Tools for 21st Century Diplomacy: An Approach to Improved Information and Communication Technology for Romania's Foreign Affairs Ministry

Abstract

Information gathering, analysis, interpretation, decisionmaking and dissemination--as well as the documentation of these actions--must be treated as critical business processes by government entities in the 21st century. According to a statement released by the United Nations Administrative Committee on Coordination during its fall 1996 session, communication and knowledge 'represent the life blood of the emerging global information society and its attendant infrastructure'. Thus there is a concomitant 'imperative to build human and technical capacities to enable societies to facilitate access to and make best use of the new multimedia resources'. For Romania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), whose missions are both domestic and international, such an imperative is particularly compelling. Networked digital technologies offer the prospect of closer ties to Western democracies and are instrumental in Romania's full integration in Euro-Atlantic institutions, with the potential to generate highly beneficial political and economic consequences. With support from the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, RAND engaged in an effort with the Romanian MFA to carry out a preliminary needs assessment and feasibility study for information and communication technology (ICT) modernization. The project set out to: (1) review and analyze the MFA's evolving missions and objectives for the conduct of foreign affairs during the period ahead, with an emphasis on the near-term future; (2) review and analyze the Ministry's current information and communication systems in relation to these missions and objectives; (3) develop requirements for modernizing these technologies to enable them to support and enhance the Ministry's worldwide and domestic goals; and (4) prepare specific information and communication technology (ICT) recommendations.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 2002
Accession Number
ADA405691

Entities

People

  • Robert Hunter
  • Robert S. Anderson
  • Tora Bikson

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Application Software
  • Commerce
  • Communication Systems
  • Computer Programming
  • Computers
  • Digital Communications
  • Electronic Commerce
  • Electronic Mail
  • Governments
  • Information Exchange
  • Information Systems
  • Internet
  • Network Protocols
  • Network Science
  • Online Communications
  • Organizational Structure
  • Relational Database Management Systems

Readers

  • Defense Technology Research and Development.
  • International Relations and European Studies
  • Strategic Security Studies