After 20 years of cooperation,

UNESCO and ISESCO sign up for more

16 May - The Director-General of ISESCO, Abdulaziz Othoman Altwaijri, and UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura signed a new programme of cooperation for 2006-2007 in Paris on 15 May. This falls within the framework of an official agreement signed between the two Organizations in 1984. After signing the agreement, which concerns 89 projects in education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, communication and external relations, Mr Matsuura expressed his "great pleasure" at the growing cooperation with ISESCO and stated that past agreements were "producing important results."

Among the success stories of recent years, one could cite the joint organization of the first International Forum of Parliamentarians in Helsinki, Finland, in 2003. The Forum recommended the establishment of regional science policy fora to facilitate an exchange of experiences and know-how in policy-making related to science, technology and innovation, science legislation and ethics, and the strengthening of partnerships between legislators, scientists, the media, civil society and the public and private sectors in developing national innovation systems. The Forum also recommended support for science parliamentary committees in emerging democracies. UNESCO and ISESCO have since cooperated in setting up regional Fora of Parliamentarians in the Arab States, South Asia and Western Asia. UNESCO and ISESCO have also cooperated in the creation of the World Academy of Young Scientists (Morocco, 2004), the Arab Network of Women Scientists (Bahrain , 2005), teacher training within UNESCO’s ongoing Global Project on Microscience Projects, which introduces low-cost scientific experimentation into schools, and the publication of the reference work Food Engineering (2005), to name just a few examples.