TEHRAN Cities have a crucial role to play in making science and technology work for the common good, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a message to a meeting of mayors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on Monday.

"The global test of technology will be to connect all the world's people with more equitable opportunities, and with another - for, in the end, it is the human network that sustains our progress and defines our success," the secretary general said in the statement delivered on his behalf by UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Kenzo Oshima.