INDIA
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BY
ACTING PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE OF INDIA TO
THE UNITED NATIONS
AT THE
TWENTY FOURTH SESSION OF THE
COMMITTEE ON INFORMATION
Permanent Mission of India
to the United Nations
235
East 43rd Street, New York, NY 10017 • Tel: (212) 490‑9660 • Fax: (212)
490‑9656
E‑Mail:
India@un.int
Mr. Chairman,
At the outset, my delegation
would like to congratulate you and other members of the Bureau on your
election. We are confident that under your chairmanship, this Committee will
achieve considerable success in providing guidance and oversight to the work of
the Department of Public Information. We associate ourselves with the Statement
made by Venezuela on behalf of the Group of 77 outlining the position of the
Group on major issues before the Committee at this session.
We appreciate the lucid presentation given by Mr.
Shashi Tharoor, Interim Head of the Department of Public Information to the
Committee, the focus this year being on the re‑orientation of UN
activities in the field of public information and communications. This has
aided our understanding of the issues involved and will, we believe, greatly
assist our work.
Mr. Chairman,
My delegation shares the Secretary General's
commitment to enhance communications as a key element in the reform and
revitalization of the United Nations in a new information age, and to
developing a culture of communications within the Organisation. Indeed,
information and communication technologies have revolutionalised the world.
They have enhanced our awareness, interest and concern about happenings
anywhere on the globe. This function of sensitization, education and enlarging
awareness is integral to the pursuit of the vast agenda of the UN and to
enlisting support for it among the peoples of the world. We should be
particularly mindful of the need for strengthening it.
The dramatic developments in information and
communication technologies come along with a bitter contradiction. The greater
the progress made, the deeper the technological gap between the developed and
the developing countries. The United Nations, through the DPI, has an important
role to play in seeking to bridge this digital divide. In this context, the
present reorientation exercise is particularly meaningful and one, we sincerely
hope, that will meet the aspirations of the developing world and succeed in
correcting the present bias against it in the field of information and
communications.
Mr. Chairman
Within
the context of the mission statement proposed by the SG in his report
"Reorientation of UN activities in the field of Public Information and
Communications", my delegation extends its wholehearted support, in
particular the emphasis laid on the "greatest public impact"
dimension of it (A/AC.198/2002/2). In living up to the statement, the
Department must be guided by the priorities laid down by the General Assembly,
an we are happy to note in this context that in para 22 emphasis has been laid
on catering to the needs of the African countries.
Mr. Chairman,
We support the increasing use of advanced technology
by the United Nations. We would like, in particular, to commend the DPI for
developing and maintaining the very useful website of the UN, which is a
major communications tool for amplifying the Organisation's message and
providing information to millions around the world. At the same time, utilizing
the new technology should not be at the cost of traditional means of communications,
still the main source of information in most developing countries. While
enhancing nontraditional means, the DPI should continue to reach out by
utilizing traditional media, print, radio and television, specially through
local languages. The idea of reaching out to specialist targetted audiences
such as NGO's, research institutions, libraries, academic communities is indeed
an attractive one. This would be one way of alleviating the shortcomings of
promoting UN activities at the people's level and would help improve access to
information by all nations and peoples.
Turning to the services provided by the DPI to the
member states, the daily press releases merit a mention. We believe that the
service is of immense practical utility and that this should be continued in
its present form. The releases are particularly invaluable to the developing country
member states, most of whom do not have large Missions and who thereby are not
able to cover all the official meetings being held everyday. Besides, we
believe that in the process of reorienting the activities of the UN in the
field of public information and communications, the current level of services
provided to member states must not be adversely affected.
With regard to the dissemination of information, the
DPI should focus more on publicizing UN activities and achievements in the area
of social and. economic development. Sustainable development issues, poverty
eradication, women's rights and empowerment, children's issues, health, education
and other socially relevant issues should get priority attention. A new area
where DPI could play an important role is in the global fight against
Terrorism, by spreading and creating awareness of this scourge which poses a
very real and dangerous threat to humanity as a whole.
We take note of the effort to streamline the
management of the DPI and to match performance with customer needs. Performance
management must be a vital part of all of the major DPI activities and
programmes. We must however commit our support to the DPI to endow it with the
required resources to carry out this task. In the same vein, it is worth
addressing simple, but clear‑headed proposals, such as the one pertaining
to the Cartography Unit in the DPI. These activities could easily be billed to
either the UN Security Council which is dealt with in the Fifth Committee under
a separate agenda item, or better still, to debit the expenditures of the Unit
to the relevant Peacekeeping budget.
