918 



Preliminary Findings 



1. UNESCO provides valuable support of the Microbiological 

 Resources Centers (MIRCENs) . The United States should consider 

 increasing support of these high-quality activities. 



2. Support of informatics projects should be limited to training 

 and some advisory services for the development of strategies and defi- 

 nition of acquisition needs. Future U.S. support should be provided 

 through U.S. institutions which may wish to utilize UN agencies (e.g., 

 UNIDO or UNDP) and the International Federation of Information Pro- 

 cessing (IFIP) . Oversight by a U.S. body such as the Association for 

 Computing Machinery (ACM) should be considered. 



3. Modest support of work on renewable energy sources should be 

 channeled to other UN agencies (e.g., UNDP) with close oversight by an 

 appropriate U.S. body sensitive to U.S. interests. 



4. The proposed alternative interim arrangements suggested above 

 probably provide more direct oversight of substantive activities than 

 is currently the case; however, the administrative overhead costs 

 cannot be ignored. 



MAJOR PROGRAM VI: 

 THE SCIENCES AND THEIR APPLICATION TO DEVELOPMENT 



Social and Human Sciences; Key Areas 

 (VI. 4 and VI. 5) 



Assessment/Potential Impacts 



The purpose of VI. 4 activities is to develop the social and human 

 sciences by strengthening national potential for university and post- 

 graduate training and research, regional cooperation, and international 

 cooperation — the last through support to NGOs and subventions to the 

 International Social Science Council (ISSC) and the International 

 Committee for Social Science Information and Documentation (ICSSD) . 



Program VI. 5 activities are directed toward improving education and 

 advanced training in selected key areas such as history, geography, 

 linguistics, anthropology, and the administrative and management 

 sciences — with special attention to work and leisure activities, inter- 

 disciplinary cooperation for the study of man, and studies on the status 

 of women. The current annual UNESCO budget for VI. 4 and VI. 5 program 

 costs (projects and staff) plus overhead is approximately $7.8 million — 

 the U.S. share is about $1.9 million. Restricting attention to program 

 costs ($4.7 million per year), the U.S. share is about $1.2 million per 

 year. Other sources of support in this area total $263,000 per year 

 which are insignificant with respect to regular program support. 



There is no way to know with certainty the actual extent to which 

 the U.S. social science community benefits from participation in UNESCO. 



