The primary objective of this conference was to provide a regional forum where government officials, planners, scientists and experts from Asia and the Pacific could meet to exchange ideas and information and to address the common needs, problems and experiences in the field of cartography and geographical information including educational and training aspects, scientific and technical requirements, implementation issues and benefits. This report covers the work of the committees, resolutions adopted by the conference, the provisional agenda for the sixteenth conference and lists of documents and participants.

Now in its 13th year, the NILOS Documentary Yearbook provides the reader with an excellent collection of documents related to ocean affairs and the law of the sea, issued each year by organizations, organs and bodies of the United Nations system. Documents of the UN General Assembly, Meeting of State Parties to the 1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention, ISBA, ITLOS, Follow-Up to the UN Straddling Fish Stocks and Small Island States Conferences, Panama Canal, ECOSOC, UNEP and UNCTAD are included first, followed by the documents of FAO, IAEA, IMO, UNESCO/IOC. As in the previous volumes, documents which were issued in the course of 1997 are reproduced, while other relevant documents are listed. The NILOS Documentary Yearbook has proved to be of invaluable assistance in facilitating access by the community of scholars and practitioners in ocean affairs and the law of the sea to essential documentation. The entry of the 1992 UN Law of the Sea Convention into force on 16th November 1994 and of the Part XI Agreement - on 28 July 1996, and progress in the implementation of Chapter 17 of Agenda 21, make continuation of this assistance of particular significance in the years to come. The members of the Yearbook's Advisory Board are: Judges Abdul Koroma and Shigeru Oda of the ICJ, Judges Thomas Mensah, Dolliver Nelson and Tullio Treves of the ITLOS, as well as Rosalie Balkin, Edward Brown, Lee Kimball, Bernard Oxman and Shabtai Rosenne.

This publication provides a full and complete report of the Conference, which was held at the United Nations Headquarters, New York City, 22-26 January 2001. The conference fosters the exchange of ideas and information in cartography and geographical information. It also focuses on information and data exchange, training and scientific requirements with special attention to the development of spatial data infrastructure at all levels.

Fully indexed, the 1991 edition of the Yearbook is the single most current, comprehensive and authoritative reference publication about the work of the United Nations, other international organizations and related bodies. The book is designed not just for use by diplomats, officials and scholars but also by other researchers, writers, journalists, teachers and students. The year 1991 was a remarkably eventful one for the United Nations and in the conduct of international relations. This volume of the Yearbook details the activities of the United Nations, its many organs, agencies and programmes, working together to rekindle a new form of multilateral cooperation for a better world. It records the diverse and globe-encompassing activities of the United Nations and its enduring efforts to deal with the world's pressing concerns, particularly matters of international peace and security, disarmament, human rights, the settlement of regional conflicts, economic and social development, the preservation of the environment, control of drugs and narcotic substance abuse, crime prevention, adequate shelter, youth and the ageing and humanitarian assistance for refugees as well as disaster relief. The Yearbook of the United Nations is now up-to-date. The Yearbooks for the years 1988, 1989 and 1990 will be published simultaneously.