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Paris, May 1997
Original: English
Table of Contents
II. Development of MOST Activities: Bottom-up and Pro-active Strategies III. Regional and Sub-regional Meetings IV. Thematic Development and Meetings V. MOST Co-operation with other UNESCO Programmes VI. The MOST Clearing House and the Best Practices Data Bank VII. Capacity-Building VIII. MOST National Liaison Committees IX. Research-Decision-making Linkages X. Funding Strategies XI. Mid-Term Evaluation XII. MOST Publications XIII. The World Science Conference and the World Social Science Report XIV. The Draft Programme and Budget of UNESCO for 1998-99 (Draft 29 C/5) Annex II Annex III
I. INTRODUCTION1. This report covers the activities of the MOST Programme carried out
since the Second Session of the Intergovernmental Council (IGC), from 3
to 7 July 1995. 2. The implementation of such activities during the past two years has
been conducted, in the framework of the Organization's Programme and Budget
for 1996-1997 (28 C/5), and under the policy guidance and recommendations
of the IGC adopted at its Second Session. 3. The Secretariat has worked in conformity with the scientific authority
of, and in close co-operation with, the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC).
The first joint session of the IGC and the SSC, held on 3 July 1995, was
considered by all parties to be a positive experience. Hence, the Second
Joint Session will be held in the afternoon of 16 June, after the SSC has
held its Fifth session, from 12 to 14 June 1997, just before the IGC Session.
The document "SHS-97/CONF.203/16", prepared in conformity with
Article 18 of the Statutes, is the report of the SSC to the IGC. The Chairperson
of the SSC will make an oral report to the IGC, particularly on the Fifth
Session. 4. Three years and three months after its formal beginning, as of the
First IGC Session, in March 1994, the MOST Programme can be considered
to have completed its initial establishment phase. It is now a fully operational
programme, and has gained recognition as the fifth major Intergovernmental
Scientific Programme of UNESCO, along with the IGCP, IHP, IOC and MAB. The tasks and challenges ahead remain considerable. On-going projects
are to be sustained until their completion. New projects and networks from
regions where none exist yet, are to be established. The 41 National Liaison
Committees or Focal Points that currently exist will have to be multiplied
and their activities initiated and sustained. Special efforts are to be
made to transfer results produced by the projects to policy-makers and
other users, in order to contribute to societal problem solving. All this is to be achieved in a context of shrinking budgets for social
scientific research (nearly always the first to suffer from austerity measures),
in contrast with the universally proclaimed necessity to base social policy-making
on reliable information produced by the social sciences. Despite such constraints, the favourable response given by many Member
States and their social scientific committees to the MOST Programme leads
the Secretariat to think that through their increased support, the Programme
should be able to live up to the challenges ahead. The Director-General
is proposing in the draft 29 C/5, a MOST budget increased by a factor of
2.4, from $850,000 in 1996-97 to $2,000,000 in 1998-99. We would like to
think that the extra-budgetary resources, from the Member States, will
also increase in comparable proportions.
II. DEVELOPMENT OF MOST ACTIVITIES: BOTTOM-UP AND PRO-ACTIVE STRATEGIES5. MOST has started with bottom-up approach to building its activities.
As a result of an international information campaign, eight regional and
sub-regional meetings, as well as a considerable number of thematic meetings,
some 110 project proposals, were received, and evaluated by the SSC, which
accepted 17 projects (the list is provided in Annex II). MOST activities
(including these 17 projects, plus 4 pro-active undertakings) benefit from
the participation of research networks from 84 countries (please see the
map below). Participation in MOST projects
Total number of countries that participate in at least one MOST project: 84
Total number of countries that participate in MOST projects, including multiple counts: 156 The aim of such a bottom-up approach was: a) to allow the emergence
of significant research and policy trends in different regions, and b)
to provide the networks introducing the project with the necessary support
to develop international comparative research. On the whole, these bottom-up
and policy-relevant research projects made progress (with one or two exceptions),
despite funding difficulties. 6. Over the last two years, the pro-active approach gained increasing
importance among MOST activities. In the UNESCO, and more generally, in
the UN Inter-Agency contexts, this was expected by the Member States. Together
with the policy-relevant research projects, such action-oriented projects
respond to the long-term MOST objective of linking research and action. Through the regional and international MOST networks, which cover a
considerable number of countries and important topics, the Programme now
mobilizes high-level international expertise in its areas of activity.
