A/RES/61/121 A-B
Multilingualism and public information
23. Emphasizes the importance of making appropriate use of all the official
languages of the United Nations in all the activities of the Department of Public
Information, including in presentations to the Committee on Information, with the
aim of eliminating the disparity between the use of English and the five other
official languages;
24. Also emphasizes the importance of ensuring the full, equitable treatment
of all the official languages of the United Nations in all the activities of the
Department of Public Information and, in this regard, reaffirms its request to the
Secretary-General to ensure that the Department has appropriate staffing capacity in
all the official languages of the United Nations to undertake all its activities;
25. Stresses the importance of fully implementing its resolution 52/214 of
22 December 1997, in section C of which it requested the Secretary-General to
ensure that the texts of all new public documents in all six official languages and
information materials of the United Nations are made available daily through the
United Nations website and are accessible to Member States without delay;
26. Welcomes the ongoing efforts of the Department of Public Information to
enhance multilingualism in its activities, and requests the Department to continue its
endeavours in this regard;
27. Reiterates paragraph 4 of section C of its resolution 52/214, and requests
the Secretary-General to continue towards completion of the task of uploading all
important older United Nations documents on the United Nations website in all six
official languages on a priority basis, so that these archives are also available to
Member States through that medium;
28. Reaffirms that it is important that the Secretary-General include in future
programme budget proposals for the Department of Public Information the
importance of using all six official languages in its activities;
29. Welcomes the work done by the network of United Nations information
centres in favour of the publication of United Nations information materials and the
translation of important documents in languages other than the United Nations
official languages, with a view to reaching the widest possible spectrum of
audiences and extending the United Nations message to all the corners of the world
in order to strengthen international support for the activities of the Organization;
Bridging the digital divide
30. Recalls with satisfaction General Assembly resolution 60/252 of
27 March 2006, in which it endorsed the Tunis Commitment and the Tunis Agenda
for the Information Society 9 and proclaimed 17 May annual World Information
Society Day, and also recalls the adoption of the Declaration of Principles and the
Plan of Action 10 at the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society,
held in Geneva from 10 to 12 December 2003, and in this regard requests the
Department of Public Information to contribute to the celebration of this event and
to play a role in raising awareness of the possibilities that the use of the Internet and
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9
See A/60/687.
See A/C.2/59/3.
10
7