Dynamic information strategies needed to promote UN goals.

• Position: United Nations

The 88-member Committee on information, at its seventeenth session (1-12 May, New York), called dynamic public-information strategies an indispensable tool in promoting the UN's goals of peace, democracy and development. By meeting the increasingly complex challenges of modern mass communications, delegations said, the Organization would ensure the broadest possible support, uniting the world's peoples in awareness and aspiration.

The Committee also welcomed the latest initiatives of the Department of Public Information (DPI), saying that innovative, cost-efficient outreach had become more important than ever in spreading the message of the UN.

Committee Chairman Ivan Maximov of Bulgaria said that at a time of new tasks and major responsibilities for the UN, the importance of public information in mobilizing support for the Organization could not be overemphasized. Peoples throughout the world saw the UN as a repository of hope for humanity. DPI had endeavoured over the past year to meet those expectations in a productive and effective way, developing a public information strategy which had increased its outreach while ensuring greater cost efficiency.

A unified and

positive image

The Committee stressed the important role of DPI in projecting a unified and positive image of the UN, in response to heightened public interest in the Organization at the time of its fiftieth anniversary.

Emphasizing the need to disseminate the UN message to every corner of the world, Assistant Secretary-General for Public Information Samir Sanbar told the Committee that, while modern communications technology offered unprecedented opportunities, it posed major challenges at the same time.

"Never has our ability to disseminate information on the work and the achievements of the Organization been more important; never has the need to generate favourable public opinion for the United Nations been greater than it is today", he said. "The message of the United Nations must be brought home to every corner of the world. This is a very daunting task that can only be accomplished through a joint effort by all of us."

Highlighting DPI's new initiatives and approaches, Mr. Sanbar said that the question was how to employ limited resources to master the new...