"US asks to host its first UNESCO institute"

Image source: West African Water Initiative

Source: Yojana Sharma, SciDev.Net, 25 May 2009.

"The Center for Integrated Water Resources Management, hosted by the US Army Corps of Engineers in Alexandria, Virginia, is set to become UNESCO's first US-based institute.

"We consider UNESCO to be a serious part of the UN system and we want to take the UN system as a whole seriously," says Steven Engelken, the US delegate to UNESCO in Paris.

"Water security is 'the next climate change' as a global concern, Engelken says. 'We can all see looming problems for the future.'

"The center is already linked to a number of US government agencies, universities and scientific organisations. Linking up to the UN 'will be a mechanism to work with a very robust group of institutes of UNESCO,' says Engelken, who has been lobbying hard in Paris on behalf of the US administration.

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