At this time of mass population movements, violent conflicts, atrocious human
rights abuses and hateful rhetoric aimed at dividing communities, the sacred
commemoration of the Day of Vesak offers an invaluable opportunity to reflect on
how the teachings of Buddhism can help the international community tackle
pressing challenges.
The fundamental equality of all people, the imperative to seek justice, and
the interdependence of life and the environment are more than abstract concepts
for scholars to debate; they are living guidelines for Buddhists and others
navigating the path to a better future.
One Sutra tells the story of Srimala, a woman who pledged to help all those
suffering from injustice, illness, poverty or disaster. This spirit of
solidarity can animate our global efforts to realize the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development, carry out the Paris Agreement on climate change, and
promote human rights while advancing human dignity worldwide.
The actions of Srimala also illustrate the primary role that women can play
in advocating for peace, justice and human rights. Gender equality and the
empowerment of women remain urgent priorities that will drive progress across
the international agenda.
In just a few days, the United Nations will convene the first-ever World
Humanitarian Summit, where leaders will join activists and other partners to
address the needs of millions of vulnerable people in crisis. Buddhists and
individuals of all faiths who are concerned about the future of humanity can
help advance the Summit’s aims to uphold humanitarian law, protect civilians in
conflict, and improve the global response to emergencies.
On this Day of Vesak, let us pledge to reach out to bridge differences,
foster a sense of belonging, and show compassion on a global scale for the sake
of our common future.
Rector of Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, President, International Association of Buddhist Universities, President, International Council for Day of Vesak
The General Assembly, by its resolution 54/115 of 1999, recognized the the International Day to acknowledge the contribution that Buddhism, one of the oldest religions in the world, has made for over two and a half millennia and continues to make to the spirituality of humanity.
Citing the story of Srimala, a woman who pledged to help all those suffering from injustice, illness, poverty or disaster, Mr. Ban said that this spirit of solidarity can animate global efforts to realize the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, carry out the Paris Agreement on climate change, and promote human rights while advancing human dignity worldwide.
The actions of Srimala also illustrate the primary role that women can play in advocating for peace, justice and human rights. Gender equality and the empowerment of women remain urgent priorities that will drive progress across the international agenda.
In just a few days, the UN will convene the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, where leaders will join activists and other partners to address the needs of millions of vulnerable people in crisis.
Among Overseas Chinese communities, Vesak day is celebrated depending on their respective traditions, the Buddhist culture in that country or simply both. On Vesak day, Buddhists visit monasteries to offer their prayers and to attend sermons led by Buddhist Venerables. Buddhist prayers often extend beyond themselves to pray for world peace and harmony. They also perform rituals such as the bathing of the Buddha; A symbolic act to commemorate the devas and spirits who made offerings to the Buddha at the time of his birth.
During the Vesak Day period, monasteries are decorated with Buddhist flags and flowers while vegetarian restaurants offer promotions as people abstain from meat as an act of compassion.
Many Buddhist will also make donations to charity organizations and to free animals that are captured for human consumption.
Biodiversity and the ecosystem services it supports are the foundations for
life on Earth and the livelihoods and well-being of people everywhere.
Protecting biodiversity and preventing further losses is an essential
investment in our collective future.
Biodiversity is an important cross-cutting issue in the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development. Goal 15 explicitly recognizes the importance of
halting biodiversity loss, and other Goals recognize the importance of
biological diversity for eradicating poverty, providing food and fresh-water,
and improving life in cities. It is critical that we make progress in
mainstreaming biodiversity and transforming how societies value and manage it.
Despite numerous commitments, biodiversity loss continues to accelerate in
all regions. Only 15 per cent of countries are on track to achieve the Aichi
Targets on biodiversity by the target date of 2020. In addition, the
anticipated expansion of sectors that both depend on and affect biodiversity –
including agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture – will pose a
significant challenge to halting biodiversity loss in the coming decades.
