By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 8 1998 (IPS)

Fearing a breakdown of its computer system worldwide, the United Nations is taking steps to fight the “millennium bug” that threatens to paralyze the world body.

If the problem remains unresolved before the end of next year, the United Nations could remain non-functional in its day-to-day operations. Everything would be frozen – from distributing development aid and relief supplies to the needy to paying salaries to its 33,000 staffers spread across the globe.

nown as the “Y2K” problem, the millennium bug stems from the fact that all hardware and software systems now use only two digits to identify the year. If not converted by December 1999, these systems will recognise “00”, not as the year 2000, but as 1900.

With less than 12 months before the new millennium, the United Nations is bringing together more than 80 Y2K national coordinators worldwide for a meeting Friday in New York. This will be the first international meeting – to be attended by computer experts from countries such as the United States, Netherlands, Mexico, South Korea, Britain, Chile and Bulgaria – to collectively discuss the dangers of the millennium bug.

Also attending the meeting are Y2K experts from the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Telecommunications Union, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Joint Year 2000 Council and the International Technology Association of America.

“The consequences of unpreparedness in any one country can rapidly spill over to other parts of the world,” says Ambassador Ahmad Kamal of Pakistan, chairman of the U.N. Working Group on Informatics.

“The first step is awareness of the problem, and at this point, many countries have barely begun to consider national responses, and there is no reliable overview of worldwide preparedness,” he admits.

The meeting is designed to address these difficulties and facilitate a useful exchange of experiences, he said. In a media advisory released Monday, the Working Group said that the impact of the computer crisis on developing nations is of an “unknown quantity.”

“Although computer systems are much less pervasive in developing countries than in those with advanced technologies, a larger share of their systems likely rely on older software that has not been updated to offset the millennium effect,” it said.

Most developing country governments and businesses have less money and fewer local experts available to them than is the case in industrial countries, and a number of governments of developing countries are preoccupied by natural catastrophes and civil conflicts, the Working Group said.

The Group also warned that in all countries, aircraft control, telecommunications, financial services and government services were at particular risk because of the Y2K problem.

In a separate report released last week, the United Nations said that “electronic systems that are not year-2000-compliant and that involved porcesses based on dates will shut down, or produce meaningless or misleading results, or revert to some other date.”

Since all equipment configurations with embedded systems that use chips or code, and handle dates, could be affected, the problem is not limited to computer systems, the report warned.

“As a result of this problem, compounded by the possibility of a domino effect, whole systems of the economy and critical government operations (worldwide) could experience significant disruptions,” the study said.

The United Nations also cautioned that “it is becoming increasingly clear that there is a very low probability that all potentially affected systems will be identified and converted by the deadline.”

“Virtually all efforts to remedy the millennium problem are focused on systems deemed to be mission-critical, that is, those where a malfunction could have serious consequences to the work of governments, organisations and companies in the private sector,” the report noted.

As a precautionary measure, about 5,200 personal computers connected to the local area network at U.N. headquarters have recently been replaced by state-of-the-art hardware and software making the desktop environment fully compliant.

Ambassador Betty King of the United States told delegates Monday that some people may still believe that the effects of the Y2K problem will be confined within the computer industry. Others, she said, do not know the meaning of Y2K.

“For those of us who are not familiar with the intricacies of computer technology, it is hard to understand how our lives, and the lives of individuals around the world, can be affected by a computer problem,” she said.

King said the reality is that systems for telecommunications, water, manufacturing, air transport, shipping, power and almost every other area risk serious disruptions or failure, if left untreated. “Even some local traffic lights and grocery store cash registers could be affected,” she warned.

King said that the Y2K problem will affect every nation, “and will serve to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the world we live in” Every nation must take the responsibility to ensure that their critical systems are Y2K compliant, and that local governments and private sectors are solving their problems.

She said the U.S. gpovernment began a coordinated effort to fix its systems back in 1995. “We must focus on international cooperation, and share information on the status of Y2K readiness in our respective countries,” she told delegates.

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