SPEECH BY THE HON. JOE BORG, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AT THE OPENING OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WEB MANAGEMENT AND DIPLOMACY – SALINA – FRIDAY, 1 FEBRUARY 2002

It gives me great pleasure to open a conference organised by the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies once again. The Academy has built itself a reputation for organising conferences on topics that are both interesting and extremely relevant in today's ever-changing world. I am confident that the conference you are embarking on today shall be no different - more than that, I firmly believe today's conference is on the cutting edge of developments in IT and diplomacy and as such will prove to be an extremely useful exercise.

This second international conference on web management in diplomacy zooms in on the developments underway in IT and diplomacy by addressing the specific needs of web-sites of diplomatic services. It is aimed at bringing together two areas of expertise that at a first glance may appear to be only indirectly related to one another. Yet today we know, or have come to know, through the pioneering work of the DiploProjects unit within the Academy headed by Jovan Kurbalija, how closely interlinked these two spheres of competence may in fact be.

Diplomacy nowadays is no longer conducted in the manner in which it used to be in days of old. Today, as we all know, we are constantly bombarded with information, most of which reaches us in real time. A good diplomat is not only cognizant of that fact but has the necessary tools at hand to sift through and process that data into intelligent and useful information.

Ultimately our aim is to transform information into knowledge by managing it - managing it in order to assist diplomats to perform their daily work. This knowledge, used by and large, by Governments and policy makers in formulating and implementing their foreign policy goals, becomes ever more crucial in today's rapidly changing world. The power to pre-empt events rather than to solely react to them is vital.

In a similar vein, Ministries of Foreign Affairs and as a result their diplomats, are also called to provide information to a wide cross-section of the general public. They are therefore also service providers - called to interact with the general public and to provide information on subjects as diverse as visa applications, conventions signed and missing family members overseas in times of crises.

With such a broad spectrum of issues to handle, at a time where more and more people expect to access information at the press of a button, Ministries of Foreign Affairs need to keep abreast of developments. They need to be able to offer levels of service similar to those that their customers are increasingly becoming accustomed to. Hence the need for diplomacy to exploit to the full all the opportunities offered by information technology and more specifically by web management.

Yet another benefit that arises from the better management of information is the ability afforded to Ministries of Foreign Affairs to assist in the preservation of their institutional memory. This is particularly challenging in the case of smaller ministries where there tends to be a comparatively high turnover of staff and rather more limited resources. The ability to refer to records both for work and research purposes is increasingly taking on more and more importance.

The urgency and huge demand for proficiency in managing information in Ministries of Foreign Affairs, particularly using the world wide web, is therefore continually growing.

Yet despite this huge growth, how much synergy has in actual fact been achieved between the two disciplines of web design and management? A huge amount of information on how to design, create and maintain good websites is now available; but how much of that is related or specifically geared towards creating good websites for diplomatic services? And despite the small steps forward that have been made in using the Internet for public diplomacy, how much research or discussion has truly examined the topic in depth?

The answers behind these questions are the subject of this second international conference on web management in diplomacy. From the list of highly reputable experts who will be speaking at the conference, I feel fully confident that by the end of these three days, you will have a far better understanding of the subject - a far better understanding of how web management and diplomacy can be fused to create the levels of service and capability that are required of a Ministry of Foreign Affairs in today's day and age.

I wish you all the very best in this endeavour at hand and trust that you will be able to take back home with you the various competences you will develop over the coming days.

I on my part, will attempt to follow as much of the conference as I can via the net as I understand that this is the first time such a conference is being broadcast live via the net.

I wish you every success.

Thank you.