days is a remarkable result, but it shows that it's not something that can be fixed overnight.
So it does, it does require adequate planning and adequate resourcing, otherwise 28 days can then be even extended even further. I would like now to come to you, and given the location, Portugal is a player. And in your authority with Anacom and with the ITU Advisory Body for submarine cable resilience, what practices do you recognize as being most effective for strengthening subsea cable protection at the national level as well as across jurisdictions.
>> SANDRA MAXIMIANO: First of all, thanks a lot for the invitation. It's a great honour to be here talking about this is so important topic.
First, I would also like to tell you that Portugal geography places us at the cross roads of global connectivity. We have one of the largest exclusive economic zones in the world, and a long tradition of cable landings. Portugal is uniquely positioned to strengthen its role in the field.
So in fact submarine cables already link us directly to multiple continents. Also we have two autonomous regions which are composed by islands and they depend almost entirely on submarine cable for communication. So that makes us having this privileged position, but it comes with special responsibilities for ensuring the resilience of submarine cable systems.
So we truly belief in four key aspects. First, to build redundancy and route diversity, second, strategic preparation and predictive maintenance, and third, protection zones, so building these protection zones and promote rapid repair capacity. So after all, we cannot prevent every incident. Cable faults are inevitable as has been said here, whether from natural causes, cheap anchors or even geopolitical tensions, but what matters is preparation and rapid response.
And that's why resilience must be built by design and not improvised in crisis. This is our big principle. So first, planning and implementation of undersea cable networks should promote redundancy as a crucial strategy for enhancing security and resilience, ensuring continuity of service in case of disruptions. And this will probably involve I will say four important points, establish multiple geographical diverse cable route, and the mesh network architecture that enables dynamic rerouting in case of localized disruptions.
Deploying alternative routes including satellite backups and terrestrial connections, avoiding strategic shock points to minimize congestion in high risk areas which are more susceptible to an outage or accident and deploying armored cables and burying cables deeper in higher risk areas and these will be four important points for planning and building redundancy.
Second, I will mention strategic preparation which included building intelligence into our networks so they can adapt in real time. Technologies like software defining networking and AI analytics allow dynamic rerouting and predictive detection. This agility reduces down time and boosts resilience.
Third, we need collective mechanisms to support repair capacity, especially for regions and countries that lack those resources to respond on their own.
This is particularly important for island states and remote regions. And at last, we need to promote rapid repair. It's really important. For that we need licensing and permitting procedures that should be simplified and more flexible. And, of course, promoting investment in repair vessels and joint capacity.
These priorities cannot be postponed. Equally important is having clear plans for incident response. Setting strict deadliness for repairs and establishing priorities levels so that in case of multiple simultaneous failures, the most critical links, those essential for national security and public welfare are restored first. So it's very important to know which critical infrastructures are in every country so we can establish these priorities.
We are also at a time when technological innovation, particularly Artificial Intelligence is reshaping the landscape. The training and deployment of large AI models massive computational capacity and energy intensive data centers which in turn depend on robust high capacity connectivity also submarine cables.
This is not just about speed, but about enabling an entirely new digital paradigm. Anacom is actively monitoring this to ensure our regulatory framework anticipates infrastructure bottlenecks and ensures sustainable high capacity connectivity.
So in a very high speed technological change environment, we need regulation to keep the same pace, and that's why, that's what Anacom is investing nowadays to keep the same pace as innovation goes, to have a proper regulatory framework that can enable redundancy and resiliency of submarine cables.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much for your initial overview of some key topics, again, building on the idea that resilience is intentional, it's not something that can be responsive to the need, the issue of preparedness and regulation which are very important.
Kent, thank you for patiently waiting online. It's a pleasure to see you on the screen. We have heard now and before the importance of public‑private partnerships when it comes to the protection of subsea cables and through your work at IPCP you engage with Government and industry. What are the most effective ways to strengthen public‑private partnership in responding to cable related threats?
