QNA
Doha
Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Amina Mohammed has stressed significant role of technology in developing societies, empowering families, facilitating access to services, addressing health and economic challenges, demographic changes, and achieving sustainable development.
She also noted technology’s impact on relationships, and as a cause of many problems, such as spreading false and misleading information and threatening national identity.
Speaking at the opening of the 30th Anniversary of the International Year of the Family Conference organised by the Doha International Family Institute under the title ‘Family and Contemporary Megatrends’, Mohammed pointed to several challenges and megatrends that affect family life and narrow access to sustainable development, including climate change, floods, availability of health care, displacement and asylum, among others.
She added that the family can bring about change through smart policies and digitisation, expanding the use of artificial intelligence, achieving equality and facilitating access.
“If technology is not conducive, action should be taken to provide every family with comprehensive support to help them in the demographic transition through programmes provided by governments in an effort to have global health and social policies that will bring about the desired change,” she noted.
She stressed the importance of supporting families to face the challenges related to climate change by developing policies and raising awareness of the need to empower women and have them fully capable of playing the greater role in the family, which represents the nucleus of society, and facilitating access for people with disabilities and empowering them.
The UN deputy secretary-general also pointed to the importance of directing policies to enhance solidarity between societies, strengthening regional and international coordination to advance the roles of women and empower them, and harnessing technology, at the same time, for the benefit of the family in a way that accelerates its technological and economic progress and development.
She noted the aspirations of societies, including the promotion and protection of human rights, especially in light of the emphasis of the UN Convention on Artificial Intelligence on the importance of investing in the family as a basic unit for building society.
She expressed gratitude to Qatar for organising this conference and to Chairperson of Qatar Foundation HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser for her leadership in this field, her support for the international community and her work regarding the Sustainable Development Goals.
The opening of the conference featured a video on the importance of the family and its reunification in light of the challenges of displacement and asylum, an artistic presentation (light painting), and a session reviewing the results of the youth summit held yesterday to discuss the conference themes, which concluded with the need to present policies and programmes to support youth economically and socially, encourage families to use technology positively, as well as adapt roles within the family to keep pace with modern social and economic transformations, and conduct additional studies to understand how technology affects family relationships.
