Wednesday, October 23th, 2013; 10am-1am, 3 pm-6 pm

Key Speakers: Suzanne Bilello, Senior Public Information and Liaison Officer UNESCO, Representatives of DESA Matthias Kempf and Shamshad Akhtar, Marisa Henderson, UNCTAD, Mr. Vadim Pisarevich, Head of the Global Policy and Humanitarian Cooperation Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Representatives of the Permanent Missions of Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Fiji, Bahamas, Ethiopia, Cuba, Thailand, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Peru, China, Mexico, Senegal, Nigeria, Colombia, Argentina, Libya, Russian Federation, Brazil, South Africa, Morocco, Zimbabwe, Japan, France, Tonga, Benin, Bahrain, Gabon, Costa Rica, Singapore, Jordan, Iran, and Jamaica

 Written by:  Rachel Lauren

The meeting began with a continuation from agenda item 16, information and communication technologies for development, where both the permanent representatives of Malaysia and Sri Lanka, Raja Reza and Palitha Kohona, respectively, spoke about the increase in ICT communication in their respective countries. Suzanne Bilello and her fellow representative from UNESCO followed up by stressing the need for a focus on ICT in the post-2015 development goals, as well as called for connecting WSIS, the World Summit on the Information Society, to the post 2015 development goals.

The committee then moved on to agenda item 21, globalization and interdependence, where representatives of DESA, Shamshad Akhtar and Matthias Kempf spoke about the acceleration of integration of production processes and interdependence through IT. Matthias Kempft stressed that higher income countries should provide technological support to middle and lower income countries, who are now slowly getting a foothold in IT but lack the knowledge to fully integrate it into their countries.

The representatives from UNESCO stated that culture is the enabler and driver of development, a point that was echoed by the majority of countries throughout the meeting. Marisa Henderson stated that LDC’s cannot sustain themselves unless they can use existing resources in a cost-effective manner. Many representatives, such as Peter Thomson from Fiji, then went on to state that GDP was not an accurate representation of welfare in a society.

Although many points were brought up during the course of the meeting, the most widely agreed upon were that globalization was not benefiting all countries equally,  it has created a situation in which development can occur, and that culture must become a driver and enabler of development in countries where the creative industry is a large portion of GDP.

Edited By: Wayne Dean Doyle