>> KENT BRESSIE: Thank you for allowing me to participate remotely. I am currently on holiday in Greece before I teach oceans law as part of the Rhodes academy of oceans which runs each year here in Greece. It's nice to see my fellow panelists. To your question, more than anything else we need more and better awareness and communication between and among submarine cable operators, other Marine industries and Governments at the national, regional and multilateral levels. These are never‑ending tasks. They are not one‑time things, but we see a need for ongoing dialogue among these stakeholders at all levels. In particular Governments need to understand what industry already does to promote cable protection and resilience in the design and operation of systems. And also to recognize those actions that Governments are uniquely positioned to take, particularly with political and military responses to intentional damage.
In some cases industry and governance have shared tasks. We also need better understanding of risk and threats to cables. The ICPC has good data on that. I'm not sure it's always recognized or understood. We also need to understand the interrelationships between unintentional and intentional sources of damage and the fact that the cause is not always immediately known. In the design and development phase submarine cable operators embed cable protection in system design by selecting routes and landings that balance connectivity needs with risk mitigation and geographic diversity which Sandra and others today have taken note of, all of which strengthens resilience.
In the operating phase with other Marine stakeholders and to publicize locations of cables which I will return to in a second as that's become increasingly fraught. Governments don't need to dictate or duplicate those particular actions, but, again, there are some actions that only Governments can take. And the ICPC launched in 2021 its best practices for Governments for cable protection and resilience to highlight the ICPC thinking about this. And in particular the best practices advocate for a holistic approach to risks.
The minimizes infrastructure damage and promotes continuity of communications. Even in the event that there is infrastructure damage.
So the best practices are not a lengthy document. They were meant to be very user friendly, about 12 pages long and have very specific best practices highlighted including use of default separation distances between cables and other Marine activities as other uncoordinated Marine industries whether it's wind farms, oil and gas development, sea bed mining, vessel Anchorages or fishing can damage cables. Having a single point of contact within national Governments.
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Adoption of cable protection laws and implementation of them, minimization of crewing relations, customs duties, customs and fees as this is a maritime.
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A forthcoming study that Camino is publishing sharing threat information between Governments and industries we have seen with recent cable damage incidents in the Baltic and Arctic. There is still a lot of work to be done there, but so far I think Government engagement with industry and response has been so far productive.
Use of technology such as fiber sensing is also very promising, and then ratification and implementation of the law of the sea Convention and the 1884 Convention, both of which establish rights and responsibilities for states including some key tools that relate to cable security. So a lot of these best practices were later incorporated that the New York statement. Many were echoed by Sandra our previous panelist speaker.
So I'll just finally note that it's important for Governments to understand how their own policies and regulations can potentially undermine cable protection and resilience as we are very concerned about this as an industry and our best practices also address this.
In some jurisdictions we see national security oriented regulation meeting massive delays for installation and repair permits. This ultimately undermines development of additional and diverse systems that promote that resilience and allow recovery of damaged systems.
We see that regulations oftentimes encourage clustering of cables and landings and there are corridors to get cables out of the way of offshore energy development or fishing and that can magnify the risk that a single event will damage multiple cables and disrupt connectivity.
And finally we see a renewed push by some Governments to remove cable from nautical charts. We think that this is woefully misguided given that 70% of cable damage is caused by fishing and anchors. Removing cables from nautical charts would significantly increase those risks and make it impossible for cable owners to pursue damages claims because no one would know where the cables are.
So ultimately I don't think we need elaborate regulatory constructs or the like to encourage engagement between Governments and industry, but we do need to leverage existing agreements, data, and tools to promote cable resilience, protection and security and inform laws, policies, and coordinating mechanisms.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Kent, for sharing your first remarks with us, and having served 15 years in the Navy, the thought of having subsea infrastructure that is not on nautical charts is terrifying in more than one way, but thank you also for bringing to light the best practices that ICPC has developed and I do invite everyone that is interested in consulting, but also for, you opened by stressing the need for continuous dialogue among different stakeholder groups, and I think this is key. This is what we are trying to do, but, of course, in an hour and a half, we can only scratch the surface. There is much more that needs to be done on a continuous basis even for the simple reason that people change and rotate particularly in Government, you may have a very fruitful dialogue today and in six months your counterparts have rotated and have gone to other posts and other jobs. It is important that this dialogue, that there is a mechanism to really make sure this dialogue is continuous.
I would like to go back to our panel for a second round of questions and coming back to you about the incident that you described earlier, and so following the cable disruption, how did your organisation coordinate with national authorities, international partners and any other stakeholder that was relevant and what are the key lessons that emerged about effective collaboration and communication?
