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Press
Release..............................
UNESCAP News Services
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Date 7
May 2004
Press Release No: L/22/2004
THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
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MESSAGE ON WORLD TELECOMMUNICATION DAY
17 May 2004
It was 160 years ago next week that Samuel Morse
used a simple series of dots and dashes to send the first message
by telegraph -- ushering in the dawn of the telecommunications
age. Within a decade, telegraphy had become a routine public
service.
Today, many people could not imagine daily life
without the use of increasingly sophisticated information and
communication technologies (ICTs), from television and radio
to the mobile telephone and the Internet. Yet for millions of
people in the world's poorest countries, there remains a "digital
divide" excluding them from the benefits of ICTs.
The theme of this year's observance of World Telecommunication
Day -- ICTs: Leading the way to sustainable development -- reminds
us that ICTs serve as crucial tools for achieving economic progress.
Affordable technologies, in the hands of local communities,
can be effective engines of change, both social and material.
Access to information and technological know-how is essential
if the world is to defeat hunger, protect the environment and
achieve the other Millennium Development Goals agreed by Heads
of State and Government at the United Nations Millennium Summit
in 2000. But to harness this potential, we need to forge global
partnerships for development between governments, the private
sector, civil society and the United Nations system.
Last December, at the first phase of the World
Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, leaders set out
a shared vision of how the world can eliminate the digital divide
in content and physical infrastructure. This was the first global
gathering of its kind, and I was very encouraged by the innovative
initiatives that were put forward and by the strong commitment
that was voiced towards overcoming the disadvantages faced by
so many of the world's people. I urge Member States and all
other stakeholders to sustain that commitment as we prepare
for the Tunis phase of the Summit next year.
On World Telecommunication Day, let us resolve
to do all we can to lead the way to a truly open, inclusive
and prosperous telecommunications age.
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