United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Executive Board

Transcription

1 ex United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Executive Board Hundred and fifty-first Session 151 EX/45 PARIS, 2 April 1997 Original: English Item 10.4 of the provisional agenda THE CULTURE OF MAINTENANCE PROJECT SUMMARY In conformity with 149 EX/Decision 3.3.1(II), the Director-General presents herewith information concerning the development of an umbrella intersectoral project on maintenance.

2 151 EX/45 I. INTRODUCTION 1. In 149 EX/Decision 3.3.1(II), the Executive Board invited the Director-General to make adequate resources available to promote awareness with a view to ensuring follow-up to the Dar es Salaam workshop on the culture of maintenance (5-6 March 1996) and to develop an umbrella intersectoral project on a culture of maintenance, and to seek extra-budgetary funding support for implementing relevant activities. The Director-General was also requested to report on the development of the umbrella intersectoral project to the Executive Board at its 151st session. 2. The Dar es Salaam Workshop on the Culture of Maintenance for Sustainable Development in Tanzania (5-6 March 1996) adopted a number of recommendations, both in short-term and long-term perspectives, which include, among others: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) The creation of a national policy agenda including the culture of maintenance for sustainable development. The creation of a national centre for the promotion of maintenance awareness at all levels of society. The development of educational policies with the aim of instilling discipline, respect and care for property in schoolchildren. The dissemination, using mass media, of information on a culture of maintenance for sustainable development and the creation of a legal framework to assure maintenance with rewards and penalties. The promotion of complementary efforts by private industry to foster a culture of maintenance. 3. As follow-up to the conclusions and recommendations of this workshop, UNESCO is currently assisting the Institute of Technology Management (TechMa), a Tanzanian NGO, to develop activities related to the culture of maintenance for sub-saharan Africa. The possibility of setting up a regional centre for maintenance for scientific equipment is also under study. II. UMBRELLA PROJECT FOR MAINTENANCE 4. For many years UNESCO has been involved in promoting maintenance-related activities including human resource development. Efforts to assure the sustainability of projects managed by UNESCO have been a regular feature of extra-budgetary funded projects. Large numbers of technical staff have been trained in the maintenance of delivered equipment. In general, the absence of adequate qualified maintenance staff is a common feature in many projects which tends to jeopardize their long-term sustainability. This was one of the conclusions of a study of equipment maintenance in Africa which was financed by the European Union in and in which UNESCO participated. With UNESCO assistance, a scientific instrumentation centre was created in Ghana in In the 1980s several efforts were made to develop infrastructure support mechanisms for instrument maintenance in East Africa. These included, among others, the 1985 proposals by the International Research and Development Council (IRDC), to link procurement to maintenance. UNESCO also prepared a proposal for a network of instrumentation centres in Africa. Unfortunately these proposals were not followed up. One of the factors can be attributed to a general lack of awareness among decision-makers, both

3 151 EX/45 - page 2 national and international, of the importance of maintenance and the consequent low national priority given to activities in this area. Some immediate assistance for the provision of spare parts for scientific instrumentation for researchers in all developing countries continues to be provided by TWAS. 5. In many of its programmes, UNESCO has continued to build general awareness of the importance of maintenance and has promoted training of maintenance staff, both technicians and specialists. Thus under Major Programme I, the section for educational architecture has been for many years involved in the maintenance of educational buildings and furniture. Maintenance of educational buildings is tackled right from the design stage. At the design stage, attention is given to ensuring that the right types of building materials are chosen in order to maximize life span; special attention is also given to the appropriate design of buildings in zones prone to natural disasters. Training materials and maintenance manuals have been prepared to ensure the satisfactory maintenance of school buildings as well as furniture in specific countries taking into account local conditions (Nepal, Venezuela, Philippines, Morocco and Bhutan). National training courses have been organized in several countries and technical documents have been published and disseminated to facilitate regular maintenance. The principal objective of these manuals, publications and training courses, is not limited to developing maintenance skills alone. They also seek to make the educational community (teachers, students and parents), aware of the need to be jointly responsible for maintaining their educational buildings and furniture and to encourage the provision of adequate funds in their annual budgets for maintenance. 6. The regular maintenance of machinery and equipment used in technical and vocational education is of vital importance if they are to be effectively utilized at all times. Within the framework of the UNEVOC project, increased attention is being given to strengthening national training activities on the design, construction/installation, proper use, maintenance and repair of physical facilities, equipment, machinery tools and materials used in technical vocational education. Measures will also be taken to foster the introduction of courses in technical and vocational schools on repair and maintenance of equipment used in daily life. Extra-budgetary resources will be sought to fund these activities. Initiatives in this direction have already been taken, for example, at UNRWA s eight vocational training centres (Jordan, Syrian Arab Republic, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank). These include the development of syllabi and laboratory programmes, design of workshops, identification and selection of equipment, etc., for industrial electronics, radio/television maintenance and office machine maintenance. 7. Under Major Programme II, especially Programme II.1, specific programme activities have been foreseen, already for some years, for the training of technicians in the use and maintenance of scientific equipment both in laboratories and workshops. These will be intensified in the current biennium. Special attention will also be given to encouraging and supporting co-operation between scientific equipment suppliers and users in launching pilot projects - at national and subregional levels - for training maintenance staff, especially in Africa. 8. Under Major Programme III, the most important action undertaken for promoting the maintenance of World Heritage sites, is preventive conservation. It involves the regular assessment of the state of conservation of World Heritage properties and the taking of immediate action on the findings. The basic procedure adopted involves two steps: monitoring and reporting. The ideal solution is when a properly trained site manager prepares thorough reports on the state of conservation of World Heritage property utilizing a set of indicators specifically devised for the nature of the property. The reports are then used to justify planning

