New York, 5 July 2000

Honorable Ministers,

Cabinet Members and Heads of Delegations,

Mrs. Deputy Secretary-General,

Distinguished Heads of the International Financial and Trade Institutions and of the U.N. Funds, Programmes and Specialized Agencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is indeed my great privilege and pleasure for me, as President of the ECOSOC, to welcome each and all of you to this substantive session at its annual month long premier event.  I believe it is a measure of the growing importance and renaissance of the Council that this year once again the Council has not only attracted a full complement of Ministers and other high level officials including Heads of State of the Member States and Observer States, but it also numbers among its participants, the heads of the international finance and trade institutions and the heads of the various United Nations bodies.  I thank you all sincerely for honouring the Council with your presence and I trust that together we will have a productive and fruitful session.

Yesterday, the Fourth of July, we were treated in New York to a splendid vision of a bygone era, an armada of great and majestic tall ships sailing gracefully by.  It was also a vision of yesteryear’s international commerce and communication, which stood out in stark contrast with to-days digital super highways and cyberspace.  It was the industrial revolution that replaced the tall ships and their pivotal role in the world’s economy at that time.  And, it is the information and communications revolution that is now making inroads into the industrial era and creating a new global economic system.  Watching the tall ships sail silently by held a salient lesson for all of us, particularly for  the developing countries.  The developing countries largely missed out on tapping into the industrial revolution.  That should not happen again.  They should not miss the opportunities this time round.  That, in essence, is why the ECOSOC choose as its major theme for this year’s High-level Segment the crucial issue of the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) as a potentially powerful tool for the promotion of development and the eradication of poverty.  Thus, our full attention and deliberations will be fully focused on this purpose at the High-level Segment over the next few days.

But, beyond the High-level Segment, we also have a full agenda that spans the other four major segments and reflects the whole landscape of the ECOSOC’s mandate to promote higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development for all.  These five major segments amply define the nature of our workload and activities over the next four weeks.

As decided at the organizational session of the Council, the High-level Segment will be presided over by the President of ECOSOC whereas my colleagues on the Bureau will preside over their respective Segments: H.E. Ambassador Martin Belinga-Eboutou of Cameroon over the General Segment; H.E. Ambassador Gerhard Pfanzelter of Austria over the Coordination Segment, H.E. Ambassador Bernd Niehaus of Costa Rica over the Operational Activities Segment and H.E. Ambassador Vladimir C. Sotirov of the Republic of Bulgaria over the Humanitarian Affairs Segment.

Without going into great detail, let me touch briefly on the subject matter of these major segments.  This year’s High-level Segment will seek to harness the power and promise of information and communication technologies in the service of development and is titled: Development and cooperation in the Twenty-First Century: the role of Information Technology in the context of the knowledge-based global economy.  The Operational Activities segment will address two main topics which are: Resources and Funding of the operational activities for development and second: Simplification and harmonization of programming, operational and administrative procedures.

The Coordination Segment will also deal with two main themes: Assessment of the progress made within the UN system, through the conference reviews, in the promotion of an integrated and coordinated implementation of and follow-up to major UN conferences and summits in the economic, social and related fields and second: Coordinated implementation by the UN system of the Habitat Agenda.  The Humanitarian Affairs Segment will address the single theme of: Special Economic, Humanitarian and Disaster Assistance.  And, finally, the General Segment will address the various issues arising out of the work and activities of the Functional Commissions and other subsidiary organs of the Council as well as additional issues considered pertinent for discussion in this year’s substantive session.

As we gather here at the beginning of this substantive session, it is truly at a defining moment of history, not only because of the new millennium, as that is merely a function of the Gregorian calendar, but because of a convergence of various phenomena. Primary among these, to my mind, are globalization, interdependence and the information revolution.  Globalization and information technologies have many subtexts. They pose numerous challenges, risks and opportunities that can be harnessed for the benefit of development. Few will disagree that the statistics are spectacular, for instance the internet industry has jumped to  $7 trillion and the economies of those countries that have good access and connectivity have soared. The tremendous potential of the information revolution is loud and clear and can catapult small and medium sized firms to greater heights.  But, on the other side of the coin, we are warned that an increasing proportion of the world’s wealth will be shuttling in digital form between the most electronically advanced countries resulting in a widening digital divide. Thus, we must ask the question, why have these forces which have propelled many developed economies to new and staggering heights, have, at the same time, largely by-passed the majority of developing countries.

Our great challenge therefore, during the High-level Segment, that begins tomorrow, is to seek ways and means to overcome the broad spectrum of constraints blocking access and connectivity for the developing countries and to explore strategies at the national, regional and global levels to effectively harness the most powerful technological revolution of our time.

To underscore the importance of the need to harness such ICTs for development, the ECOSOC sought to heighten awareness of the issue through months of intensive preparations that included conducting a series of panel discussions on Information Technology and Development in New York and organized regional dialogues co-sponsored by ECOSOC and the Regional Economic Commissions leading up to the High-level Segment.  And, during the High-level Segment, the discussions on the role of ICT in development will be conducted at the highest possible level through various forums such as, the high-level policy dialogue, the general debate on the themes of the High-level Segment, a number of ministerial roundtable breakfasts and luncheons as well as a number of panels and presentations.

In addition, staged concurrently with those intensive rounds of deliberations and panel discussions among others, will be an unprecedented public exhibit designed to bring together a number of ICT educational exhibits and displays.  These exhibits will help showcase information and communication technologies that are currently available, affordable and applicable to development in the developing countries.  The exhibitors, 41 in all, who hail from across the globe and represent the private sector, governments and international agencies, are thus facilitating the dissemination of information across  a wide variety of technological applications and help to reduce barriers to accessing ICTs as well as greatly facilitating contacts between governments and the private sector.

Before concluding, I would like to add that it is Indonesia’s great honour to introduce its national haute cuisine in the Delegate’s Dining Room of the United Nations for the duration of the month of July together with a sampling of Indonesia cultural exhibitions and performances.

I am now pleased to proceed at this time to the video presentation on the role of ICTs in development.

Thank you very much.