By James A. Paul
Global Policy ForumJuly, 1999
In late 1996 and early 1997, a clash between the Secretariat and NGOs signaled that the Secretariat was not as NGO-friendly as the Secretary General's statements had led some to believe. Caught in a financial crisis, the UN had reduced its printing of documents and instead offered government delegations access to digital texts stored in its Optical Disk System (ODS). At the same time, the UN was rapidly expanding its site on the world wide web. When NGOs asked for open access to the ODS system, the Secretariat responded with an offer of access -- but, for a fee of $1,125 per computer station per year, payable in advance. NGOs rejected the proposal, pointing out that governments increasingly make their documents freely available and noting that this decision would be especially harmful for poor, Southern-based NGOs. The NGOs called for immediate free and open access, arguing that the web site, however welcome, was insufficient to their needs.
By coincidence, Amb. Kamal of Pakistan was also Chair of the intergovernmental body with special responsibility for this question - the Technical Sub-Group of the Working Group on Informatics of ECOSOC. NGOs sought to enlist his support in their cause, but discovered that he and his committee did not have sufficient influence over the powerful decision-makers in the Secretariat (particularly, it seems, the office of Under Secretary General Joseph Connor) to change the decision. UN budget managers saw a pay-as-you-go approach to NGOs as a symbol of their market-driven approach to reform.
Finally, on April 25, 1997, a group of twelve major NGOs presented a long and carefully-argued memo to the Secretary General asking for free ODS access. But the SG turned the issue over to lower officials and the NGO group never received any substantive response. Privately, Secretariat officials argued that funds were scarce (though they never said what the new service would cost) and they advised that the decision would not be reversed. In spite of the rhetoric of "partnership," the Secretariat never consulted NGOs about their information needs or even asked for their opinions as "consumers" of this new service.
More Information on NGO Access at the UN
More Information on NGOs and the UN Official Documents System
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