Such a pool of expertise attracted attention and started to call for participation
in action-oriented, development projects in Member States. At the Inter-Agency level, MOST actively participated in HABITAT II
(Istanbul, June 1996), and organized one of the major meetings during the
Conference, on "Citizenship and Democracy in the City of the 21st
Century". MOST is now participating in the preparation of the UN Symposium
on International Migrations, to be held in 1998. The Programme will make
a major substantive and policy contribution to this Conference, mainly
through its Asia-Pacific Migration Research Network (APMRN). Coming after an active presence at the Copenhagen WSSD (March 1995),
such activities respond to the request made earlier by the IGC that MOST
participate actively in UN Conferences. MOST participates, in collaboration with the UNDP, in the elaboration
of the National Programme Against Poverty in Cape-Verde; in the development
of the Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan, particularly as regards ethnic conflict
prevention, and; in Bulgaria, on social exclusion and poverty alleviation.
With the UNFPA, population and migration projects are prepared in several
Central Asian countries. With UNICEF, and other partners, the project "Growing
up in Cities" is implemented, covering 8 cities in 7 countries. In
the field of urban development, several projects, developed with national
authorities and various donors, concern the socio-economic rehabilitation
of inner city areas and historic centres: in Quito, Tunis and possibly
Lima. Another important series of projects concerns socio-economic development
and freshwater resources in coastal cities, in co-operation with the natural
sciences (CSI and IHP) and other UN Agencies. The first project concerns
Essaouira in Morocco. MOST co-operates with the United National University on problems of
Mega-Cities. A first seminar concerned Asia megapoles (with Funds-in-Trust
from Japan). The next one is planned to concern Latin America. Still in the urban area, last but not least, there is the 6-year project
(1996-2001) "Cities: Management of Social Transformations and the
Environment", implemented through a co-operation between MOST and
MAB. Progress was made on the three operational sites: in Dakar, Port-of-Prince
and Sao Roque (near Sao Paolo). In the area of poverty elimination, two projects are implemented in
Burkina Faso and Laos, concerning the empowerment of rural women (with
ED, Women Co-ordination Unit, with UNDP funding). Another important pro-active project, which is planned to grow to become
a major international MOST project, concerns sustainability and sustainable
development. Its first phase, implemented through Funds-in-Trust from Germany,
in 1995-96, aimed at mapping-out sustainability as a social science concept
(going beyond the ecological dimension, as it is now universally agreed
that environmental sustainability depends on social, economic, demographic
and cultural factors). The next phase will be on Sustainable Development
Policies. In the field of multiculturalism, an action-oriented project is being
implemented in Kyrgyzistan, on Democratic Governance in a Multicultural
and Multi-ethnic Society F(with Funds-in-Trust from Switzerland).
III. REGIONAL AND SUB-REGIONAL MEETING7. The series of Regional Meetings has been completed with the holding
of the sub-regional MOST meeting in the English-Speaking Caribbean, in
Kingston, Jamaica, in February 1997. A synthesis of these meetings was
prepared (SHS-97/CONF.203/INF.3). These meetings were effective in mapping out the research and policy
priorities, as well as moblizing the research communities and generating
projects.
IV. THEMATIC DEVELOPMENT AND MEETINGS8. This is another type of pro-active function of the MOST Programme.
It consists in exploring new dimensions of the three MOST fields (multiculturalism,
cities and local-global linkages), as well as identifying some broad themes
cutting across these three fields. The way such explorations take place
is through the work of the on-going projects, as well as by organising
thematic meetings. One such major cross-cutting theme is sustainability and sustainable
development. This is a dimension present in practically all MOST projects
and it should be considered as a strong unifying paradigm of the whole
Programme. An important international symposium on this issue took place
in Frankfurt (November 1996). A second cross-cutting theme concerns poverty and social exclusion.