>> EVIJS TAUBE: Yes, I would call it different communication channels, and first of all, they are very important not only like any subsea cable incident, like any big incident, we call it crisis management within a company. So the theme should be like core theme of crisis management should be very precise, should be trained, shouldn't be bigger than needed. Everybody has to know exactly what to do, and that's also a question of training. As I mentioned, the table exercises.
Second is communication with partners and here we are touching different stakeholders. So it included authorities, it included international partners because like any subsea cable in most of the cases is connecting countries so connecting one country to another, in our case, Latvia, Sweden. You should know somebody on the other end.
So if our case we have established communication line ‑‑ I'm not talking about cable communication, but about human communication line connecting to Nox, 24 by 7 so you have minutes or seconds to know whom to talk to.
And that also should be like documented in the best case, trained, practiced, et cetera.
And then the third part is public communication. The public communication also is very important, and you shouldn't be like silent after the incident for days. In our case we had prepared and like we call it routine practices daily.
You shouldn't open too much information because in many cases it's kind of sensitive information, right, what happens in which place, but you shouldn't also be totally silent. So you should really feel the balance what to disclose, and what don't disclose.
And that's also very critical. About the communication with different parties involved, it included already in subsea cable cases it includes, of course, the Navy, the military side. Those algorithms and procedures also have to be established before any incidents to be in place. And it also requires training, requires preparation. Should be also algorithms written on a paper, trained, drilled, et cetera.
So it's all about preparation. And then in practice, in the worst case, of course, when incident happens, you can try it in real life. And there are lessons always. So any preparation, any plans who said, Truman said that any plans go to waste but the most important is to do the plans.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. And we will come back to this plan and prepare issue later, but now I would like to come back to you, Steiner, about we have heard already how it is important to be able to respond as quickly as possible to minimize disruption. From a technological standpoint what are the emerging tools or innovations that you see as most promising for detecting, mitigating or responding to threats to subsea cables?
>> STEINAR BJØRNSTAD: Yes, the answer I think is to combine a lot of those, to monitor combining several tools, getting lots of data, and I think I would like to tell a story how this started. It started with trollers, we didn't actually know it was cable cuts and what was it. We noticed the light went off and what happened? And then first tool that came hand was AIS information, that is GPS information sent from vessels also containing some information about their activity like, for example, trolling.
And by actively monitoring cables we have knowledge of what is going on around these cables, but that is on the surface, that is not under water, not subsea.
And some of these vessels, they just turn off their AIS information, so it's still challenging. And then we charted exploring fiber sensing. Fiber sensing actually means that the fiber works as a microphone or an array of motorcycle phones so we can listen under water to what is going on.
By doing this, we are able to see and listen if a troller is approaching and we can see it two kilometers away, so we see the subsea activity and that enables us to take action very early, but the thing is that trollers, they are crossing the cable like ten times every day. It can be as much as that.
So what we actually need to know is actually if the cable is hit because normally this is okay to pass over the table because it's buried and it should be well buried, protected, but we can't control the environment. And there are water currents that may make the cable exposed so we use a different fiber sensing technology that now also gives us statistics on small hits.
And by doing this, we can also see where the cable may be vulnerable. So combining all of these technologies, we know where the cable may be vulnerable, if there is something approaching these vulnerable points, and also statistics on what is going on over the cable, what type of vessels are crossing.
So today most of our network is actually covered with fiber sensing techniques and we have quite a good overview of what is going on.
>> MODERATOR: So would you say that situational awareness has improved significantly in recent years thanks to technological innovations, yes? Okay. Good. Thank you for that.
Camino Kavanagh, I would like to come back to you and building on insight shared by panelists as well as drawing from your own research, what are some additional other policies or technical approaches that you have seen states and other stakeholders exploring to strengthen the protection and resilience of subsea cables?
>> CAMINO KAVANAGH: What we did in the research, we broke Government approaches into three different areas so how Government actions, whether it be policy, regulatory or operational activity, and how it contributes to the actual resilience capacities of the systems themselves, so we looked at the absorptive capacities which would be the preparedness, ensuring protocols and regulation and so forth including best practices and that Kent mentioned, that they are in place in the event that something happens.
