The purpose of these technical guidelines is to provide a practical framework for the creation and maintenance of United Nations web sites. These technical guidelines should not be viewed as a static set of rules and regulations, as they will be updated periodically to reflect the evolution and growth of the United Nations web site, and its underlying technology, as well as of the Internet itself.

Information note on the one.un.org website and email address.

This document provides UNICs with guidance on the development and maintenance of their websites. The guidelines include information on minimum requirements for content, design elements and accessibility. This document also provides information on tools, best practices, and other resources related to developing and maintaining UN websites.

These guidelines establish an administrative foundation and framework for maintaining the United Nations web sites and for the development and implementation of policies concerning Internet projects. These guidelines set out the procedures and objectives for disseminating United Nations materials over the Internet.

Following the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on 13 December 2006 (resolution 61/106), the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to progressively implement standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services of the United Nations System. To assist other departments and offices in producing accessible web content, those guidelines were prepared by a task force composed of members of the Web Services Section.

Interviews with senior website managers from OCHA, UNDP, UNICEF and the World Bank conducted by DPI's Evaluation & Communications Research Unit.

Survey of UNICs to assess their capacities in maintaining their websites and to discover how DPI/ICS might better support them.

This toolkit is for researchers and practitioners who wish to communicate to policymakers. The tools are therefore specifically geared towards the needs of researchers and practitioners in civil society organisations (CSOs), including development NGOs, research institutes, think tanks, universities and networks. The toolkit addresses the questions of how researchers and CSOs can best communicate evidence in order to inform or influence policy, to achieve their own stated development objectives, or simply to make their own knowledge accessible and understandable to a wider audience.

Barack Obama won the presidency in a landslide victory (by a margin of nearly 200 electoral votes and 8.5 million popular votes) by converting everyday people into engaged and empowered volunteers, donors and advocates through social networks, e-mail advocacy, text messaging and online video. The campaign’s proclivity to online advocacy is a major reason for his victory. Since the election, the social media programs adopted by Obama’s transition team have foreshadowed significant changes in how Obama, as president, will communicate with – and more importantly – through the mass of supporters who were collected, cultivated and channeled during the campaign. Obama wants to be the first president to govern with BlackBerry in hand; he will certainly be the first with a legion of 13 million advocates at his fingertips.

7 Steps to Better Email Fundraising & Communications