News 2007

Science with Africa

12 December - UNESCO is hosting a briefing session for Permanent Delegates and French institutions on 17 December as a first step towards developing new partnerships with African countries. Areas for potential cooperation include ICTs, science policy, life sciences, energy, climate change and agriculture. The briefing session is a preparatory meeting for a major conference on the theme of Science with Africa in March 2008 (see Events below) which is being hosted by the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the African Union, in collaboration with the private enterprise Intelligence in Science and UNESCO. The briefing session will take place at 2:30 pm in Room XIII at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. For details, please contact the focal points (s.nair-bedouelle@unesco.org, m.miloudi@unesco.org)

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UNESCO Report confirms science still dominated by men

10 November - A report launched today at the World Science Forum in Budapest by UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura confirms that science is still dominated by men. Although the participation of women in science at the higher levels of education has increased in the past decade in most parts of the world, three out of four researchers are still men, according to Science, Technology and Gender. The international report notes that there are multiple causes for this gender imbalance, which affects both developed and developing countries. Causes include problems of discrimination and the fact that work days do not accommodate family life. Gender discrimination practices are particularly detrimental for the many developing countries with low numbers of researchers overall.
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The state of science and technology in Pakistan to dominate TWAS General Meeting

8 November - The 18th General Meeting of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) will take place on 13-14 November in Trieste, Italy. More than 180 scientists from 50 countries are expected to attend.
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Investing in Knowledge: Investing in the Future”: focus of World Science Forum

7 November - How can we make sure scientific knowledge continues to drive development in our societies? How can the need to invest in the sciences be brought to the attention of governments? What measures must be taken to give new generations of scientists the means to face future challenges? These are some of the questions that will be raised during the World Science Forum held from 8 to 10 November in Budapest (Hungary), around the theme of Investing in Knowledge: Investing in the Future.
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For Tanzanian President, country’s new science policy ‘rhymes with changed times’

23 October - Yesterday, the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, addressed the 34th session of UNESCO’s General Conference in Paris, where 193 Member States are meeting to adopt the Organization’s programme and budget for 2008-2009.
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Executive Board adopts three flagship projects for Africa

15 October - On 10 October, UNESCO’s Executive Board adopted the Plan of Action for Africa proposed by the Director General of UNESCO with emphasis on three flagship projects. These are: the initiative for capacity-building in science policy; science, technology and engineering education; and the establishment of an African Virtual Campus. In light of the Board’s decision, UNESCO will launch an African Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Initiative (ASTIPI) to develop national science, technology and innovation (STI) policies for the numerous African countries still lacking one. UNESCO will work with these countries to reform their science systems, in cooperation with the other UN agencies belonging to the S&T Cluster working with the African Union’s (AU) New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). UNESCO will mobilize the necessary expertise, in consultation with the AU and NEPAD, to train 100 specialists in policy analysis between 2008 and 2010. In parallel, an ASTIPI postgraduate course will be designed and implemented, short-term executive workshops will be run for senior government officials and an African e-library of science, technology and innovation policy will be set up. With regard to the other two flagship projects, the Executive Board requested the Director-General to ensure that that on science, technology and engineering education contributed to the revitalization of higher education and included the development of policies conducive to the retention of qualified personnel. As for the African Virtual Campus, it will be based on the model of the Avicenna Virtual Campus put in place in 15 Mediterranean countries by UNESCO between 2002 and 2006 with European Commission funding.

For background, see document 177 EX/16 (Englis, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese)

Read Science in Africa (English, French) on UNESCO’s contribution to Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action to 2010, distributed to Heads of State and Government at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa in January 2007.