An international MOST symposium was held in San José, Costa Rica,
in January 1997), on Policies against poverty and social exclusion, organized
in co-operation with FLACSO, the University of Utrecht (Netherlands) and
the Costa Rica National Commission for UNESCO. MOST participates, as we
have seen above (para.6) in activities in this field and develops a Best
Practices Data Base on Internet (see para.11). A third theme cutting across the whole programme, concerns population
and migration issues, which keep their high-ranking on the global agenda. Governance is yet another cross-cutting theme for a programme interested
in policy-making and providing support to managing societal issues. An
International Symposium was held on this issue in Lausanne, in November
1996, in co-operation with the University of Lausanne and the Swiss National
Commission for UNESCO.
V. MOST CO-OPERATION WITH OTHER UNESCO PROGRAMMES9. MOST is one of the 5 major scientific programmes of UNESCO, together
with IGCP, IHP, IOC and MAB. At the 28th session of the General Conference,
a joint declaration of the Presidents of these 5 programmes was distributed. Joint activities are under way, through effective co-operation on several
projects, between MOST and CSI (Coastal Zones and Small Islands Project),
IHP (International Hydrological Programme), and MAB (Man and the Biosphere)
(see above para.6). and with the Co-ordination for Environment and Sustainable
Development Unit. With the Culture Sector, MOST co-operates in the follow-up
of the Perez de Cuellar Report (the 1998 Stockholm Conference on Cultural
and Media Policies). In the area of historic cities co-operation is under
way with the Cultural Heritage Division and the World Cultural Heritage
Centre. With the Education Sector, next to the rural women project in Burkina
Faso and Laos (see above, para.6), a project is planned as a follow-up
to the Delors Report (indicator development to measure the impact of education
on social exclusion).
VI. THE MOST CLEARING HOUSE AND THE BEST PRACTICES DATA BANK10. The MOST Clearing House: The two main functions of the MOST
Clearing House (on Internet) are to disseminate the results and recommendations
of the MOST programme activities, and secondly, to facilitate international
co-operation in the collective research projects with the MOST label. The following information functions and tools have been developed and implemented so far: - An electronic library of MOST publications, containing full text versions of the discussion and policy papers, the newsletters and the papers presented at conferences. All publications are presented on the Internet in the different languages in which they are available at the Secretariat, including English, French, Spanish and Russian. - A keyword search facility.- A central agenda, giving up-to-date information on activities of the MOST Programme and its projects. - A news service, to which users can subscribe to receive announcements concerning the MOST Programme in their electronic mailbox (announcements of conference, new publications, newsletters,...). - A discussion forum, allowing feedback of users on selected topics, publications of the programme and projects. - A reference service, giving direct access to the partners in the Clearing House network, and to general resources for social science research on the Internet. Usage: over 25,000 documents have been retrieved from the central Clearing House server in 1996 by some 6,300 users from 72 different Member States. Clearing House Network: A start has been made to establish the decentralized network of the Clearing House through the creation of a number of Internet services linkedm to MOST projects or partner NGOs: - Monitoring of Ethnicity, Conflict and Cohesion project;- The Asia-Pacific Migration Research Network APMRN; - The Centro de Estudios Municipales y de Cooperación Internacional CEMCI, and the Unión Iberoamericana de Municipalistas UIM; - The Community of Mediterranean Universities CMU, and the European-Mediterranean Network for the Social Sciences EUMENESS. A training seminar has been held in the framework of the MOST Clearing
House on the use of the Internet in the social science for information
manages in Latin America. The training seminar, which was organized by
CLACSO, has been fully conducted as a tele-workshop, with active participants
from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Republica Domincana,
Uruguay and Venezuela. Planned activities: In the coming period, all participating institutes in the MOST projects
will be connected to the research network. For each project a fully functional
web-site will be established to provide information on the project and
to facilitate the co-operation between the researchers. Technological and linguistic tools will be developed and implemented
to facilitate the collaborative work in the international projects (groupware). A discussion forum will be established on the three themes of MOST and
on priority policy issues such as poverty and social exclusion. Workshops will be organized in co-operation with NGOs to provide training
in the use of Internet for information managers in the MOST projects. The
training will focus on the use of Internet for the retrieval of up-to-date
information, as well as for contributing local information to the network.
