SECRETARY-GENERAL, ON OCCASION OF WORLD TELECOMMUNICATION DAY, CALLS FOR ALLIANCE TO MAKE RIGHT TO COMMUNICATE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Press Release
SG/SM/6984
SECRETARY-GENERAL, ON OCCASION OF WORLD TELECOMMUNICATION DAY, CALLS FOR ALLIANCE TO MAKE RIGHT TO COMMUNICATE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
19990507 Kofi Annan Emphasizes Need to Avoid Trap of 'Electronic Exclusion; Theme of Day in 1999, To Be Observed on 17 May, is Electronic CommerceFollowing is the message of Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the occasion of World Telecommunication Day, observed on 17 May:
In the last year of the twentieth century, World Telecommunication Day has special significance. For we can say without fear of exaggeration that the telecommunications revolution has been one of the most striking phenomena of this century. We can also confidently predict that it will continue to transform the world during the next.
The theme for the Day this year is electronic commerce. And the message is clear: since electronic communications media will be the essential key for access to world markets in the twentieth century, we must at all costs avoid the trap of "electronic exclusion". This would be economic marginalization by another name, and could bar the way to development for groups, countries, or even entire regions.
To avoid this pitfall, we must establish the necessary infrastructure, of course. But it is even more important that everyone gets the chance to receive the training he or she will need. In the future, electronic illiteracy will be too severe a handicap for anyone to be expected to bear it. In the effort to avoid this, technical cooperation will have a vital role to play.
The grim poverty to which so many human beings are still condemned, and the high rates of "conventional" illiteracy still recorded throughout the world, certainly form a shocking contrast with this vision of the future. But, far from making us give up, this observation should encourage us to promote access to the means of communication not as a luxury but as an essential engine of development and integration.
Governments, the corporate sector, international bodies and non-governmental organizations must form an alliance to make the right to communicate a fundamental right for everyone in the twenty-first century. The International Telecommunication Union is already making determined efforts in that direction. This World Telecommunication Day is the moment for us all to assure it of our support. * *** *