Network of UNESCO Chairs
« Women, Science, Technology and Development »
In 2006 UNESCO created a new Network of Chairs: Women, Science,
Technology and Development. The objectives of this new Network are:
 To establish a scientific and technology, research and training
programme with a gender equality perspective;
 To provide women and teenage girls with scientific and technologybased training in sustainable and participative management of
resources (particularly water).
The eight founding Network members are the Chairs in Water, Women
and Decision-making created recently in Brazil, Cote d’Ivoire and Morocco,
and the Chairs in Women, Science and Technology established in
Argentina, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Pakistan and Sudan.
1. International context:
The new Network is part of the UNESCO Programme, UNITWIN/Chairs
(University Twinning and Networking Scheme), whose goal is to reinforce
university capacities by pooling and transferring knowledge within
UNESCO’s fields of competence: Education, Science, Culture and
Communication.
The UNESCO Chairs participating in this Network were created from a twofold observation. The necessity, with the world-wide poverty increase
coupled with environmental degradation, to promote a science that would
serve both peace and development. And the urgent necessity to include
women in this development, in what concerns them primarily and from
which they are often excluded, principally for cultural reasons.
The World Conference on Science, Budapest 1999, had effectively
underlined that, in most countries, women did not have sufficient access
scientific and technological education, that they were a minority in
scientific teaching careers and research and as engineers and that
nowhere did they exercise predictable responsibilities.
The 2002 Johannesburg Summit insisted on women’s important economic
role and on their lack of training, especially in the fields of science and
technology, which was considered as an obstacle to sustainable
development in their countries. Emphasis was placed n the crucial role of
women in water resource management, which has become a world
priority.
2. Presentation of the Network
The new Network of UNESCO Chairs has the following characteristics:
 Framework of action
The Chairs work within in the framework of the World Schedule, and
depend notably on the conclusions and resolutions of World Forum as Rio
(1992), Beijing (1995), Dakar (2000), Johannesburg (2002), Seoul (2003)
as well as the World Conference on the Science of Budapest (1999) and
Millennium Declaration and Millennium Objectives for Development
adopted in 2000.
 Assignment
The Chairs seek to implement these conclusions and resolutions in their
countries, sub-regions or regions while at the same time taking into
account economic and social requirements, their governments’ initiatives
and their universities’ specificities.
 Topics
The Chairs focus on science and technology from the point of view of a
science for the sustainable development and peace. The majority of the
Chairs have, partially or totally, activities related to water.
 Mission
The Chairs aim to reduce inequalities between men and women,
observed in all the countries, in both the utilisation and the production of
scientific and technological knowledge.
 Tools
The
Chairs
privilege
the
Information
Technologies
and
Communication ITCs as research topics and tools to transfer and
exchange knowledge within the globalisation perspective.
 Strategy
The Chairs participating in this Network pool expertise in science,
technology, development, water management and a gender equality
objective. They establish among themselves a relationship of cooperation
and solidarity.
Contact: Renée Clair, UNESCO, r.clair@unesco.org
25 July 2006