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United Nations Information Center (UNIC) |
| Activities of the UN Information Center in Moscow | |
Briefly speaking, the Information Center is the UN "voice" in Russia. The UN is not only the largest and central international organization. It is also quite an open organization, which aims at attaining maximum glasnost in its work. We are confident that the better the essence and specifics of the activities of UN family are understood in Russia, the more they are trusted and, consequently, the more this country aspires to cooperate with the UN. I view the achievement of necessary equilibrium in various spheres of work of the Information centre, a well-balanced approach towards different partners and auditoria in Russia as a primary task set before us. Actually, it is equally important to work in a serious and energetic manner with official circles and agencies as well as feed the media with news and interact with the scientific community and public at large. The Center's overreaching goal remains the same – it is to promote "educated" understanding of UN achievements and priorities in Russia together with ensuring a bigger contribution by this country to the United Nations' cause and putting UN experience and potential to a broad use to improve the life of Russians. However, this "framework" goal should be necessarily adapted and focused with due regard as to the needs of a concrete partner or interlocutor. |
A. Gorelik |
Therefore, the UN Information centre is the one that has many features. It is a UN news agency, a wealth of knowledge and global experience and standards in various fields – from environment to space – and no wonder, since we have at our disposal a compact, but impressive library (220 thousand different publications). Also, in a sense, the UNIC is a public relations service. Besides, we seek to constantly keep the Headquarters abreast of how the UN activities are perceived in Russia (the Center forwards its reviews of the Russian press to high-ranking UN Secretariat officials, highlighting assessments and opinions on key international issues). This is not all, of course, but I think I have mentioned the most important. It is natural, that the information and materials which we distribute is not only the “UN success story” in various fields. The focus of the UN work is on “crunches” in international life, painful problems of the humankind and the challenges to the security, health and material well-being that people nowadays are confronted with. We reflect the progress in the observance of human rights and dramatic conflicts, new dimensions of international law and the suffering of refugees, agreements in the field of environment protection and the measures taken in order to mitigate natural and man-made disasters. How do we view the possibilities for enhancing the output of our efforts? First, in “packaging” the information in such a way as to make it ultimately suitable for the needs of its users (i.e., to make it timely, more interesting and more responsive to the actual needs of the present times). Second, in making sure that our information products and our arrangements (including seminars, round tables, meetings on specific subjects) are tailored in such as way as to best suit Russia’s priorities i.e., those of her Government and civil society. Thus, we will pay greater attention to serving the needs of Russian regions and provinces, where the interest in the United Nations is very high. We also intend to establish more productive ties with Russian business circles. We hope that this intention will be bilateral. Third, the UN Information Center considers itself to be a natural part of the “country team” of UN organizations in Moscow, an orchestra “conducted” by the UN Resident Representative. This is why our intention is to constantly and energetically offer our partners from the UN family agencies our services in the field of public relations. What about the priorities of the Center in 1999. These are the UN International Year of Older Persons, the Special Session of the General Assembly on Population and Development “Cairo+5” and – something which is especially important in the Russian context – the Centennial of the First Peace Conference. Our philosophy is that man shall not live by the UN alone. But, without the UN, his life would be more complicated. |
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United Nations Development Programme |
| UNDP Finances Ecology Project in the
Bryansk Region April 1986 witnessed the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, one of the worst disasters in man’s history Together with Roshydromet and the Ministry of Natural Resources, UNDP is implementing the project “Water Quality Evaluation and Prediction in Areas Affected by the Chernobyl Accident (Bryansk Region)”. The project will be implemented for 36 months from 1997 to 2000. In the words of the national project director, Roshydromet First Deputy Head Yuri Tsaturov, the project provides for the study of the radioecological condition of surface and underground waters, and the prediction of possible changes in the quality of drinking water. Work is being carried out in the southwestern areas of the Bryansk Region, which suffered the most of all Russian territories as a result of the Chernobyl accident. The area under study measures some ten thousand square kilometers. The processes and characteristics of radionuclide transfer into the natural water sourses are still insufficiently studied. This requires a focus on key questions: determining the radionuclide content in water bodies, tracking the changes, and the detection of characteristics of radionuclide migration.
