PRESS BRIEFING BY DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS DIVISION OF DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INFORMATION

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS DIVISION OF DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INFORMATION

The United Nations World Television Forum 2000 was not a panacea for the “digital divide” but was a useful step in exploring ways of bridging that divide, the Director of the Public Affairs Division of the Department of Public Information (DPI) told correspondents this afternoon at a Headquarters press briefing.

Therese Gastaut reminded correspondents that the World Television Forum would take place at Headquarters on Thursday, 16 November, to Friday, 17 November, in Conference Room 4 and in the Economic and Social Chamber. It was the fifth Forum organized by the Department of Public Information, and the first one organized in the new millennium. She would emphasize three special features of this Forum. The key issue was the number one priority of the television industry today, namely the revolution-in-progress that was being shaped by the convergence of television, digital technology and the Internet.

The second special feature of the Television Forum concerned the deepening partnership between the United Nations and the media, she said. Indeed, it was the direct result of a partnership between the Department of Public Information and the television industry, which would be represented by the following five partners: Radiotelevisione Italiana of Italy (RAI); Mediaset Group of Italy; the World Broadcasting Union; NHK of Japan; and EUTELSAT of France. Altogether, those represented more than 100 broadcasting organizations. The sponsors were the Ebert Stiftung and Streamriver Networks. Supporters included TGRT Television Turkey and Radicalfringe.

The partners and DPI had agreed on the Forum's objective, which was to focus or one subject: information technology for development. As with most United Nations partnerships, the costs were being covered by the generous partners. They had provided $500,000, of which $100,000 had been used to enable 60 participants from developing countries to attend the Forum. Additional donations in kind had been made, including high-definition television. The Forum's third feature centred on its growth in scope and size. Last year, there had been an estimated 700 participants, compared to the anticipated 1,000 participants this year. The breakdown by region was: 489 from North America; 268 from Europe; 91 from Africa and the Middle East; 55 from Asia and Pacific; and 49 from Latin America. Approximately two thirds of the participants worked in the television industry, and one third were from Internet operations.

She said that, in designing the Forum's theme, the broadcast partners and DPI had been inspired by the Millennium Report of the Secretary-General. In it, he stated that new information technology offered an unprecedented chance for developing countries to "leapfrog" earlier stages of development and achieve some of the priority targets of the international community, including halving extreme poverty by the year 2015. The Forum's leaders thus decided to focus on the timely issue of convergence, and to link it, for the first time, with the need to bridge the digital divide. Too often, those two issues had been viewed as separate, when in fact, they were "two sides of the same coin", in that they reinforced each other. Only 5 per cent of people worldwide had access to the Internet, while almost everyone had access to television and radio. Television, as the world's

Television Forum Briefing - 2 - 15 November 2000

most widespread and influential communication means, would therefore play a very important role in charting the course ahead in the emerging digital economy.

The Economic and Social Council, in its 7 July Ministerial Declaration on Information Technology for Development, had recognized the role of television in promoting the complementary roles of old and new media for bridging the digital divide. The Council Declaration had later been endorsed by the Millennium Declaration. It had been announced last Monday that the former Costa Rican President, Jose Maria Figueres, would head the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Advisory Group. The Television Forum should be seen as part of the same process. Earlier Forums had been, in a sense, "stand- alone events", whereas this time, the Forum was expected to produce concrete recommendations for inclusion in the United Nations work programme concerned with bridging the digital divide. Most specifically, the ideas could be passed on to the ICT Task Force, thereby including the Forum's concrete results into a larger United Nations process.

