The Permanent Representative (PR) of Bangladesh to the United Nations Ambassador Masud Bin Momen put some specific proposals for defining international rules of the road and capacity building in cyber space on 9 September 2019. He was speaking at the First Substantive Session of the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security at the UNHQs. He said that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a side-event during the high-level week of the UNGA in September 2018 pledged “Bangladesh’s support for promoting a culture of cyber security at the UN and beyond…. [and] demonstrate strong political resolve to create a secure, stable, peaceful, inclusive and accessible cyber space for our future generations.”
Highlighting that Bangladesh targets to have at least one thousand cyber security experts by 2021 Ambassador Masud said, “We need enhanced capacities in areas of defending cyber-attacks, creating awareness, and developing reliable early-warning systems through information sharing across Governments and major Tech firms”. He stressed the need of constant engagements for sharing best practices in those areas. The PR also emphasized on public-private partnership to tackle cyber issues.
Ambassador Masud said that ICT is playing a critical role in Bangladesh’s sustainable development journey and fulfilling Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s dream to turn Bangladesh into a digitally advanced middle-income country by 2021 and a developed country by 2041. He added that Bangladesh is now offering over a hundred important public services to our citizens through One-stop Digital Centres in rural areas.
Earlier in a side event jointly organized by Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Ghana, Singapore and Bangladesh on UN’s efforts to promote stability in cyberspace at the Permanent Mission of Germany, Ambassador Masud elaborated on some of the key priorities of Bangladesh in the works of the OEWG.
The General Assembly has approved the OEWG on Developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security on 5 December 2018 under its resolution 73/27.