Statement by the delegation of Ukraine at the UN GA Second Committee under item 16 "Information and communications technologies for sustainable development"
Mr.Chair,
Distinguished Delegates,
Dear colleagues.
We thank the Secretariat of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development for its report, highlighting major activities carried out by stakeholders.
The Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, which was released just a few months ago, underscores that the digital cooperation is a multi-stakeholder effort in which the involvement of the private sector, technology companies, and civil society is essential. This is particularly crucial as we enter into the decade of action for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Mr.Chair,
The international community also needs to realize the role of digital finance for opportunities to align digitalization and finance in support of SDG implementation. In this regard, we welcome the report by the UN Secretary-General’s Task Force on Digital Finance.
Digitization of all socially essential spheres of life is one of the main priorities of the Government of Ukraine. Ukraine has very close cooperation on modern technologies with the United Nations Development Programme, which includes several streams of citizen-oriented digitalization products to advance the country’s priorities within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Government of Ukraine continues its efforts to strengthen the national legislative framework to create favourable conditions for developing the ICT sector in Ukraine, using Ukraine's scientific and technical potential and establishing effective cooperation in this area with business, public organizations, and society.
Our national project ‘Digital State’ for electronic services is being successfully implemented and creating simple and transparent public services for people and businesses.
The portal provides 27 public online services now: get an entrepreneur registration; change the type of business activity or stop it; issue certificates, childbirth assistance or monthly reimbursement of the cost of child care services for children under three years of age; file a lawsuit; register a car or receive services related to driver's documents; get extracts from registers.
In February 2020, the mobile application ‘Diia’ was launched, which provides citizens with access to their digital documents. As of September 2020, more than 5 million citizens use this mobile application, which provides the following documents:
- digital passport of a citizen of Ukraine as an ID-card and digital passport of a citizen of Ukraine for travel abroad;
- digital driver's license;
- digital vehicle registration certificate and car insurance policy;
- digital student ticket.
Ukraine is working on a virtual economic sphere Diia City, which will simplify the conditions for doing business and attract foreign investment in Ukraine. Diia City will become a digital field for business, in which there will be no limits for investment, job creation, or the development of new technologies.
The ‘e-residence’ project is an additional tool for attracting foreign investment in Ukraine, which is to enable foreign entrepreneurs, primarily in the field of information technology, to open and fully conduct business in Ukraine remotely, without a physical presence in our country.
Additionally, the Government has already launched digital literacy programmes for engaging 6 million Ukrainians in digital skills and competency during the next three years. To date, more than 277,000 Ukrainians have used this online resource. Importantly, the project has an offline component: a network of more than 1,500 digital education hubs across the country.
Mr.Chair,
We believe that all these measures will have a significant positive impact on our country's sustainable development and will help Ukraine make progress and achieve post-pandemic economic recovery.
Thank you for your attention.