ISSUE 41: MARCH-MAY 2006
network of research and training centres/programmes
FRONT PAGE | ARCHIVE |
UNU-CRIS makes presence felt at international policy forum
UNU Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS) made important contributions to the successful outcome of the International Forum on the Social Science – Policy Nexus held in Argentina and Uruguay in February.
The effort is acknowledged in the Buenos Aires Declaration, the official document released at the end of the four-day event which attracted more than 2,0000 participants from all continents including 13 Ministers of Social Development and Education from Africa, Asia and Latin America, five Secretaries General of regional organizations and numerous government representatives and local authorities, students, university professors and academics, project representatives and members of civil society.
UNU-CRIS organised several seminars on the social dimensions of regional integration during the forum and director Luk van Langenhove was a member of the international steering committee of the event, the first time that policy makers and researchers in the social sciences have been able to exchange experiences and think about forging a new kind of relationship.
The joint declaration, which was read out at the closing ceremony by the Argentinean Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Daniel Filmus, emphasises the need to extend "the Buenos Aires Process" and stresses the need for creating permanent and innovative spaces of dialogue, strengthening existing ones, generating new networks – in particular at regional level – and establishing a free-flowing dialogue between themselves and existing policy-making bodies such as the Forums for Ministers of Social Development.
Through 99 workshops, five high-level meetings and events, and two technical consultations, organized around five main themes and in four cities (Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Montevideo and Rosario), policy makers and social science researchers explored the strengths and weaknesses of their cooperation to see how they might work better together. The shared objective was to establish mechanisms for dialogue between two worlds that have common concerns but are unaccustomed to active collaboration.
© 2006 United Nations University