Introduction

This is the third edition of the Global Guide to Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education. It is intended as a background document for the June 2003 interagency meeting on Disarmament and Non-proliferation Education at the United Nations.  It is also designed as a reference document for those working on non-proliferation and disarmament issues. We invite you to send us contact information and brief descriptions of your work for possible inclusion in future editions.

The UN study was authorized by the General Assembly in November 2000 (55/33E, 20 November 2000). Its mandate has six parts: to define contemporary disarmament and non-proliferation education and training;

To assess the current situation of disarmament and non-proliferation education and training at the primary, secondary, university and postgraduate levels of education, in all regions of the world;

To recommend ways to promote education and training in disarmament and non-proliferation at all levels of formal and informal education;

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;

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 non-proliferation education;

To devise ways to introduce disarmament and non-proliferation education into post-conflict situations as a contribution to peace-building.

This Guide had its genesis in two documents prepared for the third session of the United Nations Study on Disarmament and Non-proliferation Education (Geneva, 11-15 March 2002) by staff members from Educators for Social Responsibility and the University of Maryland’s Program on Global Security and Disarmament. One document provided summaries of all of the submissions to the study to that point, while the other included summaries of several dozen additional institutions involved in disarmament and non-proliferation education that had not submitted material to the UN group. This Global Guide merges the two documents, and provides a snapshot of the current state of education in this field. Roughly half of the listings originated in submissions received as of spring 2002 by the Department of Disarmament Affairs, and the other half is the result of our research seeking to identify other institutions involved in disarmament and non-proliferation education. It is meant to be a suggestive, but by no means exhaustive, list.

With your help, we intend to regularly expand and update this guide. If you have information on any institution, university, group, or individual that is actively working on issues related to disarmament and non-proliferation education, please e-mail us at pgsd@gvpt.umd.edu. We will be happy to consider adding that information to the next version of the guide. We are particularly interested in gathering information from groups in traditionally under represented regions such as Africa, Central and South America, and the Middle East.

Please forward this web address to anyone you think might be interested in this guide or our other work: www.bsos.umd.edu/pgsd/Global_Guide.htm

These summaries are in 7 sections: