The President of Rwanda Paul Kagame has recommended the UN Broadband Commission widens its commitment to advancing broadband roll-out for all citizens, for more inclusive and sustainable development during the annual meeting of the Commission this week.

President Kagame chaired the meeting which took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

"The global goals provide a framework and opportunity to raise our focus beyond connecting people, towards innovation, transformation and growth," Kagame advised.

Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO and co-vice chair of the Commission emphasised investing in access and connectivity along with relevant multilingual content, education and media skills, teacher training, with focus on reaching the unreached - especially girls and women.

"Digital adoption is not enough," said Bokova, "we need new skills and opportunities for all, to empower all, for the benefit of all."

The Director-General also called for a new focus on Broadband and education, to examine these multipliers across the board. This point was echoed by Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who underlined the importance of ICT for education, building this into systems and through teacher training.

Discussions touched on the need for the broadest possible approach to broadband roll-out, connecting health, education and efforts for gender equality - as well the imperative of bridging divides with least developed countries as well as small island developing states. The need to ‎simplify regulatory frameworks to make them more linear for connectivity to become universal was also noted during the meeting.

‎The meeting occurred several days after the launch of the 2016 State of Broadband Report, reflecting developments in global connectivity.

India has overtaken the United States to become the world's second largest Internet market, with 333 million users, trailing China's 721 million. The report confirms that just six nations – including China and India – together account for 55% of the total global population still offline, because of the sheer size of their populations.

While Internet access is approaching saturation in richer nations, connectivity is still not advancing fast enough to help bridge development gaps in areas like education and health care for those in poorer parts of the world, according to the 2016 edition of The State of Broadband report.

Globally, an estimated 3.9 billion people are not using the Internet. But the Commission's new report estimates that, between them, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria account for 55% of all unconnected people, while 20 countries – including the US – account for a full 75% of those not using the Internet. These findings suggest that targeted efforts in just a few key markets could help enormously in redressing the gaping 'digital divide' between those who are online and those still offline.

The Broadband Commission brings together high level officials with leading executives in the private sector, from across the world, to harness the digital revolution as a development revolution.