Special training will be developed on the subject of transfer of scientific
knowledge and insight into policy development. Training will be offered to the different research teams in the MOST
projects in the use of statistical data for comparative analysis. 11. The Best Practices Data Bank: A start has been made to develop
a data bank on proven solutions to common problems in the management of
social transformations, so-called Best Practices. The major objective
of the data bank is to create a bridge between practical experience, research
and policy development. Best Practices refers to the cases in which creative
and sustainable solutions have been put in place, that provide substantive
responses to pressing social problems. The final goal of the data bank
is to contribute to the design of effective and acceptable policies by
offering a knowledge base that can inspire policy-makers to create new
solutions. The Data Bank will include experiences at the international, regional
and local levels. A Two Step Approach MOST will follow a two-step approach in the communication of the collected
date. The first stage will display the data as it is collected by UNESCO.
In the second stage the date will be assessed on its merits in the framework
of the MOST Programme. The purpose of this procedure is to determine what
makes the experiences successful and whether they could be recommended
for further application and be adapted to different contexts. The collected material will be diffused via the MOST Clearing House
on the Internet, and in printed form. MOST will implement the possibility
of interaction with the users in order to interconnect people in similar
situations and in order to expose the practices to comments and criticism. A Pilot Project in Latin America A pilot project has been undertaken in 1996 in co-operation with the
Unión Iberoamericana de Municipalistas UIM. The members of UIM,
mayors and high functionaries of cities in Latin America, have contributed
some 15 descriptions of successful policies concerning social exclusion
and social cohesion in their respective cities. The descriptions include
a general overview of the project and an assessment of the strengths, weaknesses,
and opportunities for replication or adaptation to other situations. The
information is completed by contact information and references to relevant
publications for further reading. The collected materials are currently
being processed and will eventually be made available on the Internet. Planned Activities: On the basis of the pilot study in Latin America, a final questionnaire
will be designed for the collection of descriptions of Best Practices projects.
Close co-operation will be sought with NGOs and networks in all regions,
in the respective areas of interest of the MOST Programme for the collection
and evaluation of the information. Plans are made to start developing a
Best Practices Data Base on ethnic and cultural conflict prevention and
resolution. Examples of Best Practices will be generated through the accepted MOST
projects. A public accessible information system will be developed on the Internet
as part of the MOST Clearing House, to provide access to the data bank,
and to allow feedback and discussion on the merits of each project described.
VII. CAPACITY-BUILDING12. Regrettably, the "MOST Travelling Summer School", one
of the 17 projects which were accepted by the SSC, could not start, for
lack of funding. The Secretariat continues its search for funding. However, several initiatives are being taken in the area of capacity-building.
One line that is followed, in conformity with the MOST IGC recommendations,
is to establish UNESCO Chairs and UNITWIN networks in MOST areas. The first
such Chair was established in Hungary at the Eötvös University
on minority and studies. A second Chair, on social transformations, is
being established at the Baku State University, Azerbaijan. It will be
the core of a Centre of Excellence, to train young social scientists in
modern research methods and techniques. Another Chair is planned in Mexico. A UNITWIN Network on "Global Education Network Initiatives"
(GENIe) was established to co-operate between MOST and the Co-ordination
for Environment Unit, in the third field of MOST. It includes 19 Universities
from 13 countries, in the field of global change of studies, sharing teaching
tools (a model called "Globesight"), information and data (see
MOST Policy Paper N°3). This model can also be used as a decision-making
tool. An 'on-the-job' training programme will be developed in 1998-99 for
young researchers participating in MOST projects and activities. Also a
MOST Ph.D. Prize will be established. An international project is being prepared in co-operation with the
World Bank's Vice-Presidency for Sustainable Development to renew the training
of city professionals, taking into account the recommendations of the HABITAT
II Conference. Yet another MOST training project will concern capacity-building
in social policy-making, particularly in the areas of poverty and social
exclusion.
