UNU International Courses (UNU/IC)

UNU/IC Participants,
Honoured Guests,
Colleagues, and
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me first of all extend my warm greetings and sincerely welcome you all to this Opening Ceremony for the 2nd regular round of our International Courses this morning. As Director of UNU/IC, I am particularly happy to see 58 young people from 32 countries who will be taking our courses this year. You have been selected out of more than 300 applicants, 50% more than last year's figure, and you have my deepest "congratulations".

The International Courses began two years ago as a pilot project at the strong initiative of Dr. Hans van Ginkel, the Rector of the United Nations University, and the late Prof. Hideo Sato, the then Senior Adviser to the Rector of UNU. As the first pilot phase had proven to be very successful, the UNU decided to formally launch regular International Courses as an integral part of its training and capacity-building activities.

Capacity building, along with research, is an important vehicle through which we contribute "to efforts to resolve the pressing global problems that are the concern of the United Nations and its Member States", as underscored in the UNU Mission Statement. The UNU carries out many different capacity-building activities at its Tokyo Centre as well as its Research and Training Centres/Programmes located in eight different countries, and at its more than twenty associated or cooperating institutions around the world. The substantive areas we cover include software technology, leadership, natural resources management, biotechnology, geothermal energy, fisheries, water assessment and international security.

More details of our capacity-development activities will be explained to you by Dr. Birgit Poniatowski later. What I should like to stress at this point is that the International Courses, the second regular session of which we are starting today, constitute a core of our capacity-building efforts in Japan. As in previous years, we would like to pay primary attention to the quality of lectures and teaching while maintaining a proper balance between theory and practice, between conceptual analysis and case studies. You will therefore find in the composition of the teaching staff a combination of scholars and practitioners.

On the basis of the last two years' experience, this year we are going to stress more on two-way dialogues between lecturers and participants rather than on one-way preaching. In order to encourage active exchange of ideas among participants, we have spared more time for discussions.

In the composition of our teaching staff we have included both scholars and practitioners. We have gathered together an interesting group of lecturers from various universities and research institutes inside and outside Japan, plus a number of NGOs and international organizations; United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, the UN Development Programme, the UN High Commissioner on National Human Rights Institutions, Economic and Social Research Foundation, Oxfam International and the European Forest Institute as well as the UNU.

For your use to prepare for classes and discussions as well as for final papers, we have made available to you computers and library. We have set-up a UNU/IC Secretariat and Wilma James and her assistants, Ms. Wakana Fukuda, Ms. Yumi Tomita, Mr. Fumihito Nagase will be available at the Secretariat to help you. We have also set-up a Computer Laboratory assisted by our IT Unit and Mr. Anthony Powers and his assistant Mr. Songuan will be available in the Computer Lab to assist you. We have installed more computers for use by the participants. We have decided to keep the Library and the Computer Lab open much longer than last time -until 8:00 p.m. on weekdays and until 4:00 p.m. on Saturdays. We have also made it possible for the participants to use the Library and the Computer Lab on the 9th and the 10th of June, the last weekend before the deadline for submission of the papers. Wilma will give you a tour of the UNU/IC facilities at the end of this Ceremony.

As we have done in previous years, we plan to video-tape all the sessions for the video-on-demand system to be installed in the Library. Future participants will benefit from this VOD system by reviewing past lectures. We also try to improve our teaching method by going through this year's courses.

In the UNU/IC Handbook you have received this morning, you will find most of the needed information. But we are prepared to assist you in any way. There are course counselors as well as course coordinators listed in the Handbook who will be ready to meet with you for consultation during the office hours or by appointment. You are expected to complete and submit a final paper for each course, the details of which will be explained to you at the beginning of each course. We consider the attendance in the lecture and active participation in discussions extremely important. Therefore, they will form the basis for grading together with the final papers. The final deadline for submission of the papers/essays is the 15th of June. Moreover, we always welcome your more informal comments and feedback because we are eager to improve our International Courses.

Once again, let me express how happy I am to see you all this morning.

I should stop here and let our next speakers explain their respective programme areas.

Thank you very much.

Prof. Yozo Yokota
Director, UNU/IC

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