IFIP reaffirmed its commitment to taking strong action in support of the Sustainable Development Goals and called for ICT professionalism to be explicitly recognised during the United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting last month to review the implementation of the WSIS Outcomes.

Although Founding Chair of IFIP’s Global Industry Council and IFIP IP3 Vice Chair, Stephen Ibaraki, was delayed from attending the meeting in person by severe weather, his prepared speech was read aloud to the ITU side event at the UN Headquarters in New York on 14 December.

The influential meeting heard that IFIP is demonstrating a continuing commitment of strong actionable support for the implementation of the WSIS Action Lines which accelerate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“We are invoking our extensive capabilities to support developing nations, closing the digital divide, enabling ICT for development and Human Rights, providing insights to Internet Governance, building Cyberspace confidence and security building, supporting all 11 WSIS action lines and 17 SDGs. An example, within our membership we have the largest computing science digital library with 1.5 million users impacting research, entrepreneurship, and innovation and ultimately governments, industry, business, academia, media,” Mr Ibaraki’s speech said.

He also pointed to WITFOR16, the World IT Forum, to be held in Costa Rica in September 2016 as another IFIP initiative focused around the SDGs, quoting from the public WITFOR goals:

“WITFOR 2016 intends to bring together members of the ICT community from governments, academia, industry and associations, to discuss recent proposals aimed to reach the sustainable development goals, promoted by the United Nations, to improve global conditions by reducing poverty and hunger; achieving universal education; promoting gender equality; ensuring environmental sustainability; combating diseases and reducing mortality and much more.

The meeting also heard about IFIP IP3’s active involvement in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum over the past three years, participating in WSIS Geneva and Paris by hosting workshops and speaking, and taking part in the July, October and December UN GA HL WSIS+10 Consultations.

Mr Ibaraki highlighted the strong support provided by the Global Industry Council, which released its GIC 2020 Skills Assessment Report at the World Computer Congress 2015 to support WSIS action lines and SDGs and to support increasing sustained growth in economic development, GDP, innovation, sustainability and security for all member states of the UN.

He ended by calling on WSIS to explicitly recognise ICT professionalism, saying that “the implementation of WSIS action lines and SDGS requires the services of a skilled, competent, ethical, accountable, trustworthy ICT workforce. The word Professional encapsulates this thus we believe the word Professional should be added to the discussions with special recognition of the enabling ICT workforce.”

He stressed that IFIP’s International Professional Practice Partnership is committed to enhancing the WSIS journey and SDG implementation through ICT workforce professionalism.

 

About IFIP

IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing, is the global professional federation of societies and associations for people working in Information and Communications Technologies and Sciences. Established under the auspices of UNESCO in 1960 and recognised by the United Nations, IFIP represents ICT professional associations from more than 50 countries and regions with a total membership of over half a million. It also brings together more than 3,500 scientists from industry and academia, organising them into over 100 Working Groups and 13 Technical Committees to conduct research, develop standards and promote information sharing. Based in Austria, IFIP organises and supports over 100 conferences each year, fostering the distribution of research and knowledge to academics and industry practitioners alike.

Website: http://ifip.org

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ifipnews

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ifip—international-federation-for-information-processing

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