VIII. MOST NATIONAL LIAISON COMMITTEES13. These NLCs, acting as focal points and animators of MOST-related
activities, constitute a fundamental part of the MOST Programme. The latter
is international in its goals and operations, but it is at the service
of the Member States and the NLCs are its building blocks. According to the Secretariat's current information, there are 41 such
NLCs: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Benin, Brazil, Burkina
Faso, Burundi, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland,
France, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Latvia, Libya, Malawi,
Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic
of Belarus, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand,
Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam, Zaire (now Democratic
Republic of Congo). Certain NLCs participated in MOST meetings: MERCOSUR Project meeting,
in Buenos-Aires, November 1996; the Circumpolar Region project meeting,
Tromsø, 1996; Drugs project meeting, Paris, 1997; meeting on social
policies, 1995. Two NLCs have started activities of their own: the Tanzanian NLC organized
a meeting on 'poverty and the environment'. The Croatian NLC obtained Participation
Programme funding, in 1996-97, and is starting a project on Multiculturalism
and Post Communism: Tradition and Democratic Process, through an international
conference in Dubrovnik, in November 1997. The Slovak National Commission,
in which the MOST NLC is situated, is preparing the 2nd European Social
Science Conference, in collaboration with other European National Commissions.
This Conference will be partly devoted to MOST activities in Europe. The
Viet Nam NLC is planning to organize a sub-regional workshop on "Management
of Social Development in the Context of Market Economy" in 1998, to
be funding through a Participation Programme request. The multiplication of such initiatives is vital for MOST. Should the
Member States, especially those of the MOST IGC, wish to consider introducing
Participation Programme requests (at the appropriate ranking so as to get
a favourable response) in order to initiate MOST-related activities, this
would multiply considerably the impact of MOST. If successfully conducted,
such national initiatives may grow, with the support of the MOST Steering
Bodies and Secretariat, into regional or international projects.
IX. RESEARCH-DECISION-MAKING LINKAGES14. This area is one of the main raisons d'être of MOST
(SHS-97/CONF.203/INF.5). The activities are conceived and planned to be policy-relevant, to involve
policy-makers and other users (NGOs, grass-roots movements, professionals),
to transfer results to the latter in useful and usable forms (including
in electronic format, through the MOST Clearing House). However, together with the above approach, there is a need to develop
a series of specific activities to make progress in this complex field,
which is difficult to measure and evaluate in terms of impact. A first specific activity was a workshop on social sciences and decision-making,
held in December 1995 at Bilkent University, in Ankara, Turkey. Other meetings
and activities are foreseen in 1998-99.
X. FUNDING STRATEGIES15. As can be seen in document SHS-97/CONF.203/INF.2, distributed to
the IGC members, MOST should get, if the budget under Draft 29 C/5 is approved
by the General Conference, next November, a regular budget of $2,000,000
for 1998-99, a significant increase from the $850,000 in 1996-97. The on-going projects and other activities have been getting extra-budgetary
support from Member States, at the level of some $1.7 million (not including
contributions in kind), over a period of 3 years. This is a valuable support
to MOST. However, given the scope reached by the Programme, it clearly
does not meet the need. The significant increase in the regular budget, foreseen in the Draft
29 C/5, which was earlier requested by the Member States in their responses
to the Director-General's questionnaire, in the Summer of 1996, is an indication
of the high priority MOST gets in UNESCO's programmes. We hope that the
Member States will favourably respond to this high priority status and
increase significantly their contributions to MOST activities. It is particularly important that MOST be considered in the Funds-in-Trust
arrangements that the Member States conclude with UNESCO. The Secretariat also made an attempt (exposed in the above-mentioned
document) to reach the funding sources that support action-oriented development
projects. We would appreciate the opinion of the IGC members on this strategy,
and generally their views and position on the extra-budgetary funding of
MOST.
XI. MID-TERM EVALUATION16. The MOST Feasibility Study prepared in 1992 and supported by the
Executive Board foresaw a mid-term evaluation after 4 years, and a full
evaluation after 8 years of operation. The mid-term evaluation will be conducted in the first part of 1998. The comments and suggestions of the IGC members will be very valuable
in finalizing the Terms of Reference of this exercize (SHS-97/CONF.203/INF.4).
