The UIA has survived in a country overrun by two World Wars, and the following period in which international documentation was subject to considerable Cold War pressures applied through intergovernmental institutions to distort the realities with which individual organizations had to deal. Although the UIA does not associate itself with advocacy on particular concerns, in accordance with its documentalist culture, it exhibited strong resistance to efforts to curtail or misrepresent information from any sector throughout that period.

Underlying this century of exploration is the fundamental question of what to do with information on organizations and issues to enable action for the betterment of society – and how to enhance public understanding of the challenge. At the start of this new millennium, in a version of the knowledge society prefigured by its founder Paul Otlet, the UIA seeks the endorsement of the modern Internet community to continue this work in partnership with the civil society community in the operation and delivery of services to the dot.org community.