VIDEO CONFERENCE AT THE NGO INTERNET FIESTA 99

Late at night on March 20, 1999, a video conference was set up with New York within the framework of the NGO Internet Fiesta to discuss the issue of "Linking Europe to Global Resources".

Robert Pollard, Information Habitat
Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, Women's Environment and Development Organisation, Millenium Forum Consultative Council
Felicity Hill, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
Joyce Mitchell, Communications Coordination Committee for the United Nations
Irini Sarlis, Society for Oecological Sensibility/International Alliance of Women
Claudia Strauss, World Information Transfer, Millenium Forum Environment & Health, CONGO Task Force on Communications, NGO Committee on Sustainable Development

Franz Nahrada, Information Habitat Vienna
Heiner Benking, Multi-lingual Information Society
Wendi Losha, Women of the Grassfields, Kamerun
Nadia McLaren, Union of International Associations, Brüssel

They addressed the question, how the work of globally operating NGOs - which is still concentrated to a limited number of capitals - can be made more transparent to people all over the world, and which role the new information and communication technologies would play in this process. Implied in this question is the idea that the Third Sector on the whole will be strengthened through a growing awareness of NGO activities.
One basic, common motivation could be extracted from the various topics discussed in the workshops, namely to promote access to conferences even there where they cannot actually take place, that is to say e.g. by a video conference up-link from an international library in Vienna to a NGO-meeting in New York, Geneva or Brussels, or ...
Participants also agreed on the fact that the idea to use modern technology to make the work of NGOs not longer tied to specific geographic locations on the globe has to be developed further. Today's discussion beyond continents and time zones should be seen as the basis for the initiation of a global discussion on this issue. However - and all participants again agreed on this fact - this can only happen in connection and co-operation with the public and cultural sectors. Suggestions for the implementation and promotion of this idea have to be developed on a collective basis, structures must be established together and technological and informational resources must be made accessible to all parties.