The systems are actually built bearing in mind that something will eventually happen whether it be ‑‑ regardless of the cause. So the second area that we looked at was the responsive capacities of the system so what are Governments doing to actually prepare and support some of the responses required, and I think Sandra mentioned issues related to compare capabilities and capacities. I think the previous panel discussed workforce challenges and so forth. The industry has a significant focus on workforce at the moment trying to attract young talent into the industry, but it's difficult.
Also Governments need to do the same, and we also have to bear in mind that there are some very small Governments, small countries that have limited capacities, and that have limited resources. So being able to invest in DAS and so forth is a luxury, and one also has to bear in mind that it has also jurisdictional complications. So there are lots of challenges on that front.
Also within the restorative capacities, we are seeing that a number of states are actually looking and are investing in market analysis and so forth to see where the better use of the resources would lie.
The range of other issues there in that rubric that we talked about, which I can come back to. The final tranche that we looked at or the final area was adaptive capacities.
And we often forget about those, but I think colleagues here have talked about learning from incidents, regardless of the cause, what can we learn from those and how do we adapt? How do we adapt our national structures, procedures, regulations, so forth, to be able to prepare and respond to incidents should they happen.
And a final thing that cuts across these different areas is that we have been talking mainly about the submersed as part of subsea cable system. We touch upon it slightly, but there is also the network layer and the supply chain issues, a range of other issues. There is the repair fleet, the supplies and so forth. So there are a range of different areas and I think connecting these both through Government action in our crisis management emergency planning and so forth is absolutely critical, and I don't think any Government is there yet.
So how you bring together those elements, but with working in conjunction with industry as well as Academia is absolutely fundamental.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Sandra, I would like to come back to you with a follow‑up question on given also your role within the Advisory Body and submarine cable resilience, how do you see international initiatives such as this one foster better cooperation and strengthen the resilience of subsea cable infrastructure?
>> SANDRA MAXIMIANO: That's one of the main purposes of the Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience.
And that is one main purpose because definitely collaboration is vital in disguise. So to enhance connectivity, to stimulate innovation and promote resilience of submarine cables and if you look at all of these, they are multi‑ facetted tasks, and they require collaboration so across different organisations. So we need Government, we need industry, we need Academia and international organisations to work together.
So over the past year Anacom has deepened our partnerships recognizing that each player plays a unique role. For instance, Governments and regulators create enabling frameworks as I also mentioned before. Academia advances research and innovation, extremely important. Industry builds and operates vital critical infrastructure. So we need all to work together.
And having said this, the challenges in ensuring that these diverse players speak the same language and sometimes very difficult because, of course, all of these players, they have their own interests, they maximize now speaking like an economist, maximize their own utility and interest, but we need to align the efforts to hold a common goal and the Advisory Body is an example, it's a multistakeholder forum where we try to do that.
We try to have all of these organisations together, working together, and trying to align our language for this common goal.
So at Anacom we see this firsthand when we are very actively fostering ecosystem that encourages investment in submarine cables and associated infrastructure. We remain committed in leading this agenda at both European and international levels. At European level, we do it to mainly through the body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, and in collaboration with European Commission. In BEREC is Anacom is a leader on the report of domestic submarine cables in different Member States together with the National Regulatory Authority from France, RSEP. We are also very active at European Union Agency for cybersecurity and this is an important topic there as well. And finally, as mentioned I'm very proud to Co‑Chair the international Advisory Group for submarine cable resilience which, as I mentioned, provides a unique global platform for collaboration.
So the international Advisory Body for, some that are maybe some not familiar was launched by the ITU in partnership with the international cable protection Committee, ICPC, and this partnership is significant and fortunate development combining ITU's capacity to promote worldwide dialogue on digital matters with ICPC's expertise in submarine cable resilience, which I believe to be very fortunate and needed collaboration.
In addition, 40 outstanding personalities from both the public and Private Sectors across the world are part of the Advisory Body. So this ensures the diverse knowledge and experience including contributions from countries ranging from large economies to Small Island States so this diversity is extremely important.
The role of the Advisory Body is to promote open conversations, build trust for the benefit of global community. And we aim at ensuring that discussions are based on technical merit, and best practice.
I think in my personal view as well, I think we should give special attention to regions, countries, and remote islands where economic incentives for prompt response mechanisms are lower, but, of course, their response is important for everyone.