4 151 EX/45 - page 3 and to motivate future action and fund allocation. At periodic intervals, reports are synthesized at a regional or subregional level with the objective of giving new direction to international assistance in the field of conservation. This system of heritage maintenance, operating through a continuous monitoring/reporting mechanism, will result in success only when it is accompanied by training, research and proper documentation. Since, in some cases, important financial resources need to be generated, public awareness is crucial, and the promotional policies adopted for individual World Heritage sites become an important element for success. 9. Under Major Programme IV maintenance has been a constant preoccupation within the Intergovernmental Informatics Programme (IIP). Thus a large number of projects funded by IIP include training components. They are intended for training specialists responsible for the provision of services in their institutions (universities, administrations, etc.), and are designed to provide them with a better grasp of concepts and techniques necessary not only for maintaining existing services but also for providing new services. 10. In addition, a certain number of projects have been designed with the sole objective of training maintenance staff. In Togo, a project supported by IIP was created and implemented by the University of Benin in Lomé. The objective was to develop, within the University, a training centre for micro-computer maintenance (CAFMICRO - Centre Africain de Formation en MICRO-informatique) which also offers training in the assembly of microcomputers for use within the University. The equivalent of CAFMICRO for the English language speaking Member States in West Africa was created in the Yaba College of Technology in Nigeria. This centre offers three-month training courses in microcomputer maintenance. A similar project in Kenya with the University of Nairobi also focused on the development of a training team for the assembly and maintenance of microcomputers. 11. Another domain, where maintenance is vital, concerns communication equipment on which annually, millions of dollars are wasted due to poor maintenance because of lack of training, human resources and facilities. In order to overcome this problem, a maintenance component is systematically introduced into all communication projects funded by the International Programme for the Development of Communications (IPDC). It provides for training in maintenance and the supply of the necessary maintenance tools, as well as appropriate user and maintenance manuals. Nevertheless, it should be noted that maintenance problems are being aggravated by the fact that communication equipment is tending to become much more technically sophisticated nowadays. For example, the introduction of digital technologies requires especially skilled and trained personnel as well as complex and expensive tools (measurement instruments). Moreover, the use of such advanced equipment under nonideal ambient conditions results in higher maintenance requirements. High levels of care and protection must be given, especially since countries cannot afford to replace this equipment or even obtain spare parts on a regular basis. III. PERSPECTIVES FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS UNDER THE UMBRELLA PROJECT 12. The promotion of awareness of the importance of maintenance is a long-term process that will require the building up of awareness amongst decision-makers and the scientific community as well as the general public. There is also a need to introduce and/or strengthen educational and training activities at secondary and tertiary levels to form maintenance technicians and professionals. General awareness of the value of maintenance needs to be fostered through basic education and particularly environmental education. The schools can also inculcate a caring attitude and behaviour in pupils by involving them in regular caring

5 151 EX/45 - page 4 activities in their classroom, for their personal belongings, the school grounds and the overall school environment. To sustain this approach, the concern for caring should be included in the pre- and in-service training of teachers, head teachers and school inspectors. It also needs to be included in the monitoring of education programmes. The inclusion of science and technology literacy programmes in basic education will also contribute to a better awareness of maintenance. In this connection, UNESCO will continue to provide technical assistance to Member States and welcomes specific requests under the participation programme. 13. An innovative experience, which was launched a few years ago, Youth and recycling - from waste to development, encourages young people to take initiatives in recycling used equipment and materials. Some 60 youth groups in 33 countries have been involved in this project. Following the first World Forum on Youth Recycling (March 1996 in Nagoya, Japan), an international network of various groups has been set up to promote exchange of experience and information of youth Recycling through the media and the distribution of the relevant documents. A CD-ROM on this project is being produced for distribution to schools. While these activities focus on recycling in the widest sense, and therefore are not strictly the same as maintenance, this project can be further developed through broader media activities to build awareness of maintenance among the youth around the world. 14. Major activities, however, require project formulation for extra-budgetary support. UNESCO has already carried out studies of maintenance needs and has identified activities in certain domains to be taken up as priority projects for extra-budgetary funding. A project has been designed to create a centre for the management of maintenance in Mali, for which extrabudgetary funding will be researched. A significant need for maintenance support for printing activities has been identified in West Africa and further development studies are envisaged. In Southern Africa, a project which involves linking suppliers and manufacturers of equipment more closely to users through an Internet-based scientific instrument maintenance database, is under development as a pilot project. This approach will also allow for equipment identification, assessment of its working state, human resources and resource materials required (spare part, user and factory manuals, etc.). Preliminary proposals have also been made to initiate a sector analysis approach to maintenance needs in the context of awareness workshops.