EU Presidency Statement - Information Technology

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. The acceding countries, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the countries associated with the EU - Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey - as well as the EFTA countries of Iceland and Liechtenstein align themselves with this statement.

We consider the development of a comprehensive information and communication technology strategy as a very important tool that will enable the United Nations to become a more focused and empowered Organization, measuring up with today's needs.

We therefore welcome the resubmission of the Secretary-General's report on Information Technology, which has gone some way to address the concerns expressed by this Committee in the 56th Session.

We should have liked ideally to consider this revision at an earlier stage to allow full account to be taken by all program managers of the approved strategy when developing their budget proposals for 2004-5. Nevertheless, we trust that the principles outlined here on the need for justification of bids in terms of Total Economic Impact Qualitative Return Indicators or Opportunity Costs will be fully applied.

The European Union supports the work of the Information and Communications Technology Board as the interdepartmental body dealing with the coordination and harmonization of information and communication technology initiatives in the Secretariat. The European Union trusts that strengthening the planning and evaluating authority as well as the operational capability of this central coordinating body is urgently needed for the establishment of common standards. We expect this to contribute to addressing our major concern, namely ensuring compatibility between systems and avoidance of duplication. We believe that it is vital to the success of this strategy that the Board designates clear points of authority and responsibility for all aspects of Information Technology in the United Nations. We should also favor some form of external evaluation of the Return on Investment indicators during the period covered by this strategy in addition to that envisaged by the Board itself.

The Secretary-General's support demonstrates that Information Strategy is already a powerful tool in promoting efficiency within the Organization and so delivering optimal quality in the programmes, respecting the General Assembly mandates on multilinguism. But the European Union sees this report as one which the General Assembly should continue to keep under review, given the ambitious vision which it contains for how Information Technology can increasingly unlock the potential of the Organization. Some initiatives are already in hand, in the context of improved management of meetings and documents. Others are awaited with keen interest by the European Union, such as the ability of Information Technology to help allocate resources to priorities, as defined by the General Assembly, to generate increasing flexibility in working practices, to remove dysfunctional working practices, improve the quality of the United Nations information work, including the effectiveness of the United Nation Information Centers. The European Union attaches the highest possible priority to these applications of Information Technology, all of which are absolutely central to the Secretary-General's program for strengthening the Organization. The European Union trusts the Secretary-General will move ahead urgently with these initiatives. The European Union will want to return to this issue in the context of the General Assembly's discussion of the 2004-5 biennium budget.

In this context, we urge the sharing of knowledge and the flow of information within the Secretariat and among organizations of the United Nations system with the use of the Extranet and other software applications. We would like to hear more about the status of the project concerning the United Nations system-wide search engine, which would be of great advantage to Member-States and the general public.

The European Union envisages the information strategy integrating already existing infrastructure across the United Nations system as a whole and, in particular, peacekeeping missions, to ensure full interconnectivity. Cost efficiency and the use of standard equipment to ensure compatibility and flexibility has to be an objective.

We would also like to stress that the preparation of an information security policy needs to be prioritized.

We acknowledge, at this point, that significant training of the United Nations staff is required if we are to successfully implement what is proposed.

The European Union considers that orientation must be given to the development of this comprehensive strategy and believes that appropriate resources should be allocated to it, provided that more specific information is received on the particulars of its implementation. We will revert to this question when the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions has considered this issue.

Allow me finally to stress that we view the development of the information and communication technology strategy as an important part of the reform process, leading to a greater efficiency of the Organization, including, in particular, but not limited to, the timely availability of documents as well as more accurate and relevant information that will facilitate our work.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

| Arriba |

• EU objectives for the UN World Summit on Information Society (22/5/2003)
• EU Presidency Statement - Committee on Information (28/4/2003)