On April 18-20, 2001 the Group of Governmental Experts to Prepare a United Nations Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education held its first session in New York.

The group was established under the decision of the UN General Assembly. In November 2000, the General Assembly, acting on the advice of the Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters, adopted without a vote against the resolution entitled "United Nations Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education" (55/33 E of 20 November 2000). In it, the Assembly requests the Secretary-General to prepare such a study, with the assistance of a group of qualified governmental experts, for consideration at its fifty-seventh session (in 2002).

The study has been carried out by a small group of ten governmental experts representing the geographical regions of the world and different approaches, philosophies and cultures with respect to education within regions. The list of participating experts is the following:

H.E. Dr. Mohamed Shaker, Chairman, Board of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA), Cairo, Egypt; Mr. Attila Zimonyi, Senior Counsellor, Department of Arms Control and Security Policy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Budapest, Republic of Hungary; Mr. Venkatesh Varma, Counsellor, Embassy of India, Moscow; Mr. Yukiya Amano, Minister, Embassy of Japan to the United States, Washington, D.C., USA; H.E. Mr. Miguel Marín Bosch, Under Secretary for Asia, Africa, Europe and Multilateral Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico City, Mexico; Dr. Kate Dewes, IPB Vice-President, Disarmament and Security Centre, Aotearoa, New Zealand; H.E. Mr. Hugo E. Palma, Vice Minister and Secretary-General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1991, 1997-98), Lima, Peru; Mrs. Anna Grupinska, Director, Department for United Nations Political Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Warsaw, Republic of Poland; Mr. Alioune Diagne, Minister Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Senegal to the United Nations, New York, N.Y.; Ms. Birgitte Alani, Deputy Director, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Solna, Sweden.

Prof. William Potter, Director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies and member of the Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters, was invited by the Group to participate in its sessions.

Dr. Vladimir Orlov, Director of the PIR Center, is a Consultant of the Study Group.

During the first session the group solved some procedural issues and discussed a broad range of issues pertaining to disarmament and nonproliferation education as stated in the mandate of the UN General Assembly resolution.

Director of the Department for Disarmament Affairs and Deputy to the Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Evgeniy Gorkovskiy opened the first session.

Amb. Jayantha Dhanapala, Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, addressed the meeting.

H.E. Mr. Miguel Marin Bosch from Mexico was elected Chairman of the Study Group.

Vladimir Orlov delivered a report "Assessing and Promoting Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education and Training", which was discussed by members of the group.

Members of the group listened to the reports by representatives of UN family organizations working to promote disarmament and nonproliferation education. The list of participating agencies and other bodies, among others, included the Department of Political Affairs (DPI) of the United Nations (Mr. Shashi Thahroor, Interim Head, DPI), the IAEA (Mr. Berhanykun Andemicael, Representative of the Director General to the United Nations New York Office), the PrepCom for CTBTO (Ms. Daniela Rozgonova, Chief, Public Information of the Provisional Technical Secretariat), the UNIDIR (Ms. Kerstin Vignard, Editor, Disarmament Forum), the University for Peace (UPEACE) (Ms. Catherine Bellamy, Program Officer), as well as representatives of the UNESCO, the UNICEF, etc.

The resolution requests the experts to "invite university educators, disarmament and peace-related institutes and non-governmental organizations that have special qualifications in education and training or in the field of disarmament and nonproliferation to make written and oral presentations to it." Active participation of NGOs in the form of written and oral presentations contributed to the success of the meeting. Among keynote speakers were: Prof. William C. Potter, Director Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, CA, USA; Dr. Betty Reardon, Director, Peace Education Program, Hague Appeal for Peace; Dr. Natalie Goldring, Director, Program for General and Complete Disarmament, Political Science Faculty, University of Maryland; Ms. Felicity Hill, New York Office, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF); and Mr. Arjun Makhijani, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.

In the course of discussion, members of the group admitted the urgency of promoting concerted international efforts at disarmament and nonproliferation education and training. They began to consider the following issues and presented their general vision of the tasks named in the mandate of the UN General Assembly:

(a) To define contemporary disarmament and nonproliferation education and training;

(b) To assess the current situation of disarmament and nonproliferation education and training at the primary, secondary, university and postgraduate levels of education, in all regions of the world;

(c) To recommend ways to promote education and training in disarmament and nonproliferation at all levels of formal and informal education;

(d) To examine ways to utilize more fully evolving pedagogic methods, particularly the revolution in information and communications technology, including distance learning, to enhance efforts in disarmament education and training at all levels;

(e) To recommend ways in which organizations of the United Nations system with special competence in disarmament or education or both can harmonize and coordinate their efforts in disarmament and nonproliferation education;

(f) To devise ways to introduce disarmament and nonproliferation education into post-conflict situations as a contribution to peace-building;

The group began to collect and analyze information on the availability of:

• disarmament and nonproliferation programs, both formal and informal, courses or curricula being carried out at the primary, secondary and university levels of national educational systems of member states on the UN;
• the institutions and organizations, including educational, that are working in the field of disarmament and nonproliferation education and training;
• educational programs for government officials, parliamentarians, municipal leaders, the military, or other sectors and
• other educational and training programs in the sphere of disarmament and nonproliferation conducted for the media, researchers, scientists, engineers, teachers, unions, or general public.

The next session of the Study Group will take place in Monterey, CA on August 8-10, 2001.

Consultant of the Group Vladimir Orlov is grateful to all experts and institutions for their proposals and ideas sent to him on the eve of the first session. They were analyzed, some of them were used to prepare a background discussion paper for the first session. Dr. Orlov will be happy to receive further recommendations that will help him to consult the group in the future. They can be sent by e-mail orlov@pircenter.org .

For more information about the group contact Secretary of the Group of Governmental Experts Michael Cassandra at cassandra@un.org

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PIR Center is a leading Russian non-governmental organization in the field of arms control and non-proliferation education and training. In 2000 the PIR Center prepared and published the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Textbook. In 2002 the Center will start to work at the Missile Non-Proliferation Textbook.

Meanwhile, the PIR Center has developed and has been implementing educational and training programmes targeted at different audience.

The educational projects are aimed at

• Undergraduate university students
• Graduate students, and
• Post-graduate students, and
• Journalists

The training programmes are aimed at various audiences, including

• Legislators
• Governmental officials
• Nuclear engineers
• Nuclear scientists
• Customs officers, and
• Educators/Trainers

PIR Centre active education- and training-oriented projects include:

• Nuclear Non-Proliferation Textbook & Documents Collection Project
• Educational Nuclear Non-Proliferation Program for Graduate Students of Technical Universities
• Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Training Program for Young Researchers, Diplomats, Military, and Journalists; and
• Educational Program on Arms Control and Non-Proliferation for Legislators

For more information about PIR Center nonproliferation education and training programs, please, contact Masha Vernikova at info@pircenter.org or visit the Center’s web site: http://www.pircenter.org/english/projects/index.htm

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