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

152 Decade",

8 and also took into account the report of the Group of Experts on reconstructing the economic and social sectors of the UN system.

9 Based on the above-cited documents and related resolutions the UN convened the UN Conference on Science and Technology for Development (UNCSTD) 20-29 August 1979 in Vienna, the A CAST colloquium "Science, Technology and Society: Needs, Changes and Limitations" (14 working groups - the 1 Ith WG: Information Systems in Science and Technology - with the participation of 450 specialists from 80 countries), Vienna, 13-17 August 1979

1

0 and the NGO Forum "Science and Technology for Development" 19—29 August 1979. These three Vienna meetings have produced the most detailed documentation on science and technology for developing countries, including a previous important documentation on information.

1

1 It should be mentioned that since the Vienna Conference there have been two newsletters which refer to the relevant documents, facts, resolutions concerning science and technology factors as well as information in developing countries.

1

2 The above-cited UN documents and their intention should be considered as the main background for this study on information and development. It is aimed at analysing the status of the management of information transfer by the UN with the view to provide better services for users (governments, developmental institutions, international organisations) by suggesting some approaches to the integrated information policy and also to the searching of ways and methods in order to implement this policy. The justification of any information activity in and for developing countries lies in its potential to reduce technological and social dependence. One important factor in reducing this dependence is a more economical, more rational use of information. This furthers the better utilisation and exploitation of all resources affecting development. It also implies a concentration of efforts in the field of information as opposed to the existing proliferation of it. Concentration does not mean unification or an administrative centralisation: what it primarily means is a conceptual change in information policy and management, implying a real and harmonious integration of information activities for development. Within the framework of this integrated activity, a real partnership is to be developed between developing and industrialised countries. In this sense the UN may play the role of a bridge. For this purpose, the study takes into account the existing international mechanism of the transfer of information, the major realized international co-operations in this field; first of all the UNESCO's PGI (Programme Général d'Information)

1

3, the SPINES-system launched by UNESCO, the DEVSIS and other programmes reflected by the Indexing Vocabularies Produced by Organizations of the UN System.

1

4 The present study concentrates on the problems of information transfer. What holds true for the whole problem of development in general, also holds true for the particular field of information transfer. With respect to development, Gunnar Myrdal points out that what is needed: "a broader approach which takes into account the social reality of institutions and the attitudes formed within them, which attitudes, in turn, support them".

1

5