17 November 1999

ABA Deputy Chairman elected vice chairman of UNESCO's Communications Commission 5

Mr Gareth Grainger, Deputy Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority, has been unanimously elected Vice Chairman of Commission 5 on Communications, Information and Informatics at UNESCO’s 30th General Conference in Paris.

Mr Grainger is also Chairman of the Communications Network of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO.

While at the General Conference, Mr Grainger made an intervention proposing strategies for UNESCO’s involvement in the communications and information sectors in the coming decade. In making the intervention, Mr Grainger drew on the conclusions of a number of forums concerning regulatory policy in the communications and information sectors.

Mr Grainger proposed that UNESCO should consider moving to a more devolved and regionalised mode of operation in the communications and information sectors.

"In this way, UNESCO could play a real role and make a worthwhile contribution to ensuring that its work reflects the priorities of its member countries and facilitates the cross-cultural exchanges that need to occur in a global communications and information environment," Mr Grainger said.

At the General Conference Mr Grainger was also invited to be one of five international experts participating in a world panel on social, ethical and legal issues of cyberspace. Mr Grainger identified four main areas that UNESCO should move forward on the Internet: access, education, information dissemination and content creation.

"It is important for UNESCO to find industry and community partners in this sector and work with them in promoting international consensus about Internet access and governance," said Mr Grainger.

BACKGROUNDER

Over the past year, Mr Grainger, as Chairman of the Communications Network of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO, has been invited to be a keynote speaker in a number of forums on issues concerning regulatory policy in the communications and information sectors.

In making his intervention at the General Conference, Mr Grainger drew on the main conclusions of some of those forums and proposed strategies for UNESCO’s involvement in the communications and information sectors in the coming decade.

Mr Grainger has proposed that UNESCO regional offices work closely with National Commissions to develop regional communications and information plans that would draw on a wide network of public and private sector operators. He envisages the UNESCO secretariat focusing its activities on the coordination and interconnectivity of those regional processes, and their distillation into a few big picture projects and initiatives that would provide an appropriate level of global vision.

In March this year, Mr Grainger chaired the Asia-Pacific Internet Conference. The conference was convened by the ABA, with support from UNESCO and AusAID. Many of the 16 countries that attended this conference expressed concern about access and they saw international collaborative efforts as insignificant when technology is developing rapidly and information proliferates through new media. In such an environment, these countries considered it would still be some time before their communities would have access to basic communications systems, let alone new services such as the Internet.

"I believe UNESCO should be placing most emphasis on access to communications and information," said Mr Grainger. "It should be asking how the opportunities of the so-called information age could be made available and relevant to the widest number of people in the world, particularly those in rural and remote areas."

While he sees it as clearly within UNESCO’s charter to address the protection of children from inappropriate content on communications services, Mr Grainger considers this work to be more appropriate for other forums in which the private sector is playing a prominent leadership role. These include the Global Business Dialogue and the Bertelsmann Foundation’s process on Self-Regulation of Internet Content.

"UNESCO cannot expect to be a leader in this field", Mr Grainger said. "However, it can play a useful role documenting the developments that occur as part of the process of achieving international consensus, and in disseminating this information in its member countries."

Mr Grainger sees a role for UNESCO in supporting the growing global network of hotlines for dealing with inappropriate content on the Internet. In this role, UNESCO would work in association with other organisations such as the European Commission and INHOPE. Once again he considers it a matter best pursued as a regional initiative so that there is a greater sense of ownership and relevance to individual countries, as in the final analysis, it would be national parliaments that decide on policy and laws for their own countries.

Mr Grainger concluded his intervention by appealing for strong support from UNESCO’s Regular Budget and from the Participation Program budget for Australia’s important initiative, the International Conference on Youth and Media Research, to be held in Sydney in November 2000. He also called for support for the conference for young people from the Asia-Pacific region that would be held soon after.

What we do l What's new l Search l Publications l Contact us l Home