So the incentives are there, so we should work in collaboration to increase the response capacity of these small states. The advisory body has made very decisive progress. In particular, I would like to mention in February in Nigeria, the international submarine cable resilience Summit and the body approved the Abuja declaration making key milestone for cable resilience and paving the way for greater international cooperation, secondly the body established clear priorities for 2025‑26 and decided to Ford three thematic Working Groups responsible for deliverable concrete outcomes.
These groups will address submarine cable resilience from multiple complementary perspectives. One of the Working Groups will focus on resilience by design, examining the importance of ensuring surface continuity through redundant and diverse communication route.
A second group will focus on timely repair of submarine cable systems. Exploring regulatory measures can expedite this process. And the third Working Group will be dedicated to risk identification, monitoring and mitigation. So with this framework we will assess the application of new technologies and monitoring systems. So I think, as I said, it's composed by experts from different regions and stakeholders, and given the progress that we made so far, I'm totally confident that the Advisory Body will remain committed to ensuring the submarine cables are safe and resilient. So just to conclude, preparing for the future and especially in this matter is not a task of one individual body. We must work together and we share responsibility among regulators, industry, Academia, and international communities. So we should cooperate openly, pragmatically, and globally.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Sandra, Kent, I would like to come back to you for a last question. Now, with growing international attention to subsea infrastructure protection, how can new initiative complement and avoid duplicating existing efforts like those led by ICPC and others?
>> KENT BRESSIE: Thank you. Well, first I would like to start by noting that Sandra laid out clearly the amazing collaboration we have between the ITU and the ICPC under her leadership and that of Bosun Tijani who was on the prior panelist and that be leveraging expertise and experience of the ICPC without duplicating it. But I think it's important to understand, Sandra was very generous in describing and helpful in describing the Advisory Body, but I'm not sure that everybody has a good understanding of what the ICPC does either. So I thought I would note briefly that the ICPC was founded in 1958, and it's the world's leading organisation promoting submarine cable protection and resilience.
It's an NGO that works with its members, Governments, international organisations, other Marine industries and the scientific community on a number of key tasks, first to identify and mitigate risks of natural and human damage to cables. The ICPC has developed the world's leading databases of cable damage information and also repair timeframes which are key inputs for the work of the Advisory Body.
The ICPC has developed recommendations and best practices for governance I mentioned earlier for the entire cable project lifecycle. The ICPC promotes scientific research regarding cables in the Marine environment. This is even more critical in light of the BDNG agreement under the Law of the Sea Convention, and the ICPC published in partnership with the United Nations Environment Program World Climate Monitoring Centre, a report titled Submarine Cables and Marine Biodiversity which we had very much promoted and provided resources for as a resource for Governments as they implement the BBNJ agreement. We worked to protection the rule of law for the oceans, ratification and implementation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and as was mentioned the 1884 cable protection Convention. So the ICPC has more than 240 members from approximately 75 countries. Those are industry representatives but the ICPC has about 20 Government observers and we welcome more formal Government observers but also engagement even for those Governments who are not observers.
So we see, as I noted before, a need for continuing engagement and communication, and this is not just between the ICPC Governments and other Marine stakeholders, but also the regional cable protection Committees that focus on more localized issues around the world. These aren't formally subsidiaries of the ICPC, but we coordinate closely with them to avoid duplication of work.
And we have regional cable protection Committees that are very active in submarine cables, the North American Submarine Cable Association, recently established Committees in Africa and the Oceanic Submarine Cable Association.
We do not have regional cable protection Committees in that area. The ICPC and these other organisations are keen to work with Governments on a range of initiatives and don't view the recommendations or principles as they advance in a proprietary fashion.
As I noted before, the fact that the New York statement included recommendations that the ICPC had previously articulated was flattering, but we would like to see greater adoption by more and more bodies of that.
So other ICPC recent engagements, obviously the international Advisory Body is a key focus for us. I serve as co‑Executive Secretary and we are grateful for the leadership of our Co‑Chairs who are with us today.
We hold critical Law of the Sea workshop for our members and regional academics in Singapore last year with the support of the Australian and Singapore Governments looking at key issues with the BBNJ agreement, regulatory and permitting issues and security among others.
