State Secretary Hans Olav Syversen, Ministry of Children and Family Affairs

Opening speech at the Eurodesk General Assembly

Oslo 3 ^rd> march 2005.

Dear Friends,

It is a pleasure for me to welcome you to Norway and Oslo to participate in the General Assembly of Eurodesk. Information is an important part of a coherent and integrated youth policy, both on European and national level. Eurodesk has an important role to play in this context. In addition to be one of the major information networks related to the European Union YOUTH programme, it is also a valuable contribution to information on national level in the participating countries. Norway has been a partner to the Eurodesk network since 1997 and it has been our policy to try to combine European information with national information to young people in our country. Information on international youth cooperation need to have a basis in national policies and in the national information services.

When the European Commission presented its White Paper on "A new impetus for European Youth", Information was one of the four main priorities. Norway is not a member of the European Union and has not been in a position to participate in the process implementing the proposals and ideas if the White Paper as the member states has had. Through our participation in the YOUTH programme and in the Eurodesk network as well as our national policy on youth information services, I am quite convinced that we in Norway are on the same level as the EU member states in fulfilling the aims and objectives established by the Council and the Commission.

In the UN Convention of the Right of the Child information to children and youth is also a central element. Public authorities have a duty to provide relevant and accurate information in order to give children and youth the possibilities to obtain knowledge about their rights and how to use them in everyday life. The Ministry has, in cooperation with the Directorate for Children, Youth and Families, some years ago established an Internet portal (ung.no) with a variety of information relevant for the young people in the country. This is the main information tool of the national authorities with children and youth as the target group. This portal is of course also covering information on international cooperation, including a link to Eurodesk.

The responsibility of implementing the national youth policy in Norway is to a large extend decentralised to regional and local level. You will therefore find a number of regional and local information services based on Internet. I will use this opportunity to mention one example from the northern part of Norway. The county of Nordland has established a regional youth information service, including a separate portal called Klara Klok - or Klara the Wise in English - which has an interactive function. Young people are addressing Klara Klok with questions on problems they have in their daily life and receive answers by qualified personnel. The questions and answers are handled with full discretion. This has been a very successful operation and a popular and much used opportunity for young people. This portal is now also available in the Sami language, which is used by the indigenous people in the northern part of Norway Sweden and Finland as well as parts of Russia.

Internet and other forms of electronic communication have to a large extend changed the world of information the last years. It is an easy and effective form of information and communication. We have however to keep in mind that Internet is not removing all obstacles to obtaining relevant information.

First of all young people need to have access to the new technology. Sometimes we take that as granted. But is not yet the case everywhere and by everyone in Europe. Therefore we need to provide youth information centres, youth clubs and the schools with computers and internet connection making it possible for young people to take advantage of the information services.

Secondly there exist enormous amount of information on the web, and it is not always easy to find the relevant sites. We need to further develop links between the various portals and web sites in order to simplify the search for information. I really hope you will take this challenge and promote better cooperation between the various information services. It is not necessary that everyone who wants to inform about their activities need to set up a separate Internet site. It is possible to have some cooperation.

Thirdly it is in my opinion very important to secure that the information presented at internet is updated and correct. This is probably one of the most difficult items to deal with. It is relatively easy to establish an information site, but it is a challenge to keep it updated. I can see that also when looking at both the internal and external information from the Ministry. To guarantee correct information is even more important. We often say that we should not believe in every thing we are reading about in the newspapers. I am convinced the same goes for many of the internet sites. You had this morning a meeting of a group dealing with quality of the information. This is important and I am convinced you are taking the question of accurate and correct information with high quality serious. In this context it is important to have organisations like Eurodesk.

A last item in this connection is the possibility of misuse of internet. Electronic communication and information open up many positive and valuable possibilities, but it gives also possibilities for negative and illegal use, and it is difficult if not impossible to control. We have seen numerous examples of criminal and illegal use of internet and other electronic communication tools. Pornography, especially child pornography is one example which we see and hear about often. The European Union has adopted a program or action plan on “Promoting safer use of the Internet by combating illegal and harmful content on global networks”. Norway is, through the EEA agreement, participating in this program and we have in cooperation with Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Ireland established a project, SAFT, which has proven to be very successful. SAFT stands for Safety, Awareness, Facts and Tools and is a virtual resource centre for exchange of information on how to make children and young people aware of how they can use internet in a safe and positive way. There are systems of informing about the more problematic and illegal areas like pornography, violence and racism. There is a system on information to the relevant police department on sites with child pornography and other forms of child abuse. There have also been developed programs to be used in school education. I would assume this system, which now has ended as a common multilateral project, would be of interest for you in your daily work at home.

Before ending my greetings to your meeting, I would like to touch one more item. Participation of children and youth is also a priority in the White Paper of the European Commission. We have the same priority in Norway and we have worked for quite some years to develop, support and promote various forms of participative mechanisms, especially at local level. One thing we have learned is that it is not existing one unique model for youth participation in the society. Each generation of young people have to find its own system. The most effective tools may be different in the different parts of the country. We would in fact like to see the variety and diversity of participation models and systems to be developed. To secure child and youth participation to work in practical life we also need to convince the adults to accept that they have to take the viewpoints of the young people into consideration. This goes for politicians, civil servants and the public in general. In Norway we very often make a precondition on public funding of child and youth projects and activities that the young themselves participate in the preparation as well as carrying out the project. This is also adequate for the work you represent. Youth information has to have close contact with its target group. The dialogue with and the participation of young people in deciding on the area and content of youth information is absolutely necessary for a successful result.

By these few words I would like to wish you all the best for the conference and that you will have good and constructive discussions during these days in Oslo. I hope you also will have time to see a little bit of the city and its surroundings. Especially since the winter has come to Oslo the last days, I would recommend you to use some hours up in the hills to a better impression of the town.

Thank you for your attention. Have a good Conference.