The United Nations University (UNU) is an international community of scholars engaged in research, capacity building and knowledge dissemination to promote the United Nations' aims of peace and progress.

Currently focuses research and capacity building in two programme areas: peace and governance, and the environment and sustainable development. UNU's academic work is carried out at the UNU Centre in Tokyo and by eight research and training centres and programmes as follows: UNU World InstituteforDevelopment EconomicsResearch [UNU/WIDER] in Helsinki, Finland; UNU Institute for New Technologies[UNU/INTECH] in Maastricht, the Netherlands; UNU International Institute for Software Technology [UNU/IIST] in Macau; UNU Institute for Natural Resources in Africa [UNU/INRA] in Legon, Ghana, with a Mineral Resources Unit in Lusaka, Zambia ; UNU Institute of Advanced Studies [UNU/IAS] in Tokyo; UNU Programme for Biotechnology in Latin America and the Caribbean [UNU/BIOLAC] in Caracas, Venezuela ; UNU International Leadership Academy[UNU/ILA] in Amman, Jordan; UNU International Network on Water, Environment and Health [UNU/INWEH] in Ontario, Canada.

WWW site includes information on research,training and capacity building, publications list and library services (catalogue not available online)and online newsletters

An Arabic translation of this handbook was released in 2006 and is available in electronic format (along with the English, French and Spanish versions) on the 'Food and Nutrition Library' CD-Rom 3.1 - e-mail fnl@humaninfo.org or visit  www.humaninfo.org , www.worldinfo.org