Note: This fellowship is not currently being offered.

The Pearson Fellowship is a senior fellowship awarded to individuals who have an outstanding record of national and/or international public service. A memorial to Lester B. Pearson, the fellowship emphasizes ethical public service and international perspectives, as opposed to narrower national concerns. The Pearson Fellowship is intended to enable outstanding thinkers and practitioners to take the time to reflect and write on contemporary international affairs and the theory and practice of international development. Public education is an important feature of the Pearson Fellow's work.

Past Pearson Fellows include:

• Bhalla, Ajit (India), former Chief, