The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the United Nations Environment Programme agreed to provide their support to the preparation of this publication as a joint contribution to the negotiation and implementation of the International Convention to Combat Desertification. We believe it will be very useful to all people interested in the development and conservation of drylands.
The Convention on Desertification stresses the role of scientific and technical cooperation in the implementation of national plans to combat desertification and for drylands development. Nations parties to the Convention engage themselves to "facilitate and strengthen the functioning of the global network of institutions and facilities for the collection, analysis and exchange of information...". They also commit themselves to "exchange and make fully and promptly available information from all publicly available sources relevant to combatting desertification and mitigating the effects of drought".
This fourth edition of the World Directory of Arid Land Research Institutions should help secure the implementation of the above commitments, by facilitating contacts and eventually cooperation among concerned institutions. It includes more than 250 entries and brings to the countries parties to the Convention and their institutions an up to date tool for technical and scientific cooperation in its implementation. The Directory will contribute to transfer of knowledge and technology between the developed and developing worlds and will support technical cooperation among developing countries.
The team of the Office of Arid Land Studies of the University of Arizona worked swiftly on the project; in the process, they maintained close contact with FAO and UNEP. The successful outcome of the project is to a large extent due to the competence and dedication of Ms. Barbara Hutchinson, Director of the Arid Land Information Center. On the FAO side, Mr. El Hadji Sène, Chief, Forest Conservation, Research and Education Service, served as the focal point within the framework of the Interdepartmental Group on Desertification.
J.P. Lanly
Chairman
Interdepartmental Group on Desertification
FAO, Rome, Italy
W. Franklin G. Cardy
Director
Drylands Ecosystems and
Desertification Control Program
UNEP, Nairobi, Kenya
In 1967, 1977 and 1988 the University of Arizona's Office of Arid Lands Studies compiled and produced the first three editions of the reference work Arid Lands Research Institutions: A World Directory (The University of Arizona Press, 1966 and 1977; Allerton Press, 1988). We are pleased to continue our work with the publication of this revised and expanded fourth edition.
The information in this directory derives almost entirely from direct correspondence with the institutions represented. We contacted each of the 276 organizations appearing in the 1988 edition and sent questionnaires in English, French, and Spanish to an additional 130 institutions. We identified these by consulting internal files and listings at the Office of Arid Lands Studies and various published sources, such as the Directory of Research and Training Centers, Government Departments and Other Organizations on Desertification Control in Asia and the Pacific (UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, 1988), Agricultural Information Resource Centers: A World Directory 1990 (International Association of Agricultural Librarians and Documentalists, 1990), the Inventory of Regional and Sub Regional Organizations Involved in Environmental Activities in Africa Relevant to AMCEN (African Ministerial Conference on the Environment, 1990), A Regional Directory of African Tertiary Level Environmental Training Institutions, Programmes and Resources Persons (United Nations Environment Programme, 1991). The World of Learning (1992 edition), and the Directory of Forest Research Organizations (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, 1993). We also received assistance from UNEP in distributing our questionnaires directly to other organizations within their purview that we had not identified from our searches of the above-named sources. After multiple mailings to all these institutions, we received a total of more than 250 completed questionnaires.
As with any publication, many people have contributed to the end result. First, we want to thank Mr. El Hadji M. Sène of the Forest Conservation and Wildlands Branch of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for his interest in the project. Through his diligent efforts we were able to obtain the necessary funding for the directory and an agreement with FAO to publish it. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge Mr. W. Franklin G. Cardy, Deputy Assistant Executive Director, Environment and Institutional Support and Director, Desertification Control Programme Activity Center (DC/PAC - UNEP), for both his financial support and assistance in contacting institutions for inclusion in the directory. We also are indebted to Ms. Elizabeth Migongo-Bake, Programme Officer, DC/PAC, UNEP, for her valuable help in identifying additional institutions. At the Office of Arid Lands Studies, our colleague and computer expert Michael Haseltine was unstinting in his help on solving technical and computer-related problems throughout the project; also, both he and editor John Bancroft assisted with the final read-through of the document. We appreciate their help in making this directory as error-free as possible and take responsibility for any errors that may remain.
