UNITED NATIONS: Technological Revolution Bypasses World Body

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 19 1996 (IPS) - The technological revolution sweeping across the globe may be bypassing the world body.

U.N. Secretariat officials concede that the United Nations has failed to adjust to a rapidly changing environment.

“The United Nations, due to various reasons, has globally fallen behind in information technology,” admits Benon Sevan, Assistant Secretary-General for U.N. Conference and Support Services.

One of the reasons for the technological gap is the absence of a U.N. information technology strategy. The lack of such a strategy, Sevan said, had resulted in “dramatic budgetary reductions at precisely the time when new investments were needed.”

The United Nations is, however, in the process of detailing an information strategy to be presented to the 52nd session of the General Assembly next year.

“If full support is not there next year, you can rest assured that some heads are going to roll,” Sevan told delegates.

Venezuelan delegate Rosana Figuera decried the situation.

“All member -states should have easy electronic access to U.N. databases,” she said.

The Ad Hoc Working Group has singled out video-conferencing as one of the more promising avenues for cost reduction in a financially ailing organisation.

“Travel and per diem expenditures would be dramatically reduced if multiple video-conferencing facilities were to be made available in different parts of the U.N. system,” Kamal said.

The United Nations experimented with “remote” translation during the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing last year. Documents were translated by the headquarters staff in New York and transmitted overnight by electronic mail for the following morning’s session in Beijing.

“The Conference on Women in Beijing provides an excellent example of this system’s success in facilitating the work of translators who may perform their task without being physically at the conference’s site,” the 15-member European Union said last year.

But Kamal stressed that the United Nations had to wake up to the far-reaching technological advances taking place right at its doorstep.

He said the most immediate issues included connecting member- states to the world body, finding a uniform e-mail system available to all U.N. missions, continuing the Internet training programme, and encouraging U.N. departments to post information on the World Wide Web.

South African delegate Mathe Diseko has pointed out that the wealth of information, research, statistics, and general knowledge at the disposal of the United Nations was second to none.

“The means should be explored to provide technical assistance and training to increase the connectivity of permanent missions to the U.N. information system,” he added.

“Informatics has enormous potential to redress disparities and material inequalities, but it also has the ability to accentuate inequalities and powerlessness among those bypassed by the information superhighway,” he said.

In a report released Wednesday, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali says that the introduction of new technologies will require capital investments, as well as a major training effort to upgrade the skills of staff.

These issues are to be raised in the 1998-1999 biennium programme budget, he said.

“It will be necessary to complete work on an information technology plan that better incorporates the needs of member states for U.N. data in an easily accessible electronic format,” the report notes.

The United Nations and its specialised agencies currently disseminate information over the Internet through a Gopher server and a World Wide Web server.

“Additional information materials have been added to the Web site, including press releases and summaries and other features that make the site more attractive and user-friendly,” the study adds.