Page 284 - 100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International_V-Petrovsky_private special edition

100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International

venue of various review conferences on the implementation of multilateral
disarmament treaties and conventions. It is also the seat of the Disarmament
Fellowship, Training and Advisory Services Programme which trains diplomats
for future careers in this field. Finally, UNOG is also home to the United
Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Current reform
efforts do not envision altering the continued support of the United Nations
system to these activities. In short, UNOG is the world's leading centre in
treaty making in the field of arms regulation and in the monitoring of their
implementation.

Although the research and training activities of UNOG are perhaps less in
the limelight of the media than those I have mentioned so far, they play an
increasingly important role and contribute to the strategic planning and
priority setting of UN policies. Three such institutes are based at UNOG: the
United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the United
Nations Research institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and the above-
mentioned UNIDIR. Furthermore, UNOG maintains close ties with the UN
Staff College in Turin as well as with Swiss research institutes such as the
Graduate Institute of International Studies and the Geneva Center for Security
Policy. Closer ties among these institutions are envisioned at the highest level
with the institutionalization of biannual meetings of the Heads of these
Institutes.

Before closing this introductory presentation of UNOG, I would like to
encourage you to take full advantage of all channels of communications
available to you to establish and sustain an ongoing dialogue with the
Secretariat of the United Nations Office at Geneva. I would like to draw your
attention in particular to electronic means of communications and specifically,
to the UNOG Internet Web site and to “Geneva Net” - an Internet-based
electronic information service for the Missions. By the end of this year “Geneva
Net” will be merged with the Optical Disk System - the major repository of UN
documents, thus bringing directly to your office a considerable amount of up-
to-date information on UN activities. For those of you who are not yet familiar
with information technology I would suggest to visit Cyberspace at UNOG
Library which is a good place to start the voyage into the electronic world. This
year UNOG and the International Telecommunication Union have started a
training programme in informatics tailored to the needs of the Permanent
Missions which I hope you will find useful. Detailed information on this
programme is available on “Geneva Net’.

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