Biomedical Research in Developing Countries - UNICRI

national institutions, Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research
and Health Care tries to address ethical and human rights issues in science,
technology and health and to evidence their impact on African-Americans.
Its main objectives are: to promote racial and ethnic diversity in bioethics,
underlying them in public debates; to carry out research on bioethics and publish
scholarship on bioethics and underserved populations; to improve awareness on
bioethical issues of importance to underserved populations to students, scholars and
media; to address inequity in health and health care and to develop training
programmes; to support public policies for the improvement of health and health
care for all Americans, without discriminations.
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UNESCO
Ethics Education Programme
UNESCO works in the field of bioethics since the ‘90s, when in 1997 it adopted the
Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, which underlined
in its 20th articles, the necessity of education in bioethics. In 1999 with the
Declaration on Science and the use of scientific knowledge, UNESCO stated that
science curricula should include science ethics: COMEST (UNESCO’s World
Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology), was established
in 1998, to have a key role in strengthening this issue.
The importance of Ethics and its deep affiliation with UNESCO’s mandate and work
is evidenced in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2005),
which on its Article 23 encourages States to stress the importance of the teaching
of bioethics at any level. In 2003, during the 32nd UNESCO General Conference,
Member States expressed the need to start and bear teaching programmes in ethics
in every field, from bioethics to scientific and professional education.
On this basis, in 2004 UNESCO inaugurated its Ethics Education Programme. The
first aim of this project is to increase the capacity of Member States in the ethics
education area. The size of the related objectives requested the subdivision of the
intervention areas: for the biennium 2004-2005 the activities have focused in East
and Central Europe and for the 2006-2007 UNESCO focused on South-East Europe
and the Arab Region (Gulf Region).
Since its involvement in promoting international reflection on the ethics of life
sciences in the 1970s, UNESCO continues to build and reinforce linkages among
ethicists, scientists, policy-makers and civil society to assist Member States in
enacting effective policies on ethical issues in science and technology. UNESCO
pursues its ethical mandate in the two primary work areas of Bioethics and Ethics
of Science and Technology., through the work of the International Bioethics
Committee (IBC) and the Intergovernmental Bioethics Committee (IGBC) that
address the emerging ethical challenges via a multidisciplinary and pluralistic forum.
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