New York: The State of Qatar has affirmed the importance of reinforcing international cooperation in the areas of sciences, technology, and innovation, in addition to bridging the digital divide between the Global North and South, fostering partnerships oriented to technology transfer, advancing infrastructure, capacity-building, sharing expertise and knowledge, as well as the best practices to achieve sustainable development.
This came in the State of Qatar's statement delivered by Abdul Hadi Saeed Al Khayarin, member of the Qatar's delegation participating in the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, before the Second Committee of the UNGA about the item titled "Harnessing Science, Technology, and Innovation for Sustainable Development" under agenda item 15, at the UN headquarters in New York.
Qatar confirms that sciences, technology, and innovation are indispensable tools to bolster opportunities and counter development challenges through diversifying the economy, increasing economic growth, improving productivity, enhancing efficiency, preserving resources, protecting the environment, and accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Al Khayarin highlighted.
He added that through its national plan "Qatar National Vision 2030", Qatar works to foster digital transformation and innovation, noting that priority fields have been identified that literally include energy, health, sustainability, and digital technology.
Qatar has fostered its partnership with a variety of global companies to advance infrastructure, technology transfer, and building national capacities, which materialized a remarkable breakthrough in the Global Innovation Index (GII), Al Khayarin pointed out.
He added that in 2024, Qatar launched its Digital Agenda 2030, which primarily aims to augment its digital infrastructure, optimize government performance efficiency, establish a strong foundation in data and emerging technologies, develop the digital sector, support innovation through research and investment attraction, adopt digitalization to accelerate economic growth, nurture talent, and focus on training.
For the first time in the Middle East and North Africa, Qatar hosted the Web Summit in February 2024 and is set to host the upcoming edition of this summit in February 2026, to strengthen communication opportunities for startups, identify novel technologies and their impact on business development, in addition to capitalizing on state-of-the-art digital applications for the interest of the economy and the community, Al Khayarin outlined.
Al Khayarin indicated that Qatar gears up to host the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2026 (PP-26) in Doha, which is considered the upper-echelon authority in taking decisions within ITU and determining its future vision and its global impact on the communications sector.
