U.S. launches cooperative education program in APEC

U.S. launches cooperative education program in APEC

The United States has launched a new program under the Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) umbrella with the goal of
expanding cooperation in higher education within the Asia-Pacific
Region.

The APEC Study Centers Consortium developed from a proposal
made by the U.S. at the APEC Summit held in Seattle, Washington,
in 1993. The charter for the consortium was signed at the U.S.
State Department in Washington, D.C. in August of this year.

Indonesia, along with Australia, Canada, China, New Zealand,
and Thailand, has indicated it will pursue the study center
consortium, according to Desaix Anderson, the APEC coordinator at
the State Department.

The U.S. initiative called for "an investment in our future
generations by establishing an APEC education program to develop
regional cooperation, study key regional economic issues, improve
worker skills, facilitate cultural and intellectual exchanges,
enhance labor mobility and foster understanding of the diversity
of our region".

The APEC study centers will be interdisciplinary, policy-
oriented centers for research at the advanced or graduate level,
with scholars from several APEC member economies jointly
examining such issues as trade and investment liberalization,
environmental pollution, energy requirements and APEC's
infrastructure. The U.S. response also includes scholar exchanges
under the Fulbright program.

Solutions

The original proposal noted that because over two billion
people make up the Asia-Pacific market, the founding of the
consortium will establish a center to discuss "cooperative
solutions to the challenges of our rapidly changing regional and
global economy".

It is also hoped that the consortium will heighten American
understanding of the Asia-Pacific region, both from the point of
view of its cultural aspects and the business opportunities to be
had in APEC.

Most of the founding members of the consortium have extensive
connections with Asian universities, as well as Asian study
centers and Asian regional studies.

The universities in the consortium are the East-West Center in
Hawaii; the University of Hawaii; the State University of New
York, Buffalo; Michigan State University; North Carolina State
University; University of California, San Diego; Washington State
University; Washington University; Rutgers University, New
Jersey; New Jersey Institute of Technology; Columbia University;
and Texas A and M.

Each university grouped in the consortium will have its own
focus of study. At Washington State University, natural
resources, environmental studies, food safety and food production
will be at the top of the agenda.

The University of Hawaii and the East West Center are studying
the prospects of establishing early career and mid-career
executive training programs.

Other APEC members will have their own versions of the APEC
Study Center concept. "Our hope is that each member study center
will be very much in touch with the other study centers around
the Asia-Pacific and that their research projects will involve
several numbers; that's the goal," says Anderson. "And the goal
is also that they will work together on key policy issues, and
that they will continue to work together ... to develop common
policies."