Lesotho: Ramashamole Champions Safe Digital Public Infrastructure at United Nations General Assembly (UNGA81)

On the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA81), Mr. Kanono Ramashamole, the Principal Secretary for the Ministry of Information, Communications, Science, Technology and Innovation, joined high-level international discussions focused on advancing Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) with robust safeguards.

Lesotho is actively moving these global principles from policy to practice. In collaboration with UNICEF Lesotho, he said, the government has developed pioneering DPI Safeguards for Children.

This initiative is currently being piloted alongside the National University of Lesotho across five key government ministries to ensure that public digital systems inherently protect young citizens.

In addition to the main forums, Mr. Ramashamole contributed to a closed-door roundtable titled “Financing the Trust and Inclusion Architecture of Digital Transformation.” During the session, he shared critical insights from Lesotho’s own DPI journey, emphasizing sustainable financing models, total cost of ownership, procurement strategies and operational costs. Central to his address was the paramount importance of building and maintaining public trust.

As Lesotho continues to scale its digital public infrastructure, he highlighted that the Ministry maintains that digital transformation must be innovative and sustainable, while remaining safe, inclusive and trusted particularly for children and other vulnerable groups.

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is the main deliberate body of the United Nations (UN), where all 193 member states have equal representation. UNGA 81 marks the 81st annual session of this assembly, continuing the tradition of multilateral dialogue on global issues such as peace, security, sustainable development and human rights.

The session’s general debate and high-level meetings run between September 22 to 29.

The session will address pressing global challenges including climate change, inequalities and international cooperation and will be shaped by the Secretary General’s agenda for reform and sustainable development.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Government of Lesotho.