Reversing these trends will require action by all sectors and stakeholders,
from United Nations Member States and agencies to civil society, academia and
business. We need better research, and we need to act on the evidence that
biodiversity is integral to achieving social and economic goals.
The responsible use of natural resources is essential to sustainable
development. Mainstreaming biodiversity will ensure that addressing development
needs and protecting the environment are mutually supportive.
On this International Day for Biodiversity, I urge all Governments and
stakeholders to preserve and sustainably manage the variety of life on Earth for
the benefit of current and future generations. Preserving biological diversity
is a vital part of our compact with each other and the planet that nurtures us.
Biodiversity underpins peoples’ livelihoods and sustainable development in all areas of activity, including economic sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism, among others. By halting biodiversity loss, we are investing in people, their lives and their well-being. Read Sustainable Livelihoods Stories > Tweets about "#BioDiversityDay"
The CBD Secretariat encourages all parties to the Convention and all organizations that deal in some way with the issue to organize activities and events to celebrate the IDB and to take advantage of it to raise public awareness and to showcase their work.
Celebrating cultural diversity means valuing an outstanding source of exchanges, innovation and creativity, recognizing that the wealth of cultures is the constitutive power of humanity and an important asset for peace and development, the promotion of which is inseparable from the observance of human rights.
Celebrating cultural diversity also means being aware of the ties that bind us to our environment, because cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature, as clearly stated in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, adopted in 2001.
Celebrating Cultural diversity means opening up new perspectives for sustainable development and promoting creative industries and cultural entrepreneurship as sources of millions of jobs worldwide – particularly for young people and especially for women. Culture is a sustainable development accelerator whose potential has been recognized in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the United Nations. Culture offers the unique opportunity to reconcile the economic and social aspects of development – cultural goods and services have identities, reference points and values, while enabling millions of creators, artists and professionals to make a living from their work. Celebrating cultural diversity means enabling them to practice their trade and helps them to enrich the cultural landscape, which in turn enriches us.
Celebrating, at the same time, cultural diversity that broadens our horizons and human rights that unite us: this is the core of UNESCO’s mandate, for heritage, education, information and knowledge sharing. The enemies of human rights always attack cultural diversity, which symbolizes the freedom to be and to think,
and which is unbearable to them. On this day, let us dare to respond to them collectively: I call upon all Member States to strengthen the spirit of this day, as a peaceful weapon against the temptations of isolationism, closure and exclusion, which lead humanity to renounce itself, ignoring its own wealth.
Ten simple things YOU can do to celebrate the World Day for Cultural
Diversity for Dialogue and Development
Visit an art exhibit or a museum dedicated to other cultures.
Invite a family or people in the neighborhood from another culture or
religion to share a meal with you and exchange views on life.
Rent a movie or read a book from another country or religion than your
own.
Invite people from a different culture to share your customs.
Read about the great thinkers of other cultures than yours (e.g. Confucius,
Socrates, Avicenna, Ibn Khaldun, Aristotle, Ganesh, Rumi).
Go next week-end to visit a place of worship different than yours and
participate in the celebration.
Play the “stereotypes game.” Stick a post-it on your forehead with the name
of a country. Ask people to tell you stereotypes associated with people from
that country. You win if you find out where you are from.
Learn about traditional celebrations from other cultures; learn more about
Hanukkah or Ramadan or about amazing celebrations of New Year’s Eve in Spain or
Qingming festival in China.
Spread your own culture around the world through our Facebook page and learn
about other cultures.
Explore music of a different culture.
There are thousands of things that you can do, are you taking part in
it?
From setting up a digital arts laboratory in Senegal and boosting cultural policy development in Togo to strengthening the music scene in Tajikistan as well as training the new generation of cultural entrepreneurs in Argentina, UNESCO’s International Fund for Cultural Diversity (IFCD) contributes towards sustainable development and poverty reduction through creativity. This film highlights the concrete impact of some of the projects financed by the IFCD around the world. The Fund supports developing countries to bolster economies and create jobs by restructuring cultural policies and strengthening capacities and structures in cultural and creative industries.
