08 June 2000

Bonn, Germany: The United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV) has been called to help coordinate a “high-tech corps” for developing countries to be integrated under a new initiative proposed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

In his Millennium Report identifying challenges and priorities for the UN’s member states to consider at the Millennium Assembly in September, Mr. Annan stressed the importance of keeping pace with the “digital revolution”.

One of four initiatives involves the creation of a global programme for information technology volunteers, which the Secretary-General proposes to call the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS).

“This will be a consortium of high-tech volunteer corps, including Net Corps Canada and Net Corps America, which United Nations Volunteers will help to coordinate,” he writes.

“UNITeS will train groups in developing countries in the uses and opportunities of information technology, and stimulate the creation of additional digital corps in the North and South. We are currently exploring external sources of funding to support UNITeS.”

One of the key areas addressed in Mr. Annan’s report is the influence of information technologies in development. The Secretary-General writes: “I encourage Member States to review their policies and arrangements in this area, to make sure that they are not denying their people the opportunities offered by the digital revolution.”

The UNITeS initiative highlights the role given to IT volunteers in the global challenge to extend the benefits of the information revolution worldwide — to close the growing digital divide. UNV is responding to this challenge with a strategy focusing on ways to connect to people in the developing world.

UNV is already working with Net Corps Canada in a pilot programme to field volunteers with Internet skills in developing countries. The Bonn-based programme also prepared an online volunteering module for the NetAid web site — a joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Cisco Systems — to fight poverty through voluntary service.

UNV will join with other organizations from both South and North over the coming weeks in the design of a structure for the programme. Through its involvement, UNV hopes that UNITeS will become a model for volunteering in the new millennium.