Nigeria advocates for advisory council on technological development

Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Pantami, has called for an high-level multi-stakeholders’ advisory council for technological development globally.

The Minister made the call as the chairman of the on-going World Summit on the Information Society WSIS, at the ITU Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

This was contained in a statement signed by Spokesperson to the Minister, Mrs Uwa Suleiman.

The WSIS Forum 2022 started on March 15, in a virtual format with the final week being held physically with enhanced remote participation from May 30 to June 3.

Addressing participants from over 100 countries, Pantami leveraged on this year’s theme titled: “ICTs for well-being, Inclusion and Resilience; WSIS Cooperation for Accelerating Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs).

He called for more support for technological development through multi-stakeholders’ engagements, partnerships and collaborations among institutions and global economies.

”There is a need for this forum to constitute a high level multi-stakeholders advisory council. And a multi-stakeholders’ implementation committee to ensure that we continue to track and monitor outcomes and engagements post event. Today, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is no longer a choice but a necessity as the world has come to realise particularly during the pandemic. As technology enabled us to continue with our activities and especially the business of governance virtually,” he emphasised

The Minister noted that this was the enabling tool for global economic prosperity and development.

Using Nigeria as a case study, the Minister disclosed that Nigeria exited the recession brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic a year earlier than predicted, ahead of several other countries in spite of global projections.

According to Pantami, this was largely due to the influence of technologies, adding that available statistics further provided proof that ICT played a principal role in achieving the feat.

He noted that in the last quarter of 2020, the Nigerian ICT Sector grew by 14.70 per cent and 12.90 per cent for the whole year.

“The sector continues to make quantum leaps as we take advantage of resources at our disposal to enable economic development. Nigeria’s youthful population with an average age of 18.3 years, coupled with the advantage of having the largest economy on the African continent, positions it strategically to explore digital technologies for optimal growth,” the Minister said

The forum consists of 11 high-level panel discussions with globally recognised sector experts, policy makers, heads of governments, corporations and civil society organisations.

The WSIS forum serves as a key assembly for discussing the role of ICTs as a means of implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and targets, with due regard to the global mechanism for follow-up and review of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UNGA Resolution A/70/1).

The summit also provides a platform to track the achievements of WSIS Action Lines in collaboration with the UN Agencies involved and provides information and analysis of the implementation of WSIS Action Lines since 2005.