Mr.
Chairman
In response to the Secretary General's call for the
creation of a culture of communication and coordination in the Organisation, we
concur with the observation in the SG's report that coordination between DPI
and other Secretariat Departments should be improved, and that DPI, within the
context of the ongoing reorientation should structure itself so as to provide a
more direct interface with the substantive Departments. We also agree that a
part of this onus falls on the Departments as well who must ensure that DPI be
included in their decision making processes, and that for major activities, DPI
participate in the relevant planning meetings from the beginning of the
preparatory process.
On the subject of the flagship publications of the
Organisation, we strongly believe that they serve a useful purpose and are
invaluable reference points for all matters related to the Organization,
meeting the highest standards of quality and reliability over the past so many
years. The Yearbook must be continued
for its unparalleled archival and reference values. Similarly, the UN Chronicle
has continued to serve the Member States as a stimulating and thought‑provoking
publication and as a platform for intellectual discourse on a wide variety of
issues currently engaging attention of the international community. An Indian
edition of the Chronicle, for
circulation in Asia, is being brought out at no additional cost to the UN.
Here, we wish to reiterate the point made by us last year that similar
approaches for other regions should be explored to enhance the reach and
leadership of the Chronicle. We are
happy that the Fifth Committee pronounced itself last December on the need for
continued publication of the UN Chronicle,
and allocated the financial resources for this purpose.
We agree that as long as the organisation of special
events constitute important United Nations observances, it would be difficult
to imagine the Secretariat ceasing to commemorate them. We have noted that
pending a final decision on the matter, attempts are being made to leverage
events held at Headquarters to global audiences through video conferencing and
other means. We also believe that the exhibition space at Headquarters should
continue to cater to the purpose that it presently serves, serving a vital
promotional purpose for the Organisation. We also express support for the
journalists' training programmes which, we feel, should continue since this
meets the aspirations of the developing world in particular and is one of the
elements in bridging the gap between the developing and the developed
societies.
The United Nations Information Centers play an
important role in disseminating and promoting United Nations information
materials, contributing thereby to spreading the message of the relevance and
significance of the United Nations in present times. Here we would like to note
with appreciation the role played by the UNIC in New Delhi. We agree with the
suggestion that practical criteria should be established with regard to the
location of United Nations Information Centers. We also agree that one possible
criterion would be the provision of free premises by the host Government and
would urge Governments of developed countries to make efforts to facilitate the
work of the information centers in their countries by the provision of rent‑free
or rent‑subsidized office space and to assist through cash contribution
for information services. This could be the starting point when discussions on
the UNICS are held since the rental costs for the premises in the developing
world are often insignificant compared to that in the developed world.
Mr. Chairman
A key issue is the extent to which financial
considerations should determine the continuance of a mandated program. As the
Secretary General observes, while financial transparency helps Member‑States
appreciate the connection between the cost of a program and its measurable
impact, there are some activities worth promoting for valid programmatic
benefits, all of which are not tangible and therefore
cannot be quantified, outside of cost
considerations. As the voice of the United Nations, indeed its torch‑bearer
whose activities and benefits touch the four corners of the globe, the DPI
plays a vital role. As is the case with some of the other Departments in the
Secretariat, all of whom have their own rules to play by and none of whom have
been subject to such excruciating scrutiny so often in such a time span as the
DPI, we would urge that a similar yardstick be applied to the activities of the
DPI whose benefits are not always visible, but nevertheless which lie at the
center of the strategic management of the United Nations. Purely by way of
illustration, it is inconceivable that such logic would have been upheld, say
for example, in the area of human rights.
In closing, it is pertinent to recall that reform,
revitalisation and renewal are continuous processes. We note, in this
connection, that seven periodic reviews and/or reappraisals on UN public
information policies and activities have been conducted, so far, most of them
in the last 20 years. We wish to particularly compliment the DPI for focusing
our attention, through this Report, on the specific areas that this Committee
should address with a view to offering guidance to the General Assembly at its
57th and subsequent sessions. We would encourage the Secretary General to
continue with the measures within his competence to improve the functioning of
DPI, while looking forward to this Committee providing further guidance and to
the report of the Secretary General on the comprehensive review of the management
and operations of DPI in response to the request in resolution A56/253. We will
work with other delegations to ensure that concrete ideas are contained in the
Report of this Committee which will help both the DPI and the General Assembly
in their efforts to reorient the public information activities of the United
Nations.
I thank you Mr. Chairman.