The OECD Observer
January 1999, No. 215

 

Global Year 2000 Summit
By Daniel Blume

 

The OECD and several other international organisations and associations joined forces for the Global Year 2000 Summit in London last October, to call for stronger action to address the Year 2000 problem.

Also known as the millennium bug, or Y2K for short, the year 2000 problem stems from computer systems and embedded chips contained in a range of electronic devices that recognise only the last two digits of any year, leading in many cases to the misinterpretation of the year 2000 as 1900. Misreading of the date could lead to data loss or malfunctioning of computers, industrial control systems and other technologies, with potentially widespread impacts across the economy and government services. The costs of the millennium bug fall into two main categories—the direct costs of a fix where there is known to be a problem (these have been estimated to be around $300-600bn worldwide) and the potentially higher costs of the disruption caused by failure to achieve compliance.

The OECD has already prepared reports on the issue and the London summit was further testimony to how seriously Y2K is being taken. It was the first meeting to bring together such a broad coalition of internationally active governmental and private sector groups on the issue: the OECD, the United Nations, World Bank infoDev programme, Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation Telecommunications Working Group, Pacific Economic Co-operation Council, the Joint Year 2000 Council (in association with the Bank of International Settlements), International Telecommunications Users Group, the International Chamber of Commerce, and the World Information Technology and Services Alliance. More than 300 people attended from the public and private sectors, and at least 35 countries were represented.

The summit called for stronger global co-ordination and leadership, cross-sector dialogue and awareness-raising, and assistance for developing countries. It also highlighted two areas where action appeared to be lagging: small and medium enterprises, which are generally acknowledged as the least prepared part of the economy, and the development of international contingency planning. On the latter, many countries have not yet begun to develop such plans, despite the need to ensure the continued functioning of businesses and services in the event of possible disruptions in energy, utilities, telecommunications or transport.

Risaburo Nezu, director of science, technology and industry at the OECD, described the potential economic and sectoral impacts of the ‘bug’, and the actions that governments are taking to deal with it. Finally, he called on governments to play a stronger role in promoting action economy-wide and to accelerate their own preparations within the public sector.

 

OECD Bibliography

The Year 2000 Problem: Impacts and Actions, 1998
(http://www.oecd.org/puma/gvrnance/it/y2k.htm)

Vladimir López-Bassols, ‘Y2K’, The OECD Observer, No. 214, October/November 1998.
(http://www.oecd.org/publications/observer/214/y2k_eng.htm)