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OAS Strategic Dialogue on Telecommunications Emphasizes Taking Advantage of Technologies to Reduce Inequality

The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL) of the Organization of American States (OAS) today opened its High Level Strategic Dialogue in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, with a call to take advantage of the new Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) and the advantages offered by public-private partnerships to encourage development in the entire region and to reduce social inequality.

During the inauguration of the event, the Executive Secretary for Integral Development of the OAS, Sherry Tross, said before the more than 200 participants in the Dialogue that ICTs are not in and of themselves the goal, rather they should be the means by which governments, in partnership with the private sector, promote sustainable, inclusive and transformative development in the region. “To achieve these goals, we need to work with strategic partners, and that is why we are gathered here today,” said Tross.

The High Level Strategic Dialogue brought together government authorities, private sector representatives, civil society representatives and the media in the Crowne Plaza Hotel of Santo Domingo, and is the precursor of the Sixth Regular Meeting of the Assembly of CITEL, that will take place between Tuesday and Thursday at the same location.

Executive Secretary Tross recalled that in the Sixth Summit of the Americas, which took place in Cartagena in 2012, the Heads of State of the region “emphasized the role of ICTs as a driver for innovation, competitiveness and inclusion.” She also mentioned that in that presidential meeting there was a call to increase public-private cooperation to support initiatives that allow the use and expansion of broadband and information and communication technologies in remote rural areas and more distant urban centers.

The OAS Executive Secretary for Integral Development argued that access to high speed internet is also a key element in delivering content and essential services “in health, education, agriculture, and other essential areas.” She also indicated that ICTs are necessary “in practically every area we can think of, whether facilitating effective emergency responses in cases of natural disaster or creating business opportunities.”

The OAS official stressed the need to exploit ICTs in education and urged governments to "take advantage of the proliferation of the use of mobile technologies like tablets, iphones, androids and smart phones, to be able to stream content and work with teachers and students and those living in remote areas." Tross said that to promote the increase of users of these technologies "can change individual lives and impact communities in ways that are both immediate as well as long term." In this regard, she mentioned that last year the OAS created the Inter-American Teacher Education Network (ITEN), with 18,000 teachers from primary to tertiary level.

The Chair of the Permanent Executive Committee of CITEL, Karel Ochoa, recalled the eighth goal of the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations for 2015, based on cooperation between the public and private sector as a key part in creating greater access to new technologies, she indicated that the developing countries have yet to make major changes to achieve access to lower broadband prices in order to help generate further development.

In that sense, Ochoa noted that the governments of the Americas are making great efforts "in order to promote competition and encourage the deployment of telecommunications network infrastructure capable of promoting broadband internet access for our citizens aimed at reducing the digital divide." Ochoa said that the commitment to the use of technology in the region is "one of the factors that led the International Monetary Fund to forecast for this year an average growth of 3 percent for the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean."

For his part, the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Dominican Institute of Telecommunications (lNDOTEL), Gideon Santos, recalled that the technology sector played a key role in helping Latin America successfully emerge from the last global economic crisis that erupted in 2008. Santos noted how government officials should emphasize the concept of "digital inclusion," extending the use of new technologies to sectors with fewer resources to promote their development. "Unfortunately we have serious problems of social inclusion, especially in Latin America. I hope that with this Dialogue we can draw new conclusions, which illuminate the mind, so our countries can undertake new projects leading to a fairer and more equitable Americas," he said.

ICTs and inequality

During the first panel of the Dialogue the Minister of Information and Communications Technologies of Colombia, Diego Molano, said that one of the main concerns of his government is to reduce inequality, highlighting the use of ICTs to carry out this task. Minister Molano said that in recent years his country managed to pull 2.5 million Colombians out of poverty, in good part due to the support of new technologies.

“We’ve achieved this massive expansion of technology thanks to public-private partnerships,” said Molano, who cited a basic principle of the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, which illustrates the approach of his government to this issue: “the market as far as possible, the state as far as is necessary.”

The CEO of the Internet Address Registry for Latin America and the Caribbean, Raúl Echeverría, highlighted the fact that the region is much more technologically advanced than it was five years ago. He agreed with his fellow presenters that the main problem in the region is inequality and that work should be done to reduce the digital divide between the most and least advanced countries in the Americas.

“We are the most unequal region in the world. And what we see in the ICT sector is a reflection of that situation. There are ten countries with internet usage higher than 60 percent, while there are ten other countries in which that number is less than 10 percent” of the population, said Echeverría. Moreover, he said the problems of inequality also exist within countries, because while access to new technologies is high in the large urban centers, in remote rural areas there is little access to ICTs and that has repercussions in terms of economic and social development.

The Lead ICT Policy Specialist from the World Bank Doyle Gallegos said that the new technologies “are among the most powerful tools to bring prosperity to countries.” Gallegos said that while 70 to 80 percent of the investments in this area come from the private sector, “this does not mean there is no place for the public sector.” The World Bank Specialist proposed that governments should concentrate investments in infrastructure, while the private sector devotes itself to leading investments in innovation.

Gallegos added that, currently, the main investments are concentrated in international connectivity and urban areas, and said one of the great challenges is the heterogeneity of the region, which contains countries of varying sizes, with vastly different economies, etc.

Finally the Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Global Internet Strategy for Verizon, Thomas Dailey, said the corporation he represents is the lar4gest in the United States in terms of ICTs, with 80 million clients, which includes packages of internet services, telephony, and television, among other services.

Daily highlighted the growth of Verizon in recent years in markets in the region like Brazil and Colombia, and said that while he does not oppose regulation of ICT markets, regulations should be “very light” as in the United States.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-040/14