SECRETARY-GENERAL ADDRESSES WORLD TELECOMMUNICATION EXHIBITION AND FORUM
Press Release
SG/SM/7164
SECRETARY-GENERAL ADDRESSES WORLD TELECOMMUNICATION EXHIBITION AND FORUM
19991011Following is the text of the address of Secretary-General Kofi Annan to Telecom '99, The Eighth World Telecommunication Exhibition and Forum, at Geneva on 9 October:
I am delighted to be with you in person today. I am aware that, thanks to the work of many of you in this audience, I could have joined you by teleconference, webcast or satellite hook-up -- to name but a few recent marvels of telecommunications. Such is the power of these technologies that flying thousands of miles on airplanes may soon be seen as a rather quaint and anachronistic practice.
But either way -- whether one is an international diplomat or an Internet visionary -- our mission is the same: to bring human beings closer.
We have come to Geneva to see the future -- a future being crafted by the new and amazing communications and information technologies.
With their power to create new opportunities, telecommunications are a tremendous force for integrating people and nations into the global economy -- the only real hope we have of overcoming poverty.
With their power to promote openness and transparency, telecoms are leaving tyrants, polluters and ineffective governments fewer places to hide.
And with their power to inspire global dialogue, telecoms are making us more comfortable with diversity and more aware of our interdependence.
You, the entrepreneurs, executives and innovators of the telecommunications industry, have not only made markets function more effectively, you have helped to create an entirely new economy: the knowledge economy. Information is power. Knowledge is the new global asset, the new business capital, the very premise of progress.
The liberating, democratizing power of information is as old as the Rosetta Stone or the Gutenberg press. What is new today is the
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sense of tremendous possibility that the telecommunications revolution has placed before our eyes, on our desktops and at our fingertips -- throughout the fabric of modern life.
We at the United Nations believe that this power can and must be harnessed even more closely to our global struggle for human well-being: for human rights, for human development, for human freedom and for human security. We want to do all we can to support your work -- to do our best so that you can do yours.
You are all familiar with the public face of the United Nations: our peacekeeping and relief operations; our democratization and literacy programmes; our campaigns to inoculate children against deadly diseases.
Such efforts create stable societies and lay the foundations in which markets can take root and the rule of law can spread. We know that investors do not want to risk their capital in chronically insecure neighbourhoods.
But there is also a quieter, less well known side of our work, one that is integral to the ability of business to do business.
The World Intellectual Property Organization protects trademarks and patents for products such as computer software. Aviation, shipping, weather forecasting, postal services, statistics -- all are based on norms and standards developed by United Nations agencies and entities. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) itself is a prominent part of this picture.
These wide-ranging technical services help make up the very infrastructure of the global economy. They facilitate the free flow of goods, finance and ideas. They pave a path towards prosperity. Without these global rules of the road, it would truly be "a jungle out there".
Of course, in important respects it already is a jungle out there. We need your help in making it less so.
Three days from now, the world's population will pass the six billion mark. Five out of those six billion live in developing countries. For many of them, the great scientific and technical achievements of our era might as well be taking place on another planet.
These people lack many things: jobs, shelter, food, health care and drinkable water. Today, being cut off from basic telecommunications services is a hardship almost as acute as these other deprivations, and may indeed reduce the chances of finding
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remedies to them. Telecommunications is not just an issue for the telecommunications minister of each country, but for ministers of education, health and many others.
A quarter of all countries have yet to achieve even a basic level of access to telecommunications -- a teledensity of 1, or 1 telephone for every 100 people. Half the world's people have never made or received a telephone call. But at least this infrastructure gap is narrowing.
The really troubling gap is the information gap. More and more it is data, rather than voices, that move across the world communications web. My fear is that we are adding a new divide to the already well- entrenched one between rich and poor: a digital divide between the information-rich and the information-poor.
Access is crucial. The capacity to receive, download and share information through electronic networks, the freedom to communicate freely across national boundaries -- these must become realities for all people.
Towards that end, the ITU is hosting, here at Telecom '99, a special programme for the least developed countries. I urge the telecoms industry to look closely at these nations. Beneath the surface and beyond the images of hopelessness you will find new markets, receptive legal and regulatory environments and genuine opportunities. I also hope you will give your support to another ITU initiative -- convening a World Summit on the Information Society.
Elsewhere in Geneva today we see a perfect example of how the United Nations and the telecommunications industry can unite their missions and strengths. The NETAID website being launched today is believed to be the biggest ever and will enable people everywhere to help the poor simply by clicking on a mouse.
I would like to congratulate all involved in making this possible -- first and foremost Cisco Systems and its President and Chief Executive Officer, John Chambers, and the United Nations Development Programme under the leadership of Mark Malloch Brown.
They received crucial support from KPMG and Akamai. NETAID is an inspiring global partnership. It is also yet another example of how the United Nations and the world business community are showing that our goals can be complementary and mutually supportive.
On the eve of a new millennium, we are opening a new chapter in human history -- a chapter in which, more than ever before, we shall all share the same destiny.
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The strength of the United Nations in tackling the challenges ahead is the strength of its universal values -- freedom, tolerance, equal rights.
And it is the strength of those who work with us in promoting those values and giving them concrete meaning in people's lives.
I have long thought that the telecommunications industry is among the United Nations' most natural allies in this pursuit. The United Nations stands for "we, the peoples". You have the capacity to put power in the hands of those very people.
That is why I have proposed a Global Compact between the United Nations and the business community -- a compact to promote universal values and open markets. I want you to join me in this endeavour.
Sometimes, watching the news on television -- or indeed coping with it in my work as Secretary-General -- it seems as if the future will be nothing but conflict, hunger, pollution and despair.
But when I see what your industry has put on display here in Geneva, I see a quite different and much more encouraging picture. I look forward to exploring with you how we can unite these two visions -- that is, how we can use the great promise of one to avoid the nightmare of the other.
"To do good and to communicate, forget not", says the Bible. Only if we obey this command will we realize the goals of Telecom 99. Only then will we arrive at the new world that telecommunications are bringing within reach. Only then will all peoples and all nations be able to join the world.
Thank you very much.
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