UN Urged to Boost Global Science Capacity

A package of United Nations reforms, hammered out for weeks by the 191-member General Assembly, was to be considered by heads of state and diplomats meeting in New York last week to celebrate the UN’s 60th anniversary. During negotiations, several of the document’s points were either heavily diluted or eliminated entirely. Among the latter were nonproliferation and disarmament issues, which UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called a “disgrace,” one that he hoped would be corrected by the diplomats. A commitment to break down trade barriers was greatly weakened, but a strong statement declaring the UN’s condemnation of terrorism remained. The document’s section on development supported the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, which Annan touts as a strategy for eliminating abject poverty around the world. Leaders of global scientific, engineering, and medical organizations—including some in which the National Academies participate—called on the UN diplomats to boost international capacity in science, technology, and innovation to help achieve the millennium goals. The statement, which was signed by the heads of 11 international groups, also called for the need to reinvigorate universities in countries in which the university sector is weak and to create centers of excellence in science, engineering, and medicine. The statement concluded by stressing the need for the UN to beef up its institutional capability to address urgent science- and technology-based global issues.