Expedition of the Typhoon Scientific and Industrial Association at the field base in Kozhany township, Bryansk Region. |
UNDP support for the project was decisive in obtaining new measuring and computing equipment, successfully carrying out the field and laboratory work, studies by personnel of the IAEA laboratory, and attracting highly qualified experts and professionals to perform all the tasks. Representatives of the regional administration in the affected areas, specialists in radiology, epidemiology, agronomy and forestry, as well as the local population, are all lending support to the project. The difficulties being experienced by the Russian economy have made implementation of the project more difficult. UNDP is contributing $285 thousand, and the state input comes to around $500 thousand, primarily for the supply of the project’s basic material needs (laboratories, monitoring networks, testing sites, transportation, analytical and other equipment), highly-qualified personnel, as well as the day-to-day financing of work on the radio-ecological monitoring of the environment including natural waters. The fieldwork of the 1998 season was successfully carried out through
the joint efforts of the project’s primary agencies (the NPO “Taifun”, VSEGINGEO and
the Bryanskgeologia GGP), with the support of UNDP. Water samples were taken from more
than 100 different locations, around 700 tests were done of surface and underground
waters, as well as ground and bottom sediments and flora. The main rivers – Iput, Besed,
Sozh, Snov, Demenka – as well as a number of springs, wells, boreholes, and deeper
underground waters used for the centralised water supply of cities and towns were all
sampled for radionu- |
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United Nations Development Programme |
First Masters Course on Human Development Opened in Moscow State University |
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The School of Economics, Moscow State University was the first higher educational institution to include human development in its Masters School curriculum. The Project is aimed at promoting the human development concept, its methods and applications among the best prepared and motivated group of future economists, researchers, public and business administrators. The human development concept, formulated by UN experts, is a people-centred concept that views people's needs and aspirations as the ultimate goals of development. Within the concept is the understanding that the quality of human life is not only measured by income. Knowledge, health, clean physical environment, security, political freedom, leisure and simple human pleasures are key factors that are not determined by purely economic indicators. The project started in 1998 with a three-month pilot masters course and the publication of the first textbook on human development. The project proved to be very successful and was presented in New York in April 1998 during the session of the UNDP Executive Board. Inspired by the success of the pilot course, UNDP and the School of Economics are now implementing a full project, which includes a full academic year HD masters course, a seminar for government officials and parliamentarians and a train-the-trainers workshop for the universities of Russia and the CIS, with a view of further replication of the course in the countries of the region. |
Lecture on Human Development by Prof. Terry McKinley (UNDP, New York) The curriculum covers the following topics: human development concept; economic growth, employment and human development; welfare: inequity and poverty; education and human development; health and life expectancy; human development and ageing of population; gender aspects of human development; sustainable environmental development; state, public sector and human development. Lectures are delivered by prominent Russian experts from the School of Economics, many of whom took part in the preparation of National Human Development Reports, as well as by international experts. There is a growing interest in Russia in the human development concept, previously very little known to the public and decision-makers of this country. This interest was clearly demonstrated during the Roundtable on Human Development held in the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the RF under the chairmanship of its Speaker Yegor Stroyev. |
Inter-Agency Assessment Mission to Kamchatka region and the Koryak Autonomous Area An inter-agency mission comprising WHO, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP and OCHA visited the Kamchatka Region on 16–22 February. The mission programme, arranged by the Government of the Kamchatka Region, included meetings with all relevant governmental ministries and site visits to a sampling of state welfare institutions. The mission also conducted a site visit to the northern settlement of Tigil and held discussions in Palana with the district administration of the Koryak Autonomous Area (KAA), situated 600 kilometers to the north of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky city. The mission found that the region’s isolation and the high cost of supply had exacerbated deficiencies in certain sectors, especially the health and energy sectors. In particular, the mission recommended that urgent assistance be supplied in the KAA which had not received sufficient quantities of food, medicines and heating oil during the summer supply period. Many of the indigenous population were currently subsisting on a sole diet of fish and reindeer meat to survive. The lack of heating was threatening many towns with the closure of state institutions. A combination of shortages of essential pharmaceuticals, the need for training in new health protocols, the initiation of preventive health campaigns and the lack of diagnostic equipment had contributed to the increase in the spread of communicable diseases, especially TB and STD. There was an obvious need for reform of the sector and the urgent provision of assistance. To address these needs, WHO would begin implementation of a project to supply pharmaceuticals in collaboration with UNFPA and UNICEF. UNDP is planning to expand a number of projects to develop tourism, geothermal energy, fish farming and bio-diversity. |
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