György Rózsa: Information: from claims to needs (Joint edition published by the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Kultura Hungarian Foreign Trading Company. Budapest, 1988)

III. „The elephant’s head” and integrated information infrastructure for developing countries

162 for two reasons. First: the United Nations is the most adequate partner for the member States in the matter of development; secondly: only the United Nations can have the authority necessary to an integrated policy and management within the United Nations family. How to change? The integration of the transfer of information with the development policy involves changes both as regards management and the institutions. "The scheme of an integrated United Nations information system" demonstrates the main orientations of these changes in the flow of information, in organizational links and in the standardization of methods and techniques. As to the details, four additional schemes will show what is imagined, including computer-based data processing. The related orientations are as follows in the order of priority: (1) Intergovernmental Committee. There are two alternatives, (a) the creation of a new Committee on Information Planning and Management for Development (CIPMD) to be the leading body of the United Nations family for the policy and management for information transfer with a status similar to CSTD (Committee on Science and Technology for Development) or CDP, reporting also to the Economic and Social Council, and (b) to assign this function to CSTD or to the Committee on Development Planning. (2) A Co-ordinating Unit in the Secretariat. Again there are two alternatives, (a) either the creation of a special Office for the Transfer of Information for Development (OTID) to act as an executive organ of the over-all information policy within the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, having the same status as OST or (b) the inclusion of the function of such an office into the terms of reference of the United Nations Office for Science and Technology (OST). (3) For the more rational and economical computer-based processing of data for users, to be developed is a central unit, the COPRO (Common Processing or Computer Processed Data or Inter-Agency Co-production of EDP data). (4) The normative catalyst role of the UNISIST has to be strengthened and closely connected to the OTID. (5) The OIB representing the managerial skill for the EDP-system has to be connected to UNISIST, and has to act for or be transformed into COPRO.