Go to the website of the Avicenna Virtual Campus (English and French)

Education and development to take centre stage at General Conference

4 October - The 34th session of the General Conference, which every two years brings together the Member States of UNESCO, will open on 16 October in Paris under the chairmanship of Musa Bin Jaafar Bin Hassan (Oman) and will continue till 3 November. Two ministerial round tables – on education and on science – a youth forum and an international civil society forum are on the agenda of the session. Close to 2,000 participants are expected, including numerous ministers and some ten heads of State and government * who will take the floor before representatives of the Organization’s 192 Member States. (More)

UNESCO and OECD strengthen cooperation

11 September - The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, and the Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation for Development (OECD), Angel Gurria, signed an agreement on 7 September reaffirming and strengthening the relationship between the two organizations, which dates back nearly half a century. Messers Matsuura and Gurria felt a revision of the original agreement in 1963 was necessary to take advantage of the current synergy, complementarity and exchanges of expertise between the two organizations. One of the fields in which UNESCO and the OECD currently collaborate is statistics. The OECD contributed statistics to the UNESCO Science Report 2005, for instance, and has also launched a World Education Indicators programme with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

On Friday, Messers Matsuura and Gurria discussed ways and means of developing new indicators and initiatives applicable to developing countries. They also spoke of extending cooperation into other fields, notably in science policy formulation and the development of innovation strategies for developing countries; they agreed to have bilateral contacts to strengthen their cooperation in these areas; they also exchanged views on cooporation on issues related to freshwater, bioethics and the use of information and communication technologies.

Science policy review in Mauritania

11 June - UNESCO and UNCTAD will be fielding a first mission to Mauritania from 22 to 28 June, as part of a science policy review they are conducting jointly.

For details, contact Mustafa El-Tayeb.

Ethiopia launches new science and technology policy

8 June - Ethiopia is to launch a new national science and technology policy (S&T) in Addis Ababa on 26-28 June. The launch marks the end of a review of the existing policy (adopted in 1993), undertaken by the government with UNESCO support. The review recommends that S&T policy be seen as part and parcel of the country’s overall development plan and that research in the social sciences be integrated in national development priority programmes. It also recommends that at least 1.5% of GDP be allocated to S&T annually. (More)

For details, contact (in Addis Ababa): Nureldin Satti.

Nigerian monarchs to visit UNESCO

15 March - Three Nigerian Monarchs, His Imperial Majesty, the Ooni of Ife, His Royal Majesty, the Emir of Kano and His Royal Majesty, the Obi of Onitsha, have agreed to support initiatives focused on science and technology in Nigeria. As part of the preparatory process for a new programme, the Monarchs will visit UNESCO headquarters and the Ecole Polytechnique in Palaiseau near Paris (France), on Tuesday, 20 MarchAfter receiving the Monarchs in his office, the Director-General will open a Dialogue Session on the Role of Monarchs in the Development of Science and Technology in Nigeria. The opening ceremony will commence at 10h15 in the Executive Board Meeting taking place in Room X of UNESCO’s Fontenoy building. For details, sc.stp@unesco.org or ring 331 4568 4135 or 4187.

Media Advisories - Avis aux médias

UNESCO reiterates commitment to Africa’s Plan for science and technology

1 February - In his Address to Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) at the African Union Summit on 29 January, UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said that UNESCO would be at Africa’s side in translating the ‘visionary ambition’ of Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action into ‘concrete results’. He then proceeded to highlight areas in which UNESCO could contribute to implementation of the Plan. These include putting in place governance systems to ‘enable African countries to harness and share their resources to lead scientific research’. Citing the UNESCO Science Report, he recalled that South Africa was currently responsible for 90% of expenditure on R&D in sub-saharan Africa. ‘Most countries will therefore need to make major new investments if the 1% target [endorsed at the Khartoum Summit last year of devoting 1% of GDP to R&D] is to be met. The target marks an important step forward’, he added, ‘but enhanced domestic funding must in turn be matched by increased international aid’. In this connection, he expressed strong support for the establishment of an African Fund to provide multi-year funding for implementation of the Plan. Explaining that more detailed information about UNESCO’s contribution to the Plan could be found in the brochure Science in Africa distributed at the Summit, Mr Matsuura went on to outline UNESCO’s work in developing capacity in Africa in, inter alia, biotechnology, biodiversity conservation and satellite remote sensing for environmental monitoring. Among UNESCO’s strategies for developing human and institutional capacity on the continent, he cited UNESCO’s work with UNEP and the NEPAD secretariat to develop a network of centres of excellence in water science in Africa and UNESCO’s Avicenna Virtual Campus, which ‘UNESCO is working to see how [it] could be expanded to cover all of Africa’. The African Union Summit, which wound up on 30 January, had as its special theme Science, Technology and Innovation for Africa’s Socio-economic Development. Read the Address (half in English, half in French).