亲爱的德明教授:
感谢您2002年6月25日的来信，邀请联合国教科文组织（UNESCO）作为贵校2003年11月6-8日主办的远程开放教育领域十所巨型大学校长峰会的共同发起方。
这一高层次国际会议要讨论的问题正是联合国教科文组织在教育领域的活动的核心，尤其与联合国教科文组织2000年4月在塞内加尔首都达咯尔举行的世界教育论坛所提出的全民教育目标以及缩小发展中国家与发达国家的知识鸿沟和数字鸿沟的目标一致。我们认识到，近年来迅猛发展的信息通讯技术，尤其是卫星通讯、大容量光纤通讯和因特网，大大强化了远程学习作为一种工具在终身学习和加强国际理解方面的力量。
因此我很高兴地同意联合国教科文组织作为这次峰会的发起方。相信这一峰会将为国际社会提供一个广泛的论坛，共同讨论在全球化的时代里开放大学所面临的挑战和机遇。我们期望着与你们共同探讨联合国教科文组织以何种方式在学术上与这次会议联系起来。
请接受我良好的祝愿，祝这一重大的活动成功！
Koichiro Matsuura
Dear Professor Deming,
Thank you for your letter of 25 June 2002 inviting UNESCO to participate, as a co-sponsor, in the Summit of the Ten Mega-Universities in the field of open and distance education, to be hosted by your University from 6 to 8 November 2003.
The Issues to be discussed at this high-level international meeting are very much at the heart of UNESCO’s programme activities in the field of education, particularly with a view to achieving the Education for All goals, as set by the World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000, and narrowing the knowledge gap and the digital divide between developed and developing countries. We are aware that the rapid progress of information and communication technologies in recent years, particularly through satellite communications, large capacity optical fiber communications and the Internet, has greatly expanded the power of distance learning as a tool for lifelong learning and international understanding.
I am therefore pleased to grant UNESCO’s sponsorship to this Summit, which will offer a wide forum for the international community to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing open universities in the globalization era. We look forward to exploring with you ways in which UNESCO may be associated intellectually with this meeting.
Please accept my best wishes for the success of this important event.
Yours sincerely,
Koichiro Matsuura
