In-House

CST's Homepage

The Country Support Team (CST) for the South Pacific launched its Homepage live' on the Internet on 16 Oct 1996. The homepage is located at the United Nations, New York POPIN Fileserver and can be accessed at the following URL address : http://www.undp.org/ popin/regional/asiapac/fiji/ fijihome.htm.

The homepage includes Web versions of the newsletter, profiles on members of the Team, discussion papers and general information concerning the CST. The Homepage will be gradually updated to include the following information:

  1. Mission schedules of the advisers
  2. Profiles on each of the countries supported by the Team, with relevant population indicators, and
  3. forthcoming population activities in the Pacific subregion.
Skill Enhancement

In its continuous programme to upgrade the skills of its support staff, the CST sent various staff members to attend the following courses:
  • The Library Assistant/ Documentalist, to a Report Writing Course held at the Fiji National Training Council (FNTC), Narere, 12-14 August 1996

  • Ms. Tema Tekei attended the Senior Secretary's Course from 19-20 September, held at FNTC, Narere.

  • The Administrative/Finance Assistant attended the Women in Management Course held at the FNTC, Narere, 14-18 October 1996.

  • The Documentalist attended the first Asia-Pacific POPIN Internet Training Workshop, 18-22 November 1996, Bangkok, Thailand. The workshop covered topics such as WWW, HTML, Internet surfing, Search engines and graphics imaging.

  • The Documentalist conducted an in-house basic course in Web page design and Internet surfing for the support staff on 2-5 December. Participants were required to surf the Net and download various items for the Office and also create individual homepages as part of the exercise.
Au Revoir

As we head into the festive season and the end of 1996, the CST Suva will sadly lose a valuable member of the Team. Mr. Allan K. Kondo, Population Education Adviser, retires on 31 December 1996, after 22 years in UN Service.

Mr. Kondo holds a doctorate in science education from Teachers College, Columbia University (USA). He has had wide experience in the field of education at all levels, including teaching science in elementary and secondary schools in Hawaii, developing materials for the Science Curriculum Improvement Study, serving as a science curriculum specialist with the Columbia University Team in Afghanistan, and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in Indiana University (USA).

When he joined UNESCO in 1976 he was posted to Afghanistan, acting as coordinator of UNESCO projects in science education, educational planning, teacher education, educational broadcasting and adult literacy. He then served as adviser on in-service teacher education and on population education at the Curriculum Development Centre in Malaysia before coming to the Pacific.

Prior to joining the Team, he was based in Suva for 11 years as UNESCO Regional Adviser for Population Education in the Pacific and assisted 10 Pacific island countries in establishing UNFPA-funded formal and non-formal population education projects, as well as organizing regional activities in population education. He also managed the WHO/UNESCO project on School AIDS Education in the Pacific, which provided assistance to Pacific countries in establishing school programmes for AIDS prevention.

Thank you Allan for your contribution to UNFPA and the Country Support Team. We wish you all the best.