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The MOST Programme and the United Nations University through its Institute of Advanced Studies organized a workshop with senior urban planners, researchers and practitioners in the Pacific Asian region. The programme was held in Hong Kong and Tokyo in October 1996. Study cases, presentations, general discussions and field trips were some of the activities during the workshop. The workshop covered a selected number of study-cases, such as Bombay, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Jabotabek, Manila, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo, with emphasis on urban policy issues on housing, environmental protection, transportation, migration, social exclusion and poverty and public finance as well as new forms of co-operation between the central government and local authorities, as well as social and economic actors who participate in city governance. Megacities are the physical result of the economic and social organization. Their framework cannot be based on a model, but above all on the application of dynamic and complex processes. To understand this complexity was one of the major challenges of this seminar, brouht up thanks to the interactions, discussions and sharing of experiences between scholars from different disciplines, urban planners, policy makers and other city professionals from different countries in Pacific Asia. The main objectives were then, to analyse the impacts of globalization, particularly the linkages between cities and the structural and functional changes of mega-cities in the region, as well as to foster better linkages between training, research and policy making. The workshop was funded from the MOST side, through the Japanese funds-in-trust for UNESCO-UNU co-operation. We are trying to continue with a series of regional workshops on urban and social issues to be held in Africa and Latin America. Germán Solinís UNESCO MOST Tel. (33.1) 45.68.38.37 Fax (33.1) 45.68.57.24 E-mail: g.solinis@unesco.org

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