Turning to the Forum's programme, she said that the plenary session would take place tomorrow from 10:30 a.m. to l2 p.m. in Conference Room 4. An opening statement would be made by the General Assembly President. That would be followed by a dialogue -- a key event -- between the Secretary-General and prominent media personalities: Greg Dyke, Director-General of the BBC of the United Kingdom; Fernando Espuelas, Chairman of Star Media Network of Urugay; and Jon DeVaan, Senior Vice President of the Television Division of Microsoft. The dialogue would be moderated by Jennifer Sibanda, Executive Director of the Federation of African Media Women, Southern African Development Community of Zimbabwe. Following the dialogue, the presidents of the five partner broadcasting groups would speak.

There were three workshops on Thursday afternoon and another three on Friday morning. Those were organized in a way that promoted recommendations on how convergence could contribute to bridging the digital divide. The recommendations would be included in a report issued after the Forum and would be posted on the new permanent United Nations Television Forum Web board. Everyone was invited to participate in the Forum and to cover it. In addition to the opening and closing sessions, correspondents were urged to take part in the six workshops and round table. Also being organized were two press breakfasts to enable journalists to meet with the Forum's key speakers. The breakfasts would take place from 8:45 to 10 a.m. on Thursday and Friday. All interested persons should call Jon Herbertsson at extension 3-7949.

Asked how convergence between television and the Internet would contribute towards bridging the digital divide, Ms. Gastaut said that a lot had already been written in terms of how such a convergence could help bridge the digital divide. Through the Forum, the United Nations would facilitate the formulation of additional concrete recommendations. Tomorrow, from 12 to 1 p.m., a number of concrete examples would be presented on how television and the Internet could help bridge the digital divide. Five case studies had been selected to illustrate the gains made by the convergence process in providing developing countries with greater access to information technology. That subject would also be explored by the workshops.

The United Nations ICT Task Force seemed like something that would happen at a high level rather than on the ground in developing countries, a correspondent said. In the Millennium Report, there was talk about sending various volunteer groups, who would actually go out, hands-on. How soon would that be possible?

Ms. Gastaut said that the project was called UNITeS, and its executive coordinator was Sharon Capeling-Alakija, the Executive Director of the United Nations Volunteers, who participate in the Friday workshop on digital visionaries. She said she could arrange for Ms. Capeling-Alakija to brief correspondents.

To a question about the introduction of new technology at the Forum, she said that was not a major focus of the present event. It was a meeting of United Nations executives and their television counterparts. Their concern was the application of new technology to bridge the digital divide. The Forum would be broadcast on high-definition television from Conference Room 4 and the Economic and Social Council. There would also be monitors on the second and third floors and in other places at Headquarters.

Bridging the divide meant bringing the developed countries' technologies to developing countries, another correspondent said. In many underdeveloped countries, however, there were no computers, or even televisions. Would the Organization be able to provide televisions and computers to those countries? he asked.

She said the United Nations was a catalyst, a facilitator. At the Television Forum, it was facilitating dialogue and hopefully partnership between television and Internet executives of the North with their counterparts in the South. A key part of the Forum had always been to provide a number of scholarships to important partners in developing countries in the field of television. The workshops might develop new projects to address that very pertinent question.

Last year, another correspondent said, there had been an insistence that the Television programme not leave behind radio, the primary source of information for developing countries. Was Ms. Gastaut sure that the Forum was not being held at the expense of radio. He had been under the impression that the Forum would involve both television and radio?

She said that, indeed, that request had been addressed this year. One of the workshops would be devoted to radio. Radio was the most important medium in many developing countries and the Department of Public Information, therefore, had wanted a special workshop on radio. That would take place on 17 November from 9 to 11 a.m. in Conference Room 4 and relevant questions would be addressed. To the question of semantics, specifically why radio was not named in the title of the Forum, she recalled that the initiators of the project had been a number of key television partners. The Forum leaders had started to consider the question of further incorporating radio into the process, because they felt they could not leave radio behind. Whether a greater role would be given to radio next year was not up to her, but it was a subject worth discussing. Leaving the developing world behind at the Forum was not at all the case, however. On the contrary, the Forum's objective was aimed at bridging the digital divide to the benefit of developing countries.

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