As prepared for delivery

Your Majesty, Queen Máxima [of the Netherlands]

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

On behalf of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Digital Public Goods Alliance [the Governments of Estonia, Germany, Norway and Sierra Leone, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and UNICEF], and our partners Smart Africa and the World Bank, I would like to warmly welcome you to UNDP’s flagship event during the 77th United Nations General Assembly on The Future of Digital Cooperation. 

Digital is changing the way people live, work, and interact with one another -- a trend that has been accelerated by COVID-19. 

At UNDP, digital is at the forefront of our work in over 150 countries, with a vision to help create a world in which digital is an empowering force for people and planet.  

This event is focused on how to leverage the immense power of Digital Public Infrastructure.

Think about our existing shared public infrastructure such as roads or railways or power lines, but online.

Digital public infrastructure can serve as the fundamental building blocks that allow other innovations to flourish. These building blocks can include digitalized identity platforms or digital payment systems that then unlock new solutions such as mobile financial services. 

While every country’s context is unique, there are striking similarities in both the challenges they face as well as in the approaches they use to address them.

We know that countries with strong and interoperable digital infrastructure are better equipped to meet people’s needs and accelerate action towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

Today, we have with us the single largest and most prominent gathering of countries and other partners coming together to create and implement safe, trusted, and inclusive digital public infrastructure at scale.

We will commit to sharing and learning from one another, to finding ways to finance these journeys, and to leaving no one behind in the process.

I look forward to hearing your commitments towards these common objectives and how, we as a community, can work together to turn this into a truly global movement.