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In June, we contacted EU Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner (AT), Ambassador Ina Marčiulionytė (LT) and Ambassador Irina Bokova (BG), as candidates for the post of UNESCO Director General, with invitations for interviews for the Autumn 2009 Newsletter issue. Our interest in their nominations is threefold: they are career diplomats with an acute understanding of the importance of ICT and Information Society issues in general, they are citizens of EU member states represented in IT STAR, and they are women and as such could provide "new" leadership to UNESCO. The countries of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe have proactively contributed in putting the "communications" agenda and information society issues in UNESCO's mandate and the visions of these candidates for UNESCO are important. We are pleased to publish below the considerations of Ambassador Ina Marčiulionytė, the nominee of the Baltic countries, and wish her all the best for the forthcoming UNESCO elections.

Ina Marčiulionytė is Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of the Republic of Lithuania to UNESCO. Previously she served as Vice Minister (Regions and Cultural Heritage) in the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. Her UNESCO experience includes her current position of Vice-President of the Executive Board of which she is a member since 2005. Ms. Marčiulionytė is also Chair of the UNESCO Headquarters Committee, was Chair of the World Heritage Committee and serves on various other boards. Ina is a graduate in linguistics from the Vilnius University, has specialized in Belgrade and Budapest in cultural management and professional communication and has done a PhD course in international relations and diplomacy at the Centre d’Etudes Diplomatiques et Stratégiques, Paris. Ms. Marčiulionytė speaks Lithuanian, English, Russian and French.

- If elected, what would be the 3 most important things that you would initiate to affirm UNESCO’s role as the World's intellectual organization?

That's a challenging question. I believe that UNESCO should demonstrate its intellectual credentials in very sphere of activity. But nowhere more so than in the Science sectors.

UNESCO should be the lead UN organisation promoting policies that use the power of scientific knowledge to transform our societies. A central advantage of UNESCO's science portfolio is that it can harness natural, social and human sciences to tackle poverty reduction, disease prevention and environmental conservation. UNESCO is providing valuable advice to developing countries on the best use of resources for capacity-building in science, engineering and technology. Reform of the Science Programmes has been discussed at length in recent years. One significant outcome of reform should be measurable progress in understanding and mitigating climate change, as a result of much greater coordination between IOC, IHP, MAB and IGCP and their extensive global research assets. Throughout UNESCO's science programmes, priority-setting based on relevance, effectiveness and impact will bring about a much-needed concentration on major global and national challenges, and a more clearly recognised role for UNESCO.

I cannot omit culture and education. I would propose a Cultural Diplomacy Initiative: UNESCO is the only truly worldwide organisation in this field and is better positioned than any other to organise intercultural encounters and dialogues at regional or global level, if it fully mobilises its networks. And we would start planning the World Education Summit in 2012, which should help us to prepare for the second stage of Education for All programme.

- What concrete actions would you wish to see in promoting the issues related to informatics and information society within UNESCO?

In 2000, UNESCO launched the Information for All Programme (IFAP) as a framework for international cooperation and partnerships in “building an information society for all”. I would like to see IFAP become the cornerstone of UNESCO’s action to tackle 21st century challenges arising from the exponential growth and social penetration of information and communication technologies (ICT).

The development of these technologies provides tremendous new potential for the creation of a Knowledge Society and all parts of UNESCO need to make use of such potential. Some important steps in this direction have been made: for example, UNESCO’s participation in the World Digital Library project, or its active position on the public domain in cyberspace, etc. Yet much remains to be done, especially in UNESCO's Education and Science sectors.

I would therefore like to see much more action from UNESCO Member States on implementing the IFAP Strategic Plan (2008-2013), which adheres to the Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action, the Tunis Commitment and Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, as adopted by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

In this context, we must not forget that in many countries, especially in the developing world, there is growing dissatisfaction that, in spite of many meetings and declarations, the digital divide is widening. I saw this for myself on recent visits to many of these countries. I would like to see UNESCO actively advising Member States on how to update their existing policy frameworks to facilitate the development and democratization of ICTs. I would also like UNESCO to continue and enhance its activities as a forum for international debate on information ethics, to support linguistic and cultural diversity of content in cyberspace, and to promote the development of digital resources accessible to people with disabilities.

To achieve all these objectives, UNESCO’s financial and human resources, in all its sectors, should be refocused accordingly. It goes almost without saying that UNESCO cannot achieve these goals alone and that more active cooperation with partners in the public and private sectors is therefore needed.

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