The EU and World Regionalism, co-edited by Philippe De Lombaerde of UNU-CRIS, investigates the impact that the EU has on regionalization in other parts of the world, and whether that impact has been direct as well as indirect.

The UNU has signed an agreement with and Japanese advertising and media company Dentsu to collaborate on joint projects. The aim is to “garner the wisdom of humankind” in search of new values for the twenty-first century.

In October, the UNU held sessions of its Global Seminar series in Namibia and Ghana. The former considered “Africa’s Natural Resources: From Conflict to Sustainable Development” while the latter focused on “Strategies for Sustainable Development and the Pressures of Globalization”.

Prof. Dr. Konrad Osterwalder, Rector of the UN University, is the recipient of the 2009 Matteo Ricci International Award. Established in 1998 by the Faculty of Political Science of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan), the award recognizes the unique contributions of individuals to bridge cultural and intellectual divides for the betterment of mankind.

The award ceremony, held on 27 Oct., marked the fourth time this award has been bestowed. In his speech, delivered in Italian, Rector Osterwalder recognized the role of dialogue, justice, dignity, risk and responsibility as defining features of humanity. He affirmed that the UNU is uniquely placed to encourage the dialogue of trust among cultures that is necessary to arrive at viable responses to sustainable global development.

United Nations Day (UN Day) is observed annually worldwide on 24 October to commemorate the founding of the United Nations in October 1945. To celebrate UN Day 2009, on Friday, 23 October, the UNU presented an academic symposium and, along with UN agencies in Japan, welcomed the public to outdoor activities, exhibitions and performances at United Nations…

The 2008 episode of food price explosion, political turmoil, and human suffering revealed important flaws in the current global food architecture. This UNU-WIDER paper argues that four failures in market functioning and policymaking need to be addressed.

In September, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. e.H. Erich J. Plate retired from the Advisory Committee of UNU-EHS. He had been a member since the inauguration of the committee in 2003, when UNU-EHS was founded.

This BRIGG paper provides an assessment of the new European sub-regional groups. It explores why and how sub-regionalism has proliferated in Europe since the 1990s, analyses what functions sub-regional groups perform, and evaluates their significance.

The co-winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics, Elinor Ostrom, has been associated with UNU-WIDER for more than a decade. She a contributor to the UNU-WIDER research project on Land Distribution, Land Reform and Economic Growth and more recently worked on the 2004 UNU-WIDER conference on “Unlocking Human Potential”.

As part of the UNU’s continued focus on Africa, Prof. Mohamed H.A. Hassan and Prof. Joseph O. Malo delivered lectures on “Science and Technology: The African Perspectives” at UNU Headquarters in Tokyo.

In early October, UNU Rector Osterwalder toured the headquarters of Shimadzu Corp. in Kyoto. Shimadzu, a producer of chemical analysis equipment, has been a long-term supporter of the UNU project “Environmental Monitoring and Governance in the Asian Coastal Hydrosphere“.

Day 1 — Monday, 28 September 2009

Over 300 people gathered in U Thant Hall at UNU Headquarters in Tokyo on Monday, 28 September, for day 1 of the 2009 UNU/UNESCO international conference on “Africa and Globalization: Learning from the Past, Enabling a Better Future”. Japanese government representatives Tetsuro Fukuyama (MOFA), and Masaharu Nakagawa (MEXT) offered opening…

This year marked the 25th anniversary of the UNU Global Seminar – Shonan Session. Under the theme of “Global Challenges and East Asian Responses”, the 2009 seminar addressed the impacts of globalization on the region and the initiatives being taken by various actors in response.

In 2006, more than 1 billion cell phones, 230 million computers, and 45 million TVs were sold worldwide. What will be the fate of these complex electronic products when they are eventually replaced or discarded?

The sad fact is that much of the world’s electronic scrap ends up in developing countries, where it typically is incinerated to…

Can traditional knowledge converge with Western science to help solve today’s global challenges? Numerous research initiatives are exploring this question, such as an Australian carbon abatement project that is based on Aboriginal fire-burning practices.

The latest issue of Intersections looks at the social impacts of global climate change and examines how people living in the low-elevation coastal zones are adapting to global sea level rise. For many, migration has become a means of adaptation and survival.

Earlier this year, Prof. Dr. Janos Bogardi retired after almost six years as Director of the UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and two years as UNU Vice-Rector ad interim. This is his “open letter of farewell”.

This BRIGG paper explores a variety of case studies to examine the extent to which cooperation between the USA and European Union in the field of international peace and security is impacted by bilateral relations versus multilateral dialogues.

On 26 August, a group of about 50 students from Kunitachi City visited UNU Centre – Tokyo, where they heard an information briefing about the UN and UNU enjoyed a show on climate change presented by Oriental Land.

In the Our World 2.0 article “One man inspiring Hope”, Hope He tells the story of Wan Ping, a former thermo-dynmics engineer who nine years ago founded an ecological demonstration area in the Khorchin district of northeastern China. His efforts have established a windbreak that has stabilized moving dunes, achieved a 95% green coverage rate in the demonstration area, and increased local precipitation.

The week-long 2009 UNU & MRF Summer Academy on Social Vulnerability focused on understanding the nature of tipping points of climate change as they are related to potential humanitarian crises and forced migration.

UNW-DPC, in cooperation with FAO and 2iE, organized a July regional workshop in Burkina Faso on “Capacity Development for Farm Management Strategies to Improve Crop-Water Productivity using AquaCrop”.

The topic of the 3rd Charles Cooper Annual Memorial Lecture, on 24 June at UNU-MERIT, was “Science and Technology in South Africa: Past Performance and Future Prospects”.

The Regional Impact of Technological Change in 2020 is a UNU-MERIT project that seeks to improve our understanding of the relation between the shift towards a knowledge-based economy and regional disparities in Europe.