Summit of the Heads of State of the Americas on Sustainable Development

Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, December 7-8, 1996

Statement by Chuck Lankester, Director

Sustainable Development Networking Programme (UNDP/SDNP)

Mr. President, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I will make four points regarding paragraph 13 of the Declaration signed yesterday by the nations of the hemisphere. This is the paragraph requesting UNDP, through the programme which I direct, to establish a hemispheric network to facilitate the exchange of information relevant to sustainable development.

Firstly, Mr. President, we are not starting from scratch, and much of this network is already in place. Eight countries represented here are already operating national SDNP sites and we are negotiating with another eight countries. We have been able to make such progress because my Administrator, Gus Speth, is absolutely convinced of the vital importance of access to information in our drive to attain sustainable development. Bolivia is probably the best example among developing countries of what networking can achieve when a government is committed to bringing relevant information about sustainable development down to the village level in support of their National Agenda 21 programme, which in turn UNDP is also supporting through its Capacity 21 initiative. Nicaragua is another country in the hemisphere in which great progress has been made.

Secondly, UNDP/SDNP cannot and should not be implementing this programme alone. We will provide the leadership and we will provide effective coordination, but we intend to build a coalition of partners in fulfilling the responsibility assigned to us. Other players we will be contacting in this regard include the IDB, the World Bank, CAF, bilaterals and international organizations such as IDRC of Canada, which has much experience. And we must also engage the academic and research communities and the private sector. Delegations here will certainly be aware of the explosion of telecommunication activity by the private sector in their countries and we must draw upon their experience, noting however their objectives may focus more on product sales and less on capacity building, which is an important objective for our endeavor. I would note that SDNP already has a fruitful relationship with the Hewlett-Packard Company and at this Summit we have already engaged in consultations with the Global One Company. Global One, which sponsored the panel discussion on the importance of telecommunications in development on Friday evening, is already active in the region, and has manifested its interest in working with us. It is one important potential partner.

Thirdly, Mr. President, some comments on timing. I am optimistic that we will be in a position to complete a stocktaking of the present situation and based on that prepare a forward plan for action in time to report to the Commission on Sustainable Development and the Special Session of the General Assembly in April, 1997. I believe much preparatory work can be done by email. I would go further and state that an operational network to meet your needs should be in place by the time this body reconvenes in Santiago in March of 1998.

Fourthly, we must already be thinking beyond connectivity. It's one thing to tie the copper wires together and install satellite dishes, but we must be thinking about information management. Yesterday's problem was inadequate information, but today decision makers confront a mass of data and need assistance in sorting through it. Amongst your papers is a booklet circulated by the Government of Bolivia outlining a cooperative effort between SDNP and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) whereby MIT is developing a "search engine" specific to sustainable development to assist decision makers. Bolivia and five Central American countries are involved in the testing of this programme. I expect that by March of 1998 MIT will have already revised today's model based on feedback from testing and application in many of your countries.

Mr. President, a final comment on the needs of the Small Island States. An outcome of the Barbados Conference was a proposal for a worldwide network, a so-called "SIDSnet", but for various reasons this has not been implemented. I suspect in our action programme that a special effort must be mounted for these countries, many of which are still seriously penalized by inadequate connectivity.

I have copies here of some relevant literature about SDNP and our network in Bolivia which can be circulated. Thank you Mr. President.

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