Dr Hamadoun Touré: There is a lot of crime in cyberspace and in this small world, we are as strong as our weakest link.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is an agency of the United Nations which regulates information and communication technology issues, and the global focal point for governments and the private sector in developing networks and services.

As Secretary General of ITU since 2007, Dr Hamadoun Touré has been at the forefront of ITU's vision for universal and ubiquitous broadband access for the world, and believes that it will be a key factor in promoting economic and social development.

At a recent IDA Distinguished Infocomm Speaker session, Dr Touré spoke about the challenges to affordable, fast broadband access for the world’s population and the roles that governments, the private sector, and ITU can play to address them. Below are some excerpts from his presentation:

On ITU, broadband and ICT
The first decade of the 21st century has been about mobility with almost 90 per cent of the world expected to have a mobile subscription by this year, but the second decade is about broadband, especially mobile broadband.

Today, everyone has a phone. But today’s mobile phone is more than just a phone - it is an organiser, camera, information source, and much more. We are entering a knowledge society where everyone has access to information and are able to easily share it. It can only be achieved through broadband. 

However, there are still 1.5 billion people yet to be connected.

We want to reduce poverty targets by 50 per cent by 2015. This cannot be reached without broadband connectivity. The aim of the Broadband Commission is to ensure everyone has it. What seemed like a luxury a few years ago is now a necessity.

The impact of broadband on nations
ICT is key to addressing many major problems of the world. A food crisis is not one for a lack of food, but because of a poor management and distribution chain. During the recent financial crisis, demand for broadband and mobile telephony increased to mitigate physical travel, and ICT is being used not just to observe the planet, but plays a central role to mitigating carbon emissions.

ICT has been key and broadband is key, but cost is the biggest inhibitor. According to ITU’s Measuring the Information Society 2010 report, the top 21 countries spend less than 1 per cent of the average income on broadband, but at the other end of the scale, for the bottom 28 countries, it costs more than 100 per cent of the average income. It is a terrible irony that those who need it most cannot afford it.

Broadband is not only about infrastructure, but content and services. Countries like Singapore are taking the lead by making e-services like e-health and e-education available to its people, thereby helping to drive and encourage private sector development in these areas. There needs to be a complementary role between the government, with its regulatory framework, and the private sector, to roll out services.

It is important to note that broadband has a significant impact on the GDP of a country. A 10 per cent growth in telephony increases GDP by 0.5 per cent. A 10 per cent growth in mobile penetration increases GDP by 0.7 per cent, but a 10 per cent growth in broadband increases GDP by 1.3 per cent.

Investments in broadband will pay for itself very quickly in terms of benefits delivered across society as a whole. Broadband innovation will result in cost savings in sectors like health, education, energy and transportation. Recent estimates show that cost savings of just 0.5-1.5 per cent every 10 years in these four areas will justify the building of national fibre optic networks in developing countries. There is a real impact.

ITU’s cybersecurity concerns and efforts.
When I talk about cyberspace, I always also talk about the negative part which is cybersecurity. There is a lot of crime in cyberspace. Criminals are not at the crime scene as they can perpetrate the crime from anywhere. We have many countries that are vulnerable and in this small world, we are as strong as our weakest link.

Can you imagine a day without ICT - no plane will be able to take off, no train will move, no electricity. It will be a cyber-tsunami. Also, there is US$30 billion stored in cyberspace every year, which is subject to theft. Intellectual property is valuable and the impact is heavy if it is lost.

ITU has put together a Global Cybersecurity Agenda to study the issue and has made recommendations in five areas.  Firstly, to put in a legal and regulatory framework in every country to penalise crime. Secondly, there needs to be technical readiness in cyberspace, by having a response team. Thirdly, there needs to be national communications because cybersecurity is not just an issue for the communications ministry; every single department has some part to play, so there must be some means to communicate and co-ordinate with each other. Fourthly, you need to have capacity building. All enforcement agents must be trained worldwide, be it on legal issues, on technical issues, or most importantly, on the ethical part. There is a fine line between security and privacy and ethics is important here.

Last but not least is an international framework of co-operation. This is where an organisation like ITU comes in with our 191 member states and over 700 private companies working hand in hand with ITU.

Protecting the children (and everyone else)
We are trying to have, at an international level, a cyberpeace concept. The best way to win a war is to avoid it. We want to put a cyberpeace treaty in place, but we are not there yet. It will be the first treaty of its kind because it will be discussed by governments, private sector and society. But it is not easy to get everyone together, and many who think they are protected, don’t want to talk about it. Also, no one wants to leave security in the hands of someone else.

That is why I came up with the Child Online Protection (COP) initiative. COP came as the lowest common denominator, because everyone is concerned about our children. Since I put that programme in place in 2008, everyone has been working together because children are our most vulnerable and important assets, and everyone is worried about them. If we work to put measures in place to protect children online, the same framework can work in other types of crime, so now we are walking as we are talking. There is now a good programme in place to protect children and I hope to capitalise on that to protect citizens in general.

But, if we were to put a cyberpeace treaty in place, for it to succeed, it needs countries to give free access to its citizens to information and to be able to create and share information. Second, every government needs to commit to protect citizens in cyberspace. Third, it should commit not to harbour criminals or terrorists in their territory. Fourth, it should commit not to attack others first because there is a similarity between cyberweapons and nuclear weapons.

We are trying to put together an international framework of collaboration, so we hope that cyberspace will be peaceful.

Moving to wealth creation
The world has changed, and there is a new world order. Broadband is a tool to meeting economic goals for all sectors. ICT will improve lives of people worldwide and especially future generations. We hope that every citizen will be able to have better access to healthcare and education. Instead of poverty reduction, we want to move to wealth creation. ICT has created more jobs than any other sector with 2/3 of jobs created in the last five years. There is still a lot of potential; it can make the world a better place.