A group of Y2K experts gathers Tuesday in Washington to discuss the global impact of the millennium bug, addressing growing concerns that too little is being done to acknowledge the international scope of the problem.
"There's no question that this is a global problem, and sometimes we Americans lose sight of that," said Jack Gribben, spokesman for the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, will host the event called Y2K: An International Perspective. Former Senator Sam Nunn, who is also heading up CSIS's Year 2000 task force, chairs the conference.
The speaker list includes Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah), one of the government's leading voices on the millennium bug, and Maria Livanos Cattaui, secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce. The director of the UK's Year 2000 program is also on the program.
The conference is the first of a series that will examine the millennium bug's potential impact on the world's economic and political stability. Specifically, the task force will focus on trading systems, financial systems, security, infrastructure, and litigation.
"Folks who are fighting for Y2K are constantly struggling to get involvement and action," said Phil Murphy, a Year 2000 analyst with the Giga Information Group. "They'd be a lot happier if the G7 would hammer this issue home rather than giving it the lip service it seems to get."
The interdependent nature of the millennium bug -- which Deputy US Defense Secretary John Hamre called the "El Niño of the digital age" -- requires the Herculean coordination of governments all over the world to ensure that each countries' computers and computer systems are compliant with one another.
Experts say international political and economic organizations have been slow to recognize the Year 2000 problem, but over the last few months they've made some progress.
Last week, for example, John Koskinen, President Clinton's point man on Y2K, wrapped a high-profile mini-summit in Japan with some of the nation's leading government and business leaders. The two countries have agreed to share information on solutions, testing, and contingency planning.
In addition to pursuing direct, country-to-country relations, Gribben said Clinton is also working through international groups to root out the bug.
Recently, the World Bank sent a letter to its member states urging them to take action on Y2K. What's more, the bank has been running a series of Y2K conferences designed to help developing nations deal with the potential crisis.
In September, Koskinen spoke with heads of the Organization of American States, a multilateral group representing countries in North, Central, and South America. Officials from the OAS are thinking of holding a hemispheric conference on Y2K.
And the United Nations officially acknowledged the Year 2000 problem in June when it issued a resolution urging nations to take action on the bug. In July, the UN followed that up by issuing guidelines designed to help member nations fix the problem.
The UN has requested that member states issue a regular Y2K progress report, the first of which is to be delivered later this month.