XII. MOST PUBLICATIONS17. The MOST Newsletter is now in its eighth issue. Budget constraints did not allow us to keep a quarterly rhythm for this useful publication. Some books came out of the projects. Others are to be published later this year, particularly on cities and environment, and on socially sustainable cities. Policy Papers and Discussion Documents series continue. Arising out
of MOST activities, an issue of the ISSJ was devoted to cities in
1996, and other such issues in 1998 will be on multiculturalism and on
governance. Later, there will be one on globalization. A list of MOST publications
is provided in Annex III.
XIII. THE WORLD SCIENCE CONFERENCE AND THE WORLD SOCIAL SCIENCE REPORT18. As MOST will contribute to these two important activities foreseen
in the Draft 29 C/5 (para. 02013 and 02022), the Secretariat wishes to
inform the IGC. The World Science Conference, to be held in 1999, will concern the issue
of how the progress in all sciences can better be put at the service of
societal development. Given such a goal, the social sciences should participate
in the WSC as core partners with natural sciences. Problem-solving in today's
complex environment requires that the natural and social sciences develop
common agendas, methods and procedures to assist policy-makers. At this
stage, however, we still do not know what the status and participation
of the social sciences will be in this Conference. 19. The World Social Science Report, to be published in 1999,
will be the first of its kind (following the World Science Report,
the World Education Report and the World Communications Report).
The twentieth century has seen extraordinary advances in the social sciences.
They have taken place at the level of theoretical constructs, but also
at the levels of methodology and of data generation and management. The
social sciences can now be regarded as comprising a fabric of concepts
and testable theories, rapidly expanding pools of records and information,
well-established rules of procedure, and world-wide networks of supporting
institutions. The World Social Science Report will be in part descriptive,
giving information, quantitative as far as possible, on the production,
consumption and transmission of the social sciences in the countries of
the world; in part substantive, reviewing the state of play in the various
social sciences; in part problem-oriented, looking at their applications
to practical problems in the world today, and in part reflective, considering
the place of the social sciences in the worlds of knowledge and of action. The Report will be prepared in four phases. In the first phase,
consultation meetings will be held to conceptualize further its overall
articulation, secure the good will and potential participation of world-class
scholars, and establish a scientific editorial committee. In the second
phase, the scientific editorial committee will advise UNESCO on precise
themes and authors for the sections and chapters, on the basis of which
texts will be commissioned. In the third and fourth phases, texts will
be received, edited, and seen through to publication.
XIV. THE DRAFT PROGRAMME AND BUDGET FOR 1998-99 (DRAFT 29 C/5)20. The text of the Major Programme II, which includes the MOST programme is provided in Annex I, for the use of IGC members during the discussions of the Third IGC Session.
Annex IIDevelopment of MOST Projects Approved by the SSCI : Management of Multi-cultural and multi-ethnic societies
Countries concerned :
Australia (co-ordinating country), Fiji, Hong Kong, Indonesia,
Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, People's Republic of
China, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand.
Countries concerned : This programme is being undertaken by a network of teams from France, Russia, the CIS, Hungary, the Balkans, the Maghreb, USA, Canada and Chile.
Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia.
The project has started very well through the support
of the MOST programme and one other funding agency.
Countries concerned :
The first 12 countries are: Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Gabon,
Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Republic of South Africa, Rwanda, Tanzania,
Uganda, Zaire.
Cities involved :
Comparative research will be carried out simultaneously in Birmingham,
Leicester, Brussels, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Zurich, Rotterdam,
Lyon, Marseille, Barcelona, Milan, Vienna, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Countries or areas concerned : Twelve cities involved in the project are:
Countries and/or areas concerned :
Africa, the Arab region, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France,
Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Latin America, Russia, Spain, United
States.
Urban data base : the
constitution of an urban data base, realised at the French Institute,
represents an important research tool which is open for consultation
to all the participants of the project.
