Competition “10 ideas for tomorrow's Africa” (deadline: 30 April 2010)

Within the framework of the 50th anniversary of African independence, the Social and Human Sciences Sector of UNESCO (SHS) is launching a “Call for Ideas” for prospective proposals in favour of Africa’s development within the next decade.

Among the proposals, which should be submitted before Friday 30 April 2010 at midnight (Paris time), 10 ideas will be selected by an international jury and presented by their author(s) during 10 small-scale conferences to be held at UNESCO Headquarters, in mid-June 2010.

These 10 contributions to the thinking on Africa’s future will also be published in a special issue of SHSviews magazine.

Each proposal is expected to develop one idea which would amplify the positive effects and reduce, or contain, the negative impacts of the major trends observed in Africa on one of the 10 following topics:

Topic 1: Economy and Development (Environment, Food Security, New Information and Communication Technologies…)

Topic 2: Governance, Policy, Institutions, Leadership

Topic 3: Regional Integration, Population, Migration, Urbanization

Topic 4: Cultural Identities (Languages, Religions…)

Topic 5: Youth

Topic 6: Human Rights, Gender and Justice

Topic 7: Diaspora

Topic 8: Peace, Security and Conflict

Topic 9: Health, Education and Social Development

Topic 10: International Relations

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"A Loyal Bushie Burrows Into Obama's System"

Source: Elana Schor, TalkingPointsMemo (TPM), January 23, 2009.

Dr. Kathie Olsen has resigned her politically appointed position of Deputy Director of the National Science Foundation and assumed a career position of "senior advisor" in the NSF's Office of Information and Resource Management. She was apparently a career Senior Executive Service employee at NSF in the 1990's. Dr. Olsen was trained as a neuroscientist and worked in that field for many years.

Before becoming deputy director of the NSF, Olsen was the associate director of the Bush White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy. Her immediate boss there was Bush science adviser John Marburger.

The TPM article suggests that in that position "Olsen was at the forefront of the former president's systematic denial of the human causes of climate change." It also suggests that stepping down from the number two position in NSF to that of "senior advisor" she was burrowing into a career position.

According to her NSF biography:

Prior to OSTP, Olsen served as Chief Scientist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (May 1999-April 2002) and the Acting Associate Administrator for Biological and Physical Research (July 2000-March 2002).

One might wonder how a neuroscientist became Chief Scientist for NASA. Perhaps the answer lies in her Congressional service:

According to her NASA biography:

From February 1996 until November 1997, she served as a Brookings Institute Legislative Fellow and then as a NSF detailee in the Office of Senator Conrad Burns of Montana.

Conrad Burns was a three term Republican senator from Montana who was powerful due to his place on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and his chairmanship of the Interior subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Burns was selected by Time as one of "America's Five Worst Senators." The magazine dubbed him "The Shock Jock" and called him "serially offensive" for his many controversial statements during his career, such as a 1999 remark in which he called Arabs "ragheads." The magazine also criticized his "meager" legislative record and his legal problems involving Jack Abramoff.

Burns' rating by major think tanks and political action committees included:

• American Conservative Union : 91%
• American Civil Liberties Union: 0%
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce: 94%
• National Education Association: 0%
• League of Conservation Voters: 5%
• Christian Coalition of America: 100%
• American Land Rights Association: 100%

So Dr. Olsen, a neuroscientist, worked for a very conservative senator and then was appointed to be chief scientist in an agency that his committees oversaw, went from that position to the Office of Science and Technology policy, and then to Deputy Director of NSF as a political appointee, and is now returning to a much less influential career position in NSF.

This history is presented here because Dr. Olsen was one of 15 people chosen to work with five UNESCO staffers on the UNESCO Overall Review of Major Programs II and III, the natural sciences and social and human sciences programs.

One might wonder why UNESCO -- which does not have a neuroscience program nor a space science program -- would choose a neuroscientist who had been chief scientist of NASA to review UNESCO's natural science and social and human science programs. Might it have been susceptible to influence from the political appointees of the Bush administration? Might the Bush administration have wanted a "politically reliable" member on that important panel?

I would note that Dr. Olsen's former boss, John Marburger strongly endorsed the recommendations of the panel when he represented the United States in Ministerial Roundtable in 2007.

Perhaps the Obama administration appointees dealing with UNESCO should quickly review the proposed revisions to UNESCO's science programs.

John Daly
(The opinions expressed in this posting are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of Americans for UNESCO.)

World Philosophy Day 2008

World Philosophy Day, an annual celebration of philosophy initiated by UNESCO in 2005, continues to extend its scope. This year, the event will be held in Palermo (Italy) on November 20 and 21, while umerous other initiatives will take place at UNESCO Headquarters and in over 80 countries around the world.

Read more!

Geography Awareness Week

November 17-21 is Geography Awareness Week

To help celebrate this year’s Geography Awareness Week, test your geography knowledge using the Friends of World Heritage TravelPod “How Well Do You Know Your World” game. The game is a fun, informative, (and addictive) way to test your knowledge and brush up on those lesser-known World Heritage sites. Play now and find out your World Heritage IQ and challenge your friends to beat your score.

The UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge

The UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge is an initiative focusing on research in and on Higher Education and Knowledge, with the objective to widen our understanding of systems, structures, policies, trends and developments in higher education, research and knowledge with a special focus on low and middle income countries. Related areas of interests are research on agriculture and health research, since they are important elements of the national research systems in low and middle-income countries.

Global Research Seminar:
Sharing Research Agendas on Knowledge Systems
Paris 28-30 November

The Global Research Seminar, an activity of the Forum, is to be an occasion to gather researchers and research organizations actively engaged in studying Research and Knowledge Systems in all regions of the world. The objective is to provide an arena for researchers to network, to present and discuss new and ongoing research, identify research gaps and suggest new research agendas on research systems, with a view to forge closer links between the research communities and UNESCO in these fields.

UNESCO Courier: Claude Lévi-Strauss

A recent issue of the UNESCO Courier is devoted to remembrance of Claude Lévi-Strauss, the great Anthropologist who published often in The Courier, was very close to UNESCO during his life, and was even in his 90's an active participant in the celebrations of UNESCO's 60th anniversary in 2005.

Go to the Issue!

Quotations:

“The efforts of science should not only enable mankind to surpass itself; they must also help those who lag behind to catch up.”

“No doubt we take comfort in the dream that equality and fraternity will one day reign among men, without compromising their diversity.”

“Nothing indicates racial prejudices are diminishing and indications are not lacking to suggest that after brief local respites, they surge up again elsewhere with renewed intensity. Which is why UNESCO feels the need periodically to take up again a struggle whose outcome is uncertain, to say the least.”

“But who better than UNESCO can draw the attention of scientists and technicians to the fact (which they so often tend to overlook) that the purposes of science are not only to solve scientific problems but to find answers to social problems as well.”