The UN activities of the International Union of Psychological Science in 2001

Abstract

The major thrust of the IUPsyS activities at the UN this year has been the establishment, in early 2001, of a permanent team of New York area psychologists willing to voluntarily represent the Union at the different meetings held throughout the year at the UN Secretariat in New York under the auspices of the UN Department of Public Information, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), as well as some of the other UN agencies also active in New York, such as UNICEF and UNESCO. With the help of the International Affairs Office of the American Psychological Association, which we would like to thank, we had access to the names of New York area psychologists who were interested in doing UN representation for psychology. Four of them were identified as prime candidates and were interviewed. Their nomination as UN/NGO representatives was approved by the Executive Committee of the Union. I am very happy to inform our national members and affiliate organizations that Dr. Fritz Galette, Dr. Margarita Garcia‐Estevez, Dr. Douglas Y Seiden and Ms. Carolee E. Iltis have generously accepted to act as the Union's NGO representatives in New York. The decision to appoint four representatives was determined by the workload associated with the activities of the UN Secretariat (e.g., Dept of Public Information ‐NGO Briefings every week, multiple meetings of numerous committees dealing with mental health, health, ageing, children, human rights, women issues), plus numerous Preparatory Committees for General Assembly Summits (presently, three upcoming summits on racism, children and women that we will briefly discuss later in this report). Therefore, we felt it was important to be realistic and to appoint several individuals who are ready to share the work to be done and provide 1–2 days per month of their time.