Web Site, Publications and Media Work
Web Site
Global Policy Forum works on the cutting edge of internet technology. It's site on the world wide web offers an incomparable array of information and analysis on the UN and global policy making. By Annual 1999, the site contained nearly 3,000 resident web "pages," as well as links to hundreds of additional documents and sites, located in dozens of countries. This provided GPF with an extremely powerful and cost-effective outreach tool.
The GPF site posts current articles, interviews, and topical material, as well as photos, illustrations and cartoons. It also posts longer research monographs and statistics. And it contains archival material, such as texts of speeches and documents. During the year, GPF staff posted over 1,000 new pages, nearly doubling the size of the site. Staff members also substantially re-organized materials and created hundreds of new outward-links.
During the year, GPF created a new and improved "home page," a new "site map" for visitors, and a large new section on globalization. Dozens of new data tables and graphs enriched the site offerings on UN finance as well as social and economic policy, while new photos, illustrations and cartoons enlivened the site's visual environment. The Institute for Global Communication listed the site for two months running as Featured Member and Study Web gave the site its Excellence Award. Many university professors assigned texts on the site in their courses and mass media used it as a background source.
During 1999, tens of thousands of people from every continent visited the site. By design, the site attracts diverse users, ranging from the general public to academic specialists, United Nations staff and media researchers. Use of the site for the year more than doubled to over two million hits. In 2000, GPF expects site useage to grow even further -- to between four and five million hits.
ListServ
Beginning in September 1998, GPF developed a new "ListServ" or internet mailing list, to reach an audience of members, supporters and those with a special interest in our work. This electronic mailing list enables GPF to announce its weekly web site postings and to communicate current information and analysis with this constantly expanding core group.
During 1999, we expanded the weekly analysis to some 2,000 words and attracted an expanded number of subscribers and readers. By year end, some 600 subscribers from a wide range of countries were receiving the information. Because of re-posting to friends and other ListServes, we estimate that an average of about 5,000 readers see the material each week. Feedback on this service has proved very positive, so we will continue to develop the ListServ in 2000. We expect direct subscribers during the year to reach more than 2,000 and weekly readership to pass the 15,000 mark.
Publications
During the year, GPF published many original texts on sanctions, NGO access, global taxes, Security Council actions and other subjects. The twenty-eight page report entitled NGOs and the United Nations attracted the most attention and comment. Written by GPF over many weeks -- after close consultation with leading NGO representatives -- the report provides a broad overview of NGO access problems at the UN, along with more than fifty recommendations for remedial action. GPF printed hundreds of copies of this report and circulated it widely to NGOs, missions and UN officials. GPF received a large number of requests for this report and it also circulated through the web and in email form to thousands of additional readers world wide.
Media
During 1999, the media increasingly turned to GPF for a wide range of information and analysis, both for background and for direct interviews. Media in eight countries -- including some of the world's most important media outlets -- contacted GPF during the year.
GPF was covered in the Canadian press and broadcast media during conferences at Saint John and Ottawa in January. Later, the magazine of the Canadian World Federalists published a long article. BBC radio aired a show with Jim Paul, along with former UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali and former US UN delegate William vanden Heuvel in a discussion about the troubled relationship between the United States and the UN.
At the time of the Kosovo conflict, Jim was interviewed on ZDF German TV, Fox TV Network News and the Voice of America. NKD Japan Television shot a segment of a meeting of the NGO Working Group on the Security Council. On the subject of private financing of the UN, Jim gave interviews to The Chronicle of Philanthropy and the ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. The Christian Science Monitor again turned to GPF, with an interview on international development aid. Most unusual, Jim interviewed for an entire hour on a conservative national US radio program -- the Cliff Kincaid Show. Also, rather out of the ordinary, the Journal Transnational Associations, publication of the Union of International Associations, published our entire report on NGOs and the UN in its November-December issue.
Global Policy Forum is supported primarily by contributions from generous individuals who join as members. GPF also receives grants from foundations and partner institutions. GPF is incorporated in the State of New York, registered as a charitable organization and recognized by the US Internal Revenue Service as a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the revenue code.
