15th International Congress of Nutrition
The preparations for the 15th International Congress of Nutrition to be held in Adelaide, Australia, from September 26 to October 1, 1993 are underway. The Congress theme will be “Nutrition in a Sustainable Environment”. It will include major Symposia on Nutrition Policies and Programs, Prevention of Chronic Diseases by Nutritional Means, Nutrition Through the Life Cycle, Nutrition and Nutritional Anthropology of Aboriginal Peoples, Cell Biology and Molecular Biology in Nutrition, Nutrition and Performance, Animal Nutrition, Food Science and Clinical Nutrition. A series of other Symposia and Workshops are also scheduled to happen during the Congress week.
Encouraging Research in Nutritional Sciences
IUNS Commissions and Committees under the chairmanship of known experts are carrying on their tasks to encourage research and exchange of information in the nutritional sciences field, supervised by our 3 Vice-Presidents. Some of them are dealing with guidelines, references and policies. Others are reviewing the nutritional terminology in cooperation with IUPAC and IUB. Criteria for the use of animals and humans in research are the subject of other groups. Clinical Nutrition and Animal Nutrition are the themes of several other Commissions. Hopefully they will present their results at workshops available to them at the Adelaide Congress.
IUNS Fellows
A project to recognize as IUNS Fellows persons who have made outstanding contributions in Nutrition Research, Development of Nutrition Science and/or worked for the advance of IUNS activities in different countries has been developed. Candidates may be proposed by the Adhering Bodies of IUNS, National Science Academy/National Nutrition Society/National Institution of Nutrition and IUNS Fellows. We expect the first IUNS Fellows to be awarded at the International Congress.
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Statement by Dr Jose E Dutra-de-Oliveira, President, IUNS, at the International Conference on Nutrition, Rome, December, 1992. “It is my privilege to address Dr Cortas as the noteworthy Chairperson of this Plenary Session, it is also an honour to salute Drs Saouma and Nakajima, Directors-General of FAO and WHO as the successful promoters of this great world event. “The International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS) is the largest non-governmental world organization dealing with the sciences of nutrition. Its scientific activities are carried out by investigators and academia in more than 60 countries. “Members of our union have worked during the last 2-3 years along with FAO/WHO in the preparation of this meeting and several of them are here as active participants of this International Conference on Nutrition. We are certainly glad and at the same time sad to have the attention of the world directed towards the unacceptable hunger and malnutrition of millions of people who cannot use their right to eat every day the quantity and quality of food they need for a better quality of life. As specialists in nutrition we know how widespread are nutritional problems mainly in the developing countries, but also affecting the rich and industrialised nations. Being able to analyze the nutrition situation we know available solutions and feel ashamed they are not used. “Governments and politicians are not always dealing straight-forwardly with the subject based on scientifically available information. So, we request the recognition of the scientific food and nutrition area as a goal by itself and a priority for social and economic development. “Although science and research have been quoted a few times in this Conference, we would like to further stress the importance of the scientists in the solution of food and nutrition problems. And let us say that we deal with basic and applied science. For us, it is as important to discover the new role of a nutrient in the body's metabolism as to find a better way to deliver iron or vitamin A to the most needy in a community or country. “We hope to have the recognition of the governments and the support of national and international organizations in the development of nutrition research and training. This is being done mainly in the rich countries but it is needed also in the developing ones. Research and training of scientists and specialists should be carried out not only abroad but also locally, inside each country. Scientists should be trained to deal with and to solve their own countries' nutrition problems. The joint work of governments, international organizations and local scientists is a guarantee to the continuity and success of many local nutrition programmes. “Governments and communities should value the importance of science and scientific work. Scientists are aware of the world nutrition problems. As scientists, we also want to be partners of their solutions. Time and money spent on scientific work pays off. “Finally, I leave here an invitation to all countries and organizations to send their specialists to participate at our International Congress of Nutrition to be held in Australia next September. They will have the opportunity to be among 2000 scientists and learn what they are doing on basic and applied nutrition. “I am sure that, together, we will reach sooner the solution to our present food and nutrition problems.” Source: IUNS, 1992 |
The establishment of IUNS Cooperating Nutrition Centres is another project under study in our Union. A group of scientists and professionals working in nutrition would apply for or be offered this status. Such a system would: (i) give encouragement to nutrition groups that do not have the chance to be so well known; (ii) list the most likely places where scientists from one country could obtain information about the nutrition and foods of another; (iii) provide better networks for IUNS references, committees, information and notices. The basic idea is to record and accept the collaboration of the centres, will not be attempting to judge them.
