Forty Years Of The Coordinating Committee For Geoscience - CCOP

2. It authorised the Project Office to employ an accountant-cum-office-manager at a cost
not exceeding $17,500 per annum to be paid from CCOP funds.
3. It requested the Project Office to urge the Netherlands to provide two associate
Quaternary geology experts and one electronics technician on a non-reimbursable loan
basis rather than three associate Quaternary geology experts.
4. It authorised the Project Office to increase the sales price of CCOP publications.
5. It requested the Project Office to prepare a (costed) work programme for 1983 and 1984
based on the expressed needs and priorities of the Member Countries. This was to be
submitted to Cooperating Countries and other agencies for consideration and support.
Such a programme would be the basis for Permanent Representatives to request
additional contributions from their respective Governments
6. It requested the UNDP Project Office to write to the Permanent Representative of
Thailand to urgently consider the provision of adequate host facilities such as free
premises as well as to provide or pay for costs of all, or at least some of the support
staff.
In view of the important changes which were anticipated as a consequence of the Steering
Committee’s decisions it was also suggested that the existing terms of reference of CCOP should
be amended and that the proposed amendments be submitted to the appropriate officials of the
Japanese Government for comment. This was deemed necessary because of the special position
of Japan with respect to CCOP and the UNDP Project. Discussion of the Terms of Reference of
CCOP was to be a recurring theme for the next few years. This particularly related to the status
of CCOP, whether it was in reality a legally constituted intergovernmental organisation or rather
a UN committee; an issue which was to be of great importance to its future.
Also in 1984 several other important matters concerning the future management and
administration of CCOP were being discussed by the Steering Committee. Hitherto most of the
day to day management responsibility lay with the Project Manager/Coordinator of the UNDP
Project. The Steering Committee now agreed that the
position of the officer-in-charge of a new CCOP Technical
Secretariat should be designated the ‘Director’. They
requested that ESCAP consider employing the Director for
an interim period of one year using a trust fund formed
from Member Country Contributions but ESCAP
intimated that such a request would have to be referred to
UN Headquarters as such a decision would require legal
clarification. In the meantime the Member Countries
agreed that the Steering Committee should decide the
salary, terms of employment and job description of the
prospective Director. ESCAP was requested to give urgent
consideration to employing the current Project
Manager/Coordinator of the UNDP Project (Mr S K
Chung, see Figure 7) as temporary Director of CCOP
until a permanent Director could be appointed. As an
Figure 7. Mr S K Chung, Project
Manager/ Coordinator of the
UNDP/CCOP Project and
Temporary Director of CCOP in
1985-1986.
interim measure it was also agreed that an accounts
officer, a secretary and a driver should be retained on their
present salaries until March, 1985, and ESCAP be
requested to pay their salaries from the CCOP Trust fund.
In this manner, an embryonic Secretariat, separate from the
UNDP Project was to be born.
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A World of Difference