Believing in the growing significant role of the Internet in current economic and development affairs, the D-8 Secretariat participated in the 16th annual Internet Governance Forum IGFl which was held In Katowice, Poland from 6 to 10 December 2021. The D-8 delegation composed of Ms. Rasha Hamdy the Director of Economy and External Relations and Mr. Md. Biplob Tarafder program Officer.

In light of the D-8 belief that the developing countries should participate in drafting the regulations that govern the Internet and have their concerns and needs voiced out in the global fora, the D-8 delegation actively participated in the high level sessions and the Capacity building sessions as well as following the Youth track activities. The D-8 delegation focused on issues related to digital cooperation, digital transformation challenges in developing countries, regulating digital platforms for the Global South, global economic recovery, creating sustainable value and inclusive society – the role of digital platforms, the role of digitilization in Environment and climate change. Attending those sessions, the delegation team took notes of the priority areas of activities set forth by the leaders and experts, and got in-depth view of the concerns of the developing countries as well as the challenges facing the digital transformation in developing countries.

On the sideline of the IGF, Ms. Rasha Hamdy held a pre-scheduled coordination meeting with Mr. Juwang Zhu Director of the Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government at UNDESA. They discussed the agreed upon cooperation between the D-8 and UNDESA in the areas of Digital Economy and E-Governance. Ms. Hamdy expressed the D-8 idea of a two tracks of cooperation with UNDESA. The first track will focus on exchange of knowledge and expertise in the form of a series of workshops and webinars. The second track will focus on Capacity building training courses for mid career officials. She highlighted three priority areas for cooperation : E- governance and the provision of public services online, E-Commerce Legislation, and the Taxation of online commercial activities. She referred to the need of paying attention to intellectual property issues when dealing with digital transformation as it could hinder the progress of developing states in the digitalization process.

They agreed to launch the cooperation by organizing a webinar on E-governance for officials from the D-8 Member states to be held in the first quarter of 2022. The webinar will target officials from both the management level and the operation level from each country in an attempt to bridge the existing gap between the management leaders and the IT officials. The Webinar will be followed by an on-site capacity building training program on e-governance and the provision of public services on line. The training program will be held in one of the D-8 Member States in the second half of 2022 and will target mid- career IT officials.

In the meanwhile, Ms. Hamdy held informal meetings with the delegations of Bangladesh, Iran and Pakistan as well as some Egyptian stakeholders and NGOs attending the IGF, with the aim of knowing the real needs of the Member states in the field of digitalization of economy and E-governance. The Delegation of Pakistan stressed their interest in legislation of e-commerce, the delegation of Bangladesh highlighted their success story in the field of digital transformation and e-governance in cooperation with UNDESA and they expressed their willingness to share their experience with the other D-8 member states. The Delegation of Iran expressed their interest in the three areas of cooperation with UNDESA proposed by Ms. Hamdy and they preferred to start with e-governance as a highest priority. The Egyptian NGO stressed the importance of paying attention to Intellectual Property issues when dealing with digital transformation.