Finally, our sincere thanks to all of the arid lands research institutions that participated in this project by responding to our questionnaire. Our intent in compiling and editing this volume is to facilitate an exchange of ideas among individuals from the many institutions listed here. Given the highly interdisciplinary nature of many arid lands research topics, as well as the global extent of arid lands themselves, we believe that such enhanced communication is essential. By working together, we will not only increase our general understanding of the world's arid regions but will also be able to better formulate effective policies using sound conservation and development strategies. It is our hope that this directory will provide a useful tool for networking among arid lands researchers across the globe.
Katherine V. Waser
Barbara S. Hutchinson
Office of Arid Lands Studies
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
December 1994
Notes on directory arrangement and usage
This new, revised edition retains much the same organizational structure as the previous addition. Entries are arranged in alphabetical order by country, then again in alphabetical order by name of institution. As before, names of major global regions are listed opposite the country name at the top of each page. Immediately following the last single country entry, a final section includes international organizations, such as United Nations agencies or other multi governmental bodies.
The name of each featured institution appears at the head of the listing in bold, upper case lettering. For ease in locating an institution whose identity is dependent upon that of a larger parent organization, the name of the parent organization appears above the featured listing in bold, lower case lettering. The Table of Contents lists countries only; individual organizations may be found by consulting the Index of Institutions in the back pages of the volume.
Certain entry headings in the fourth edition are followed by the notation [1988]. Such a notation indicates an institution that: (a) was listed in the 1988 edition; (b) did not respond to our current mailings; and (c) we are reasonably sure is still in existence. In addition, following the Subject Index, we include a list of all other 1988 institutions we contacted but whose status we were unable to determine. Our hope is that people with knowledge of any of these 1988 institutions will contact us with more accurate information so they can be included in future editions.
Many of the changes made in this edition relate to our interest in providing as many channels for communication as possible. For example, most entries now include facsimile addresses, and many include electronic mail addresses. All e-mail addresses are given in Internet format (i.e. the format that will allow anyone on the Internet to send mail to that address, whether the recipient is part of the Internet or of another email network). Test messages were sent to the e-mail addresses submitted. If the message did not go through and we could not determine the correct Internet format for the address, we did not include that address in the Directory. For those e-mail addresses which are clearly for individuals, rather than for organizations as a whole, we have attempted to provide the name of the contact person wherever possible. Finally, for ease of direct dialing, telephone and facsimile numbers include international country code (preceded by a "+") and city or area code (given within parentheses), as appropriate. Local telephone numbers up to seven digits long are reported using the North American convention of listing 3 digits, then a dash, then all remaining digits. Local telephone numbers with 8 digits are listed using the format <xxxx-xxxx>.
We have followed North American conventions in some other ways as well. First, personnel names are listed using <first name> <last name> order, except for our Chinese colleagues, whose names are reported in <last name> <first name> order. Also, in reporting numbers larger than 999, we have used commas to separate numerals, rather than periods or empty spaces; that is, "one thousand" is denoted " 1,000?, and so on.
In many entries, certain fields, such as Research locations/Research subjects or Divisions/Division heads, are linked by number. For example, in the following entry:
Divisions (1) Entomology, (2) Agronomy
Division heads (1) Marie Vitelli, (2) Joe Vitelli
the linked numbers indicate that Marie Vitelli is head of Entomology and Joe Vitelli is head of Agronomy at that institution. Conversely, an entry format such as:
Divisions Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, Plant Sciences, Animal Science
Division heads Dr. L. Abbott, Dr. 1. Williams, Professor P. Cocks
denotes that it was not clear from the information we received which person heads which division.