On 24 October 2021, UNESCO presented its Internet Universality ROAM Principles and Indicators project at the Asia-Pacific Communication Forum 2021, organized by the Asia-Pacific Communication and Exchange Association (APCEA).
The theme for this year’s event was “Communication, Unity & Dialogue”, which allowed UNESCO to stress the relevance of principles of Rights, Openness, Access and Multi-stakeholder involvement (ROAM principles) and indicators in shaping digital transformation and fostering policy debates in the Asia-Pacific region.
Amongst the 100 participants, a diversified range of distinguished communication scholars and industry leaders in the Asia and Pacific region presented keynote speeches. This event, featured by its multistakeholder participation not limited to academic community, has ignited insightful discussions on overcoming the communication barriers among countries and continents in the post Covid-19 period.
Within this context, Xianhong Hu, UNESCO’s Programme Specialist and Focal point of the ROAM project, stressed in her keynote speech that ”UNESCO’s ROAM principles and indicators offers all countries and stakeholders a unique framework to guide the development and governance of digital technologies in a humanistic approach for achieving Sustainable Development Agenda of 2030”.
She underlined that the ROAM-X indicators assessments are currently progressing in 33 countries, including Cambodia, Fiji, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu in the Asia Pacific region. Ms Hu encouraged more scholars and academia to participate in the multistakeholder policy debates in the region.
UNESCO seeks to work together with the Asia-Pacific Communication and Exchange Association (APCEA) community and invites all Asia-Pacific countries and stakeholders to join the Dynamic Coalition on Internet Universality Indicators and get involved in the collaborative research related to ROAM principles and indicators.
All participants were invited to attend UNESCO' sessions at the Internet Governance Forum 2021 to join forces for advancing evidence-based policy making of Internet governance and fostering digital collaboration at regional level. The Organization will hold a DAY-0 pre-event dedicated to the ongoing national assessment of IUIs conducted across five continents and a session focused on the Dynamic Coalition on IUIs, respectively set to be held on 6 and 9 December 2021.