International Organization Information / Research: 1994

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Prepared for Union of International Associations (General Assembly, May 1994)
See also searchable PDF version (original titles, sub-headings, order and typography); also reports 1959-2006

Organization profiles / networks

Yearbook of International Organizations: Work on the 31st edition of this 3-volume series has followed the regular pattern. At the time of writing (April 26th), Volume 1 has been completed with: - entries (including index) transmitted to London for photocomposition - commentary pages composed at UIA.

The number of organizations which should be included continues to increase as does the quality and length of the entries. This issue has been noted in previous reports with an indication of the relatively unsatisfactory solutions to the challenge of getting as much information as possible into the fixed amount of space (ca 1800 pages) acceptable to the printer because of physical constraints on binding a single volume.

With this edition the radical step of not publishing selected entries on international bodies was taken for the first time. Previously entries on internationally active national organizations and religious orders have been regularly omitted. A number of appendices were omitted from the last edition and this practice continued for this edition. In the case of organizations allocated to category E (emanations from other international bodies and places), it was decided to print only the name and address of international NGOs. This approach was not applied to intergovernmental organizations in that category. The number of organization affected was 1.660.

Volume 1 has 68 pages less text than the last edition. The number of entries increased as indicated in Annex I. The response of the publisher, discussed in previous years, is that "overflow" of any kind will have to be carried in future in the CD-ROM currently in preparation (see below).

Work on Volumes 2 and 3 is on schedule for completion in May and June. Due to the fragmentation of a number of countries, notably the USSR, the rise in memberships in international bodies has been considerable. This has affected the range of information that it is possible to include in Volume 2. As a result it was necessary to eliminate telephone information from the addresses of category F organizations (those of category E are already excluded) in the case of membership links.

Mailings for the 32nd edition are already commencing.

Unlike the previous edition, work has not been disrupted by computer or other problems. The absence of a key member of editorial research staff for 9 months, due to an accident, did however reduce the quality of the work done on following up new organizations.

Restructuring the Yearbook: At this point, no further restructuring of the Yearbook is planned until the impact of the CD-ROM initiative is clear.

Annuaire des Organisations Internationales: The last French edition was produced in 1980 with the aid of the French Government. Discussions on the possibility of a CD-ROM based French version of the Yearbook, initiated by the French Government in 1991, have continued through to the present.

Contacts have been developed with other possible partners, notably the ACCT, the Communauté française de Belgique and the Délégation de Québec.

At the time of writing, an amount of 260,000 FF has been transferred to UIA by the French Government. This represents approximately one third of the estimated amount required for the task -- if the translation is to be complete in every detail. The global budget is approximately 1 million FF. The problem is therefore what to do if the remaining two thirds cannot be obtained from some other source.

As noted above, the possibility of using machine-assisted translation has been explored (two systems have been tested) in order to reduce translation costs and to increase the speed at which the translation can be done so as to respect any CD-ROM deadlines for the English version. It is however expected that a more conventional approach will be taken.

It is appropriate to note that the problems for any subsequent edition of the French version are themselves complex:

• It is improbable that equivalent sums of money will be made available by the French Government for a second edition.
• There are major technical problems in identifying which updates to any English edition need to be translated as modifications to the French edition in order to respect the parallelism between the two language versions.

The UIA was requested to make a presentation on the project to the Comité du Suivie de la Langue Française dans les Organisations Internationales in Paris in February 1994. The background document, prepared through many drafts with the Quai d'Orsay, is included as Annex 4.

It was indicated that the matter would be transferred to higher authority following that meeting. It is quite unclear when any decision will be taken. The most sensitive issue was the manner in which the French information would be handled in relation to the english information on the CD-ROM, especially with the likelihood that the English information would be more frequently updated than the French.

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