Geneva, 8 December 2022 – SAMENA Telecommunications Council’s CEO Bocar BA, during the Partner2Connect Digital Coalition’s first annual meeting in Geneva, emphasized the importance of strong global partnerships and cooperation to accelerate progress-making toward fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals. BA reiterated that the key areas of collaboration in being able to move forward with regards to scaling sustainable digital transformation include appropriate financing and funding mechanisms, including incentives for the private sector to invest, and infrastructures needed for scaling. He also underscored collaborative pathways for a green ICT sector, including for space, as key to achieving a sustainable future.
Bocar BA commended the achievements of the P2C initiative to bring together stakeholders from the entire spectrum of the digital ecosystem, and beyond. He highlighted the tremendous efforts that the private sector has committed to connecting the unconnected. To advance further the goal of sustainable digital transformation, BA highlighted the need for access to new capital and stressed that funding and financing mechanisms, approaches and infrastructures must be made available and efficiently put in place across all countries and in LDCs to support the scaling of sustainable ICT solutions. To ensure that investments are sustainable and come from a broad range of contributors, incentives must be made central to policies going forward. BA also highlighted in this regard that key recommendations are available in the BBCom’s 21st Century financing, funding, and investment models WG Report, which has particularly described and recommended how different economic stakeholders can be enabled to contribute to digital infrastructure and how demand-side initiatives can be taken to foster adoption.
The first Annual Meeting of the P2C Coalition took place on 8 December 2022 to report on progress on the implementation of pledges made through the Coalition, celebrate the announcement of new pledges and commitments, discuss the challenges and opportunities for connecting the unconnected at specific breakout sessions, as well as network and share experiences to further advance global digital transformation. The meeting was attended by over 600 participants.
The full P2C Annual Meeting press release can be read here.
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Source: SAMENA Council Press release