For an hour, a night or an entire week, participants are free to mark this unifying, universal occasion, which turns 38 this year, as they see fit. In 2016, the theme of the International Museum Day is “Museums and Cultural Landscapes”, also at the heart of debates that will take place during the ICOM General Conference, to be held in Milan from 3 to 9 July 2016. This theme implies that museums have a certain responsibility towards the landscapes where they are located, to which they are able to bring their own specific knowledge and skills. The main mission of museums is to oversee the safekeeping and protection of the heritage that lies both within and beyond their walls.
In the Siena Charter, the cultural landscape is proposed as “the country where we live, which surrounds us with the images and symbols that identify and characterize it.” According to this vision, the landscape is considered as the context – geographic, historical, economic, social and cultural – in which museums exist and operate. The International Council of Museums (ICOM) established International Museum Day in 1977 to increase public awareness of the role of museums in the development of society.
This initiative has proven successful, according to ICOM President Hans-Martin Hinz: “Museum visitors should learn about the past and enjoy the diversity of cultures”. The event benefits from growing popularity, and in 2015, gathered more than 35,000 museums which organised celebrations in some 145 countries on five continents.
In the words of Johanna Regalado, Project manager for the Ethnological Museum of Guayaquil, Ecuador, one of the museums involved in IMD: “Without a doubt, every year, every IMD brings about great expectations. Families, children, adults, everyone enjoys special activities created for them, and nobody knows how much time the museum workers devote to making sure that every moment, every programme is a success. It is a pleasure for us, of course! It is an extraordinary moment for museums! In 2015 for the theme ‘Museums for a Sustainable Society’, our museum celebrated the whole month with different special activities. These included ‘ReciclArte’ for children (award for the best artwork made with sustainable material), ‘children’s guidance’ in the MAAC Museum, an inclusive programme with a ceramics workshop for disabled people, conferences, a ‘Night at the Museum’ and more, all of which were organised and enjoyed during this very special month.”
For the second year ICOM has created an interactive map, allowing museums worldwide to update their activities planned for International Museum Day celebrations. This is a highly practical tool for museum visitors around the globe, as a quick and useful way to check which IMD activities are taking place in every part of the world.
Events :
More than 1900 IMD activities worldwide are online on the interactive map, from Europe (including 1,422 activities in Germany, 129 in Switzerland and 70 in Spain) to Asia (India, Myanmar, Taiwan, Thailand), the Americas and Australia.
Most museums around the world celebrate International Museum Day from tomorrow, 18 May, until 22 May, with celebrations planned around the globe this coming weekend.
The international community is now mobilized around the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which recognizes the great potential of Information and communications technology (ICT) to accelerate human progress, bridge the Digital divide and advance knowledge. The Sustainable Development Goals - SDGs specifically call for empl...oying ICTs to realize the overall vision of a life of dignity for all people.
These technologies provide smart solutions to address climate change, hunger, poverty and other global challenges. They are key instruments for providing mobile health care and access to education, empowering women, improving efficiencies in industrial and agricultural production, and safeguarding the environment.
Start-ups and technology hubs in the ITC sector are the drivers of innovative and practical solutions that can contribute to inclusive growth. Small to medium-sized enterprises make up more than 90 per cent of all businesses worldwide, and represent a path out of poverty for many developing countries.
Young people are especially fluent in the use of ICTs. Leaders should invest in young innovators, who are part of the largest generation of youth in history. As entrepreneurs, they can pioneer transformative technology, create jobs and benefit whole economies.
I call upon governments, businesses and civil society leaders to develop new technologies that have a lasting social impact. ICTs can create more inclusive societies for persons with disabilities. They can help children to learn and the elderly to stay active. And ICTs can connect people around the world in common cause.
On this World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, let us resolve to harness the power of technology to create a better future for all.
Excellencies,
Distinguished colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a tremendous pleasure to welcome you to World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2016, focusing this year on "ICT entrepreneurship for social impact".