We have worked with the UNODC to develop cable resilience plans in the Indian Ocean region and it's an interesting model for a lot of countries in considering how to bring together stakeholders to think in a more integrated way about connectivity and cable protection.
And then I serve on the International Law Association's Committee on Submarine Cables and Pipelines, which is developing guidelines to address prevention, monitoring and responses under international law to intentional cable damage. As I noted before, we are unlikely to get a new treaty addressing these issues but the ICPC's view is that countries have existing tools under international law that they can and should use, and we certainly point to the Government of Finland as having made good use of those tools.
So finally, there is a need for better communication and coordination on issues and multilateral processes. So these aren't just sort of looking at best practices initiatives, but also looking at collaborating on some critical issues in other fora globally. These include work on the international sea bed authority to ensure cable protection and resilience in relation to deep sea mining which is increasingly an issue given the push for critical minerals and development of green technologies, the impact of the new BBNJ agreement on cable routing and permitting., and cable damage by dark fleet ships which we remain concerned has, is something that the international community including the IMO has not yet been able to address effectively.
So in general I think we have the data analysis, recommendations and potential legal tools that we need and which shouldn't necessarily be duplicated, but we need much better and more comprehensive global implementation. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. We have just a couple of minutes before we have to wrap up this panel. So before I share with you some concluding remarks from my notes, I just wanted to give the panelists literally 20 to 30 seconds maximum if there is one key take away that you would like the audience to walk away after this hour and a half discussing subsea cables, what would that be? You can only add to whatever the other person has said, so, starting with you.
>> CAMINO KAVANAGH: Prepare and exercise your preparedness.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
>> Be prepared, monitor what is going on, situational awareness.
>> EVIJS TAUBE: I would mention again the systems that were mentioned so every cable, existing cable is a big asset and we can call it a big sensor. If we install already installed one of the new cables distributed or centralized, whatever, integrated system of such sensors in a particular area, for example, Baltic Sea which is, some call it Baltic like, and that would give big benefit not only protecting cables but to understand what is going on under the water. There is a shadow fleet, normal fleet, but no one knows what is happening. If shadow fleets of the AS system goes invisible, with such sensors we can see better.
>> SANDRA MAXIMIANO: I think collaboration is the key. We need to, this is a very important matter. It's a multistakeholder issue, and it should be, you know, we should work together, and as I said, involve everyone, Government, Academia, regulators, international organisations, and increase awareness and, of course, work on the best practices.
I think booklets of best practices to act are very important, and especially some countries are at a different speed, but this issue we should all be trying to align the speed that we move on, because as I said small states, remote islands can't be left alone because it will have a negative impact for all of us.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Kent, any final thoughts on your side?
>> KENT BRESSIE: Yes. Convene and communicate with stakeholders. The oceans are really busy, complicated places.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. So very quickly because time is up. What I took away from this hour and a half is the following, that strengthen the resilience of subsea cable is a team sport. It's a team sport that requires different players knowing exactly what to do and working together as a team. No individual player can really achieve this ambitious goal without working with others.
But also that resilience has different components. One is protection. Protection is key, but is also, is necessary but is not sufficient. It has to be matched with adequate planning because no matter how well we protect our cables, incidents are going to happen, and it is important to have plans that are well thought in advance, so resiliencies cannot be improvised. It has to be made by design through careful planning.
But why planning is essential, plans are useless unless they are put in practice through concrete measures of preparedness, which include dialogue and discussions and cooperation between states, between public and private cooperation, and this cooperation needs to be tested through exercises, through crisis management drills that really bring to the surface all of the possible mechanisms that need to be improved because ultimately the last important pillar is the pillar of response that needs to be effective and needs to be quick in order to minimize disruption and make sure that we work towards resilience, redundancy and ultimately continuity of service.
With that, I hope the summary does not do justice to an hour and a half in discussion, but hopefully is touches on the key points and we are out of time. I do invite you to approach our speakers and experts after the session if you would like to ask more questions. All that is left for me to do is to thank you the audience for engaging here in person and online, the Government of Norway not only for being an amazing host, but also for partnering with unity in organising this session and last but not least to the excellent speakers that took the time to share their knowledge with us. So please join me in a round applause for our speakers.
(Applause).
Thank you.