International Journal of Nutritional Sciences
The idea to have an International Journal of Nutritional Sciences has been under discussion at IUNS for several years. There seems to exist a real need for such a publication whose high scientific profile could be maintained by our high level IUNS scientists. Economic support is always a problem and the possibility of an association with an existing publication is being explored. There is no doubt that Nutrition worldwide and the IUNS Adhering Bodies members in particular would profit by the existence of such a publication.
For further information contact: International Union of Nutritional Sciences, Faculdade de Medicina, 14049 Ribeirao Preto, SP - Brazil and/or Prof J Hautvast, c/o Dept of Human Nutrition, Agricultural University, Bomenweg 2, PO Box 8129, 6700 EV Wageningen, The Netherlands.
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The ACC/SCN workshop “Nutrition-Relevant Actions in Developing Countries - Recent Lessons” at the 15th IUNS Congress in Adelaide, September 1993 At the 14th IUNS Congress in Seoul in 1989, the ACC/SCN Secretariat organized a workshop entitled “Managing Successful Nutrition Programmes” in which case studies of 17 selected nutrition programmes in 12 countries were presented. Following this, at the 1990 ACC/SCN session, it was decided that a series of case studies should be undertaken on country-wide actions aimed at improving nutrition, for presentation and discussion at the 1993 IUNS Congress. Case studies were undertaken in selected countries, usually by nutrition professionals affiliated with national nutrition institutions, during 1991-92. The ultimate objective of these “Country Reviews” was to explain, as far as possible, the underlying reasons for the nutritional trends observed in each case. The scope necessarily went beyond nutrition programmes per se. Clearly, just as malnutrition is multi-causal, many actions have potential for affecting nutrition outcomes, and were thus relevant to the review. An important aim of the Country Reviews was to draw conclusions as to which policies and programmes were effective under given conditions in preventing or alleviating malnutrition, and what were the likely essential factors behind their success. Questions concerning how successful actions are implemented were also to be addressed, along with consideration of who acts - what was the relative involvement of governments, institutions, communities, households and individuals? Such a broad scope required an understanding of the political economy of nutrition, institutional capacity and the inter-relationship between community-level dynamics and programmes. A workshop entitled “Nutrition-Relevant Actions in Developing Countries - Recent Lessons” has been scheduled for the 15th IUNS Congress in Adelaide, which will take place during the week of Monday 27 September - Friday 1 October 1993. This will draw on material from the Country Reviews, carried out in India, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Indonesia, Thailand and Brazil and present the salient findings and recommendations. Additional country studies in Nigeria, Mexico, Pakistan and Egypt were prepared as part of the background work for the Second Report on the World Nutrition Situation, and these too will be discussed. A satellite 1-2 day meeting has also been scheduled to take place on the weekend preceding the Congress (25-26 September 1993) in order that a more in-depth examination of the case studies might be undertaken. This will allow individual authors to present the main findings of their respective case studies, and serve as a basis for subsequent inter-country comparisons. A synthesis of the case studies is being prepared by the SCN secretariat and this will be available as a background paper for both the satellite and the main workshop. Individual country reviews for India, Indonesia, Thailand, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Pakistan and Nigeria are now available with the secretariat and it is hoped will be published in their respective countries in the next few months. We hope that participants at the 15th IUNS Congress will come
to the workshop. You would also be most welcome at the satellite meeting on the
same topic on 25-26 September 1993. Please contact the SCN Secretariat if you
would like to attend. |