Over the past decades, the ICT sector has grown to become one of the world's most successful and inspiring ecosystems.
On this very special day – 17 May – we can proudly celebrate the fact that billions of people are now connected in a smart, networked environment, and are connected to new and previously unimaginable possibilities.
These welcome developments make it even more urgent that we continue to pursue our goal of bringing the rest of the world's people online, so that they too can access and create extraordinary social and economic benefits.
Distinguished colleagues,
Today, the ICT world is increasingly being driven by grassroots entrepreneurship, delivering local solutions to tackle local challenges.
Anyone, anywhere in the world today – with good connectivity and the necessary skills – has the potential to create and innovate with global impact.
Entrepreneurs and small- and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, provide up to 70% of global employment, and we need their expertise, innovation and investment to achieve our common goals of sustainable economic and social development.
Governments around the world recognize this, and many are now actively promoting national innovation and entrepreneurial hubs, with the aim of creating a vibrant start-up culture.
It is clear to me that it is the SMEs who extend the power of new ICT technologies and services to reach local communities everywhere in the world. To some extent, there is no possibility for big companies to succeed if they do not have the support of SMEs.
Distinguished colleagues,
Here at ITU, we are well-positioned to promote digital entrepreneurship in collaboration with our global membership of governments, industry, civil society and academia, as well as other international organizations and stakeholders.
We work hard to ensure an enabling policy and regulatory environment – an environment that facilitates and promotes innovation while still delivering effective mechanisms to avoid market dominance and guarantee consumer protection.
We are developing international technical standards that enable anyone anywhere to produce services and equipment for a global market.
And we harmonise the use of the radio spectrum to ensure interoperability and to benefit from economies of scale.
At our major events, such as ITU Telecom, we bring together ministers, regulators, industry leaders, academia, innovation hubs and accelerators, as well as start-ups and SMEs themselves.
Coming from both the developed and the developing world, they come to ITU to share knowledge and best practices, and to build valuable new partnerships.
At ITU, I want to ensure that we use our experience and global network to support the evolving ICT ecosystem, including government-funded tech parks, university incubators, and start-up accelerators, so that SMEs in emerging economies can more easily grow and scale their business and access new market opportunities.
An important part of this effort is to promote greater gender equality in the ICT ecosystem. The technology sector needs more women leaders, creators and entrepreneurs. And to this end, I am delighted to share with you here today, that tomorrow the ITU, and our partner UN Women, will issue the call for nominations for our third annual GEM-tech awards.
This prestigious global prize recognizes outstanding contributions from individuals and organizations in further addressing the issue of the digital gender divide by leveraging and embracing the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for social impact and to promote greater gender equality and to empower women and girls.
Let me therefore take this opportunity to call upon all of our members and partners to actively promote small, smart and innovative ICT businesses, as well as supporting the creation of all-inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems.
ITU will continue to work with our membership in supporting these endeavours to achieve widespread digital social innovation, and to promote ICT entrepreneurship for social impact, to create a better world for all.
Thank you for your attention.
Houlin Zhao ,
ITU Secretary-General
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (on screen), delivers video message to the opening of the annual UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva.
The theme for WTISD-16 is in line with ITU’s work in unlocking the potential of ICTs for young innovators and entrepreneurs, innovative SMEs, start-ups and technology hubs as drivers of innovative and practical solutions for catalysing progress in achieving international sustainable development goals, with a focus on SMEs from developing countries.
They will showcase and leverage relevant national and regional strategies and initiatives to promote ICT-related SMEs and foster and discover new technological solutions to accelerate sustainable development.
For many people, the internet has become such a pervasive, fundamental part of daily life and business that it is hard to fathom that over 4 billion people – more than 55% of the world’s population – are still not online. Many of those simply do not have access: they live in hard-to-reach rural areas or do not have digital or other basic infrastructure. Some simply do not see the benefits of being connected, often because of limited relevant digital content. Others are illiterate; many are poor.