Countries and/or areas involved :
Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal; Latin America
and the Caribbean: Argentina, Brazil, Cuba; Europe:
Bulgaria, Poland; and Switzerland.
Countries and/or areas concerned :
This project stretches across four countries and two continents:
country teams in Asia are located in Thailand and Vietnam; those
in Latin America in Argentina and Bolivia. Madagascar, Turkey,
Benin and Algeria joined the network in 1996.
Countries and/or areas involved :
This regional project includes Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,
Paraguay and Uruguay.
Countries concerned :
In its initial phase, the project is being developed by a network
made up of the centres of the Latin American Faculty of Social
Sciences - FLACSO - in Argentina, Chile and Mexico.
Countries and/or areas involved :
The core team of the project will include a group of leaders of
national teams preparing the Human Development Reports which are
published by UNDP (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania). Other
countries involved in the project are Austria, Germany, Russia
and Latvia.
Countries or areas concerned :
Canada, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland,
Norway and Russia.
Countries and/or areas involved :
Prominence is given to the research conducted in five geographical
areas linked to five large countries: Brazil, China, the Republics
of the former Soviet Union, South Asia and Nigeria. The project
will support the formation of teams in these regions and will
concentrate a large proportion of the research effort on them.
Countries or areas involved :
Albania, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan et Palestine, Morocco, Tunisia
and Turkey.
1. MOST Summer School No progress, no funds were yet obtained.
Annex IIILIST OF MOST PUBLICATIONSMOST Discussion Papers
The MOST Discussion Papers series publishes contributions
from specialists in the MOST research fields. These papers are
prepared as part of the international scientific debate on these
questions. The following titles are available:
2. Managing Social Transformations in Cities. Céline Sachs-Jeantet, 1995. 3. Differentiating between growth regimes and the management of social reproduction. Pascal Byé, 1994. 4. Urban Research in Latin America. Towards a Research Agenda. Licia Valladares and Magda Prates Coelho, 1995 5. Management of Multiculturalism and Multiethnicity in Latin America. Diego A. Iturralde, 1995. 6. Lo global, lo local, lo híbrido. Aproximaciones a una discusión que comienza. Heinz R. Sonntag and Nelly Arenas, 1995. 7. Reflections on the Challenges Confronting Post-Apartheid South Africa. B. Makhosezwe Magubane, 1995. 8. Coping locally and regionally with economic, technological and environmental transformations. S. Jentoft, N. Aarsaether and A. Hallenstvedt, 1995. 9. City Partnerships for Urban Innovation. Francis Godard, 1996. 10. Management and Mismanagement of Diversity. The Case of Ethnic Conflicts and State-Building in the Arab World. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, 1996 11. Urbanization and Urban Research in the Arab World. M. Kharoufi, 1996 12. Some Thematic and Strategic Priorities for Developing Research on Multi-ethnic and Multicultural Societies. Juan Diez Medrano,1996. 13. The Information Technology Enabled Organization: a major social transformation in the USA. Thomas R. Gulledge and Ruth A. Hazsko, 1996. 14. La globalisation, les transformations sociales et les strategies de gestion : un projet de recherche pour le Programme MOST. Carlos R.S. Milani and Ali M.K. Dehlavi, 1996. 15. The new social morphology of cities. Guido Martinotti, 1996. Forthcoming in 1997:
17. Constitutional Design for Democratic Governance. Fred Riggs.
MOST Policy Papers intend to address decision-makers with
substantive contributions pertaining to issues currently given
priority on the international political stage. Their purpose is
to outline major contemporary and future social and economic challenges
and to formulate policy-oriented strategies for their management.
The following titles are available:
Forthcoming in 1997:
MOST Book Series
Forthcoming in 1997:
MOST Newsletter 8, June 1997.
The MOST Programme lays particular emphasis on multilingualism.
MOST Discussion and Policy Papers, the MOST Newsletter
in its brochure version, as well as the MOST Basic Texts and Project
Submission Guidelines exist in English, French and Spanish.
MOST publications are accessible to Internet users in all available
languages including English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian.
This constitutes a world-wide accessible digital library on the
MOST Programme and its themes. |
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