The Chairman of ANACOM’s Board of Directors, João Cadete de Matos, represented Portugal at the 2023 edition of the World Summit on the Information Society Forum https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/forum/2023/ (WSIS Forum), held in Geneva (Switzerland) from 13 to 17 March 2023. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) traditionally plays a key role in the organisation of this event, in partnership with other United Nations agencies.
João Cadete de Matos participated in the high-level session on “Ethical Dimensions of Information and Knowledge Societies / Bridging Digital Divides” on 15 March. In his speech, he stressed that a sector regulator, such as ANACOM, must act according to an ethical dimension, which means putting citizens, especially the most vulnerable, at the centre of its actions. This dimension is even more relevant for society today, as the provision of fundamental services such as health (see the example of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic), education or judicial and notarial services is increasingly dependent on digital connectivity.
Ensuring digital connectivity in all regions of the country, even the most remote ones, is therefore a key objective of the activity of an electronic communications sector regulator. In this regard, some examples of recent initiatives taken by ANACOM were given, namely with regard to the coverage obligations imposed by the 5G Auction Regulation, the support to the Government in identifying and preparing tenders for the coverage of the so-called “white areas”, where high-speed networks are not available, or the support to the introduction of social tariffs.
International connectivity was also highlighted, particularly with regard to the new Mainland-Azores-Madeira (MAM) submarine cable project.
ANACOM’s Chairman also had the opportunity to meet with the new ITU management team: Secretary-General, Doreen Bogdan-Martin; Deputy Secretary General, Tomas Lamanauskas, as well as ITU Development Director, Cosmas Zavazava. These meetings established guidelines for future work between Portugal and the ITU. Dialogues were also held with the President of the Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (ANC), of Timor-Leste, João Freitas and with the President of the Agência Reguladora Multissetorial da Economia (ARME) of Cape Verde, Leonilde Tatiano dos Santos.
The WSIS Forum, which takes place every year in a multi-stakeholder format, aims to monitor the implementation of the WSIS lines of action. The Global Digital Compact, launched by the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and the WSIS Review (WSIS +20) and the relationship between the two processes were the most discussed topics at the 2023 edition of this Forum.
This event follows on the results of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which was held in two phases (Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005) and defined a set of concepts and policies to harness Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for global development. In particular, the Tunis Agenda (2005) reaffirmed the benefits of ICTs in the lives of citizens and committed to developing mechanisms to combat the digital divide, defining a number of specific lines of action to this end.
Participation of João Cadete de Matos “Ethical Dimensions of Information and Knowledge Societies /Bridging Digital Divides”
at WSIS Forum 2023
(Left to right): Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of ITU and João Cadete de Matos,
Chairman of the Board of Directors of ANACOM.
(Left to right): Cosmas Zavazava, Director of the ITU Development Office and João Cadete de Matos,
Chairman of the Board of Directors of ANACOM
- World Summit on the Information Society Forum 2023 https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/forum/2023/