Inequality compounds the problem. Good, fast connectivity (broadband, or 3G or better mobile connections) reaches almost 70% of the world’s population, but less than 30% in rural areas.2 According to the World Wide Web Foundation (WWWF), women are much less likely to access the internet than men in the same communities; the WWWF reported that just 37% of women surveyed used the internet, compared to 59% of men. Once online, women are 30- 50% less likely than men to use the internet to increase their income or participate in public life.
Governments, companies, local and international organizations, and members of civil society are working to extend internet access and use. Plenty of progress has been made since people first started talking about a "digital divide" with respect to the internet over 20 years ago. Establishing the Broadband Commission for Digital Development (now called the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development) has helped to further broadband’s presence on policy agendas and build support for increasing countries’ access to it (text box). But the problem is big, complex and multidimensional. It’s hard to get one’s head around the full nature and extent of the need. From its position as a global, multistakeholder organization that bridges policy, economics, business and civil society considerations, the World Economic Forum is in a unique position to bring together parties that can undertake a comprehensive analysis of internet access and use for all, and recommend solutions. Those should meet several essential criteria, which are:
Address the local underlying environment and barriers of each case
Serve as coordinated efforts and interventions across multiple dimensions
Draw on successful examples of collaboration among stakeholders
Represent proven examples of further expanding the internet and its use
Early Internet-based platforms have been primarily focused on communications between individuals and groups of people, which can be translated into person-to-person communications. IoT adds to these platforms devices enabled to conduct person-to-machine as well as machine-to-machine (M2M) communications without human intervention. As devices are endowed with Communication capability, they can make their own contributions to IoT. Just a...s there is a wide variety of connected device types, these various devices exhibit a range of Connectedness.
The Open, Inclusive challenge for a smart sustainable cities
If total business connectivity is a target, we could state that data indicate steady progress towards that end, albeit at different speeds for different technologies. Business connectivity worldwide has undoubtedly grown in the past few years, with mobile telephony contributing in great part to reducing the basic connectivity gap. However, although data from developing countries are still far from comprehensive, it is clear that within developing countries themselves, there are wide differences in ICT use between large and small companies, between businesses in different industries, and between rural and urban businesses. In addition, there is a growing divide in broadband access between businesses in developed and developing countries, which has an impact on the way that they can benefit from applications and systems. The broadband connectivity gap highlights the need for further improvements in the ICT infrastructure for developing countries, which in turn should have a positive impact on current problems of cost, latency and quality of services.
The divide in ICT use between different-sized businesses seems to point at other critical factors that can be measured through other targets and indicators, such as education and skills development. Despite the recognition that the mobile revolution has made e-business more inclusive, through basic connectivity as well as through innovative mobile applications, the WSIS targets have not tracked progress in this area.
The e-business action line remains highly relevant for the implementation of WSIS-related work beyond 2015. Therefore, appropriate targets related to e-business should be included in any action plans beyond 2015, and relevant indicators should be defined for monitoring.
The WSIS targets have served as global reference for improving global access and use of ICTs and
have provided benchmark indicators for the evaluation of the overall objectives of the information
society. In addition, the WSIS targets were intended to inspire particular targets at national level
based on local characteristics, e-strategies and development policies.
Amended WSIS targets
Target 1. Connect all villages with ICTs and establish community access points;
Target 2. Connect all secondary schools and primary schools with ICTs;
Target 3. Connect all scientific and research centres with ICTs;
Target 4. Connect all public libraries, museums, post offices and national archives with ICTs;
Target 5. Connect all health centres and hospitals with ICTs;
Target 6. Connect all central government departments and establish websites;
Target 7. Adapt all primary and secondary school curricula to meet the challenges of the information society,
taking into account national circumstances;
Target 8. Ensure that all of the world’s population has access to television and radio services;
Target 9. Encourage the development of content and put in place technical conditions in order to facilitate
the presence and use of all world languages on the Internet;
Target 10. Ensure that more than half the world’s inhabitants have access to ICTs within their reach and
