Professor Nathan Rosenberg

Workshop participants, including invited international experts and delegates from OECD member countries, will then discuss the roles of social sciences in the context of rapidly progressing innovation in the new millennium. The first plenary session, chaired by IIR Director Seiichiro Yonekura, will focus on "Promoting Innovation." The second, chaired by UNU Rector Hans van Ginkel, will consider "Innovation, Science and Society." Three working groups will meet to examine issues of technological innovation, social innovation, and the societal impacts of innovation. 

Click here to see the complete programme. For further information, contact UNU Public Affairs.

Conference Delegates Discuss
Ethics of Gene Research

Gene research, affluence and poverty, national reconciliation and religion and culture were among the focus issues discussed at the International Conference on Global Ethos held at UNU Centre, Tokyo, October 24-26.

The conference was organized by UNU Centre and UNU Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU/IAS) as part of the UNU contribution to the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations: 2001. It is also a major source of input into the ongoing IAS project exploring the relationship between global ethos and sustainable development.

The conference brought together academics, practitioners and thinkers from all over the world to contribute to a global dialogue focusing on current issues and dilemmas that challenge traditional values and ethics frameworks in four thematic areas:

1. Global Capitalism and Sustainable Development

2. Science, Knowledge, and Ethics

3. International Society, Justice and Equity

4. Religion, Gender, and Culture. 

Background papers can be viewed at the conference website.

Thousands of human casualties and tens of billions of dollars in economic damage will continue to befall the world's developing countries every two to seven years until an investment is made to improve forecasting and preparedness against El Niño, a new international study warns.

The study, a joint project of UN University, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the US-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), says more reliable El Niño forecasts and the capability of governments to react quickly to them are critical. In the absence of such capabilities, vulnerable people, infrastructure and economies in many parts of the world will continue to suffer periodically from El Niño's wrath - floods, fires, drought, cyclones, and outbreaks of infectious disease.

Flood cleanup in Bangladesh during the 1997-98 El Niño

The creation of regional organizations to prepare collective responses to El Niño is one of the key recommendations from the 19-month study developed by teams of researchers working in 16 countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The research was made possible with the support of the United Nations Foundation through the UN Fund for International Partnerships.

The study says few forecasters came close to forecasting El Niño's onset in mid-1997 and none were able to grasp the magnitude of the "El Niño of the Century" until it was well under way. National and regional forecasters typically provided predictions of El Niño impacts that in many cases were too general to be used with confidence by national and local decision makers. In some places, authorities were forced to make vital and costly decisions with uncertain - and in some cases misleading - information about El Niño's expected punch.

"El Niño is not a freak occurrence - it recurs every two to seven years on average and is becoming an increasingly predictable part of the global climate system. We need to accelerate our understanding of it and be better braced to deal with its devastating consequences," said Hans van Ginkel, UN Under Secretary-General and Rector of UN University.

Said Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program: "Too little is happening in developing countries to prepare for the next El Niño, despite having endured devastating damage and deaths in 1997-98. Developed countries have a moral obligation to help affected nations prepare for and minimize El Niño's setbacks in their battle against poverty and disease."

While there may have been reasons to excuse the lack of appropriate responses by governments, industries or individuals to the 1997-98 El Niño, the story should not repeat itself when it comes to the next El Niño events, said Dr. Michael Glantz, Senior Scientist at NCAR and the report’s principal investigator.

New Directors Appointed
to WIDER and IAS 

UNU Rector Hans van Ginkel has announced the appointment of new directors for the UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER) in Helsinki and the UNU Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU/IAS) in Tokyo. 

Professor Tony Shorrocks

Photo by Kimmo Brandt

Professor Tony Shorrocks will take over as Director of UNU/WIDER on January 1, 2001. Professor Shorrocks is currently a Visiting Professor at New Economic School in Moscow and Research Professor at the University of Essex.

Professor Shorrocks is a leading scholar in the field of income distribution. His research has focused in particular on the methods of measuring and analyzing inequality, poverty, income mobility and living
standards. Numerous papers on these topics have appeared in international economic journals including Econometrica, Review of Economic Studies, Economic Journal and Economica. 

More recently he has been working on the social problems facing Russia in the post reform era. In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society.

Professor Zakri Hamid

Professor Zakri Hamid, currently Deputy Vice Chancellor at the National University of Malaysia, will become Director of UNU/IAS at the beginning of next year. 

Prof. Zakri received his Ph.D. in Genetics and Plant Breeding from Michigan State University in 1976.  Since then he has worked at the National University of Malaysia, where he was made a full professor in 1986. He has published extensively on the issues of genetics, plant breeding, biotechnology and biodiversity. 

Increasingly in recent years he was worked as an academic administrator at the National University of Malaysia. He has served as the head of department of genetics, dean of faculty of life sciences and, since 1992, as deputy vice chancellor.

Prof Zakri also has extensive policy experience at the national and international levels. Since 1999, he has been the interim Chair of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a major undertaking to assess the world's ecosystems.

Attractive New INTECH Web Site
Faster, Easier to Use

The UNU Institute for New Technologies in The Netherlands unveiled its newly enhanced, user-friendly website November 1.

This attractive new site is built with a main menu on top and sub-menus on the right. The structure and size of the new site, designed by the UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research, makes it easier to use for visitors with small displays and slow Internet connections.

WIDER Angle focuses
on challenges of IT

The profound global changes being produced by the "weightless economy," the development of national Information Technology policies in developing countries, and the challenges of making information available and affordable for all, are among the issues addressed by prominent international researchers in the latest issue of the WIDER Angle newsletter.

The 16-page newsletter is produced by the UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research in Finland. Several new books, working papers and other publications from WIDER can
also be reviewed online at http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/publications.htm and
http://www.wider.unu.edu/research/research.htm.

For more information, contact Ara Kazandjian.

Application Deadline for UNU
International Courses is Jan. 31

Those who wish to enroll for the 2001 programme should contact Wilma James (tel. +81 3-3499-2811, fax +81 3-3499-2828). More information and an application form are available from the UNU website.