UN using technological innovations to bolster communications, official says

The United Nations is doing more with less in the area of communications by harnessing new technologies to deliver its message to the media, governments and individuals, the senior public information official has said.

Despite an ever-shrinking budget, the UN has increased the number of languages available in summaries of speeches, events and even news feeds, Shashi Tharoor, the Under Secretary-General for the Department of Communications and Public Information, told a General Assembly committee on Wednesday.

The UN website was accessed 45 million times during the three days of the 2005 World Summit in September, compared to 42 million accesses in the entire year of 1997. More than 180,000 viewers from 175 countries watched the webcast of the Summit live, and some 700,000 watched the archived webcasts over the days that followed, not just English, but also in the speaker's original language. The group photo of Summit leaders alone was downloaded over 500 times within four hours of its posting, and 3,000 times before the Summit had ended, Mr. Tharoor said.

He also noted that the UN's services remain free despite the current trend towards charging for news feeds, downloads and jpg files.