The UN Must be guided by eloquent educated individuals that said there is no need to worry about Y2K eh? Or at least told them to start fixing it this year. HHHHHMMMMMMMM heads in the sand once again. Contingency plans aren't fixing the problem.

STATEMENT BY

JOSEPH E. CONNOR
Under-Secretary-General for Management

on the

Y2K PREPAREDNESS OF THE UNITED NATIONS

ECOSOC Working Group on Informatics:
Second National Y2K Coordinators Meeting

New York
22 June 1999

---

 Y2K Preparedness of the United Nations
http://www.un.org/members/y2k/y2k2nd/connor.htm

Mr. Chairman,
Distinguished delegates,

I would like to welcome you to this second meeting of national Y2K coordinators and appreciate the opportunity to address you here today on the current status of preparedness of the United Nations.

In my opening statement to the first meeting of Y2K coordinators in December 1998, I had focused on the importance of contingency planning and stressed the fact that the Y2K is not only a technical problem but first of all a managerial challenge.

Like many Governments and businesses around the world, the Organization is addressing potential problems associated with the Y2K phenomenon. While much has been done during 1998 to minimize the impact of Y2K, particularly in terms of infrastructure and equipment, work still needs to be completed in validating, testing and preparing contingency plans for all critical activities that must continue to operate even if technology fails. The Y2K problem is in fact a complex business problem that will affect all aspects of the Organizations operation.

With less than 200 days until the turn of the millennium, it is now recognized that not all Y2K problems will be identified and remedied before the deadline. Priority is therefore given to mission-critical operations of the Organization to ensure that they can be operational after 1/1/2000, irrespective of outside constraints.

Since February of this year, with the assistance of a specialized vendor, we have conducted a Year 2000 Risk Assessment Study. The first phase of the study, the Inventory Phase was completed in March 1999, and the second phase (Risk Assessment) will be completed at the end of June. In addition, we are also following up with software and hardware vendors to obtain Y2K compliance certifications of their products.

With respect to embedded systems/microprocessors, we have written to all our business partners, service and infrastructure providers in February 1999 to request certificates of compliance of all equipment, systems and services and requesting assurance that in case they were not Y2K compliant that the supplier/service providers are taking the necessary actions to achieve Y2K conformity and have a contingency plan to resolve any problem. As of the date of this report, about half our business partners responded. We have also organized a half-day seminar with our major vendors on 25 May 1999. We have also completed an assessment study of all embedded building equipment and systems, floor by floor, building by building. Detailed contingency plans in the facilities management area have being finalized at the end of May. Testing will take place from 15 June to 31 July 1999. Required staff were informed to avoid, to the extent possible, scheduling vacations between 20 December 1999 through 7 January 2000.

Big snip

-- Brian (imager@home.com), June 30, 1999

Answers

I love this guy. Check out the contradictions:

With less than 200 days until the turn of the millennium, it is now recognized that not all Y2K problems will be identified and remedied before the deadline. Priority is therefore given to mission-critical operations of the Organization to ensure that they can be operational after 1/1/2000, irrespective of outside constraints.With less than 200 days until the turn of the millennium, it is now recognized that not all Y2K problems will be identified and remedied before the deadline. Priority is therefore given to mission-critical operations of the Organization to ensure that they can be operational after 1/1/2000, irrespective of outside constraints.

(Problem is recognized, focus is needed)

To ensure continued operational readiness of the United Nations, mission critical business functions have been identified. For each of these functions, the required internal services and external dependencies have been identified. Most of these functions require services from several offices in the Secretariat and from external service providers.

Assuming the highly unlikely scenario of a full disruption of services as a result of the Year 2000 problem, the minimum functional requirements for each critical business process which must be met were specified. The Year 2000 Team and the Management Group, in cooperation with the various Departments of the Secretariat, will take all necessary steps to ensure that the United Nations will maintain operational readiness at the specified level even if the worst case scenario will materialize.

(Aw come on, you know what happens when you assume.)

Since the last meeting of this Group in December 1998, the United Nations has come a long way in its prepardness for the transition to the next millennium. A lot of work still remains to be done but I am confident that the United Nations is going to be fully and timely prepared.

(Smiley, happy face contradicts mission-critical focus.)

While I am reasonably confident concerning our ability to cope with internal Y2K-induced problems, our risks must also be addressed both on a geographic basis and with respect to external constraints. We are very conscious, however, that this is not enough as serious and well informed sources are generally on the cautious side as they perceive risk to be on the high side in a large number of countries where we operate and the potential for a domino effect as failures propagate from one area to another.

(Of course, our constituents in the third world are -bleeped- but hopefully it won't affect us here in NYC.)

(I guess it's time for some of the countries in the U.N. to put their heads betweeen their knees and kiss their asses good bye.)

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), June 30, 1999.

---

Moderation questions? read the FAQ