Prologue

Population growth, climatic changes, scarcity of water, the ongoing loss of arable land, the degradation of the environment, the worldwide urbanisation process, the growing energy consump tion.... A learned Society as the one assembled today hardly needs to be told about the serious threats the human race is facing now, and which it will be due to face at an accelerating rate in the future.

One way, among others, to overcome these menacing problems is to tackle them with scientific methods, i.e. to carry out appro priate research and to apply its results on a worldwide scale. Scholars, scientists and research workers thus have an important part to play, as well as politicians and leaders of the private sector. And - perhaps because they do not usually belong to the actual decision makers scientists, as opposed to politicians and industrial leaders, have the liberty to think on a long term basis. It is their duty, then, to call the attention of the pu blic as well as of the decision makers to the threats that are imminent and to show ways of escape.

Research, however, will prove useful only if it is conducted on a worldwide scale, by a sufficiently large number of searchers, and adequately distributed all over the globe. That means that re search capacity building in the South is essential. This is not merely a matter of solidarity, but something that is in the inte rest of all of humankind. The question of how research capacity building in the South is best to be achieved, was discussed in detail at the International Conference on Scientific Research Partnership for Sustainable Development, which was held in this country in early March this year (1). The resulting publication is already available. The principle widely accepted by the Conference was that of research work in partnership, in interdisciplinary, long-term programmes. As to partnership, it means more committment, intellectual honesty and mutual trust. It may well be that the majority of Western scientists, at present, are neither willing to nor capable of taking up that challenge. - Why not ?