Describes the role of the United Nations University in promoting the effective use of new information technologies in support of science and technology for development. The UNU Information and Decision Systems (INDES) project studies the constraints preventing developing countries from using advances in informatics in the design and management of complex man-made systems, and from integrating their own systems with international systems. A Symposium held in Kyoto, Japan in 1992 reviewed major information programmes over the last twenty-five years which had aimed at improving the information processing capabilities of countries, and found that a significant gap in infrastructure and a lack of systematic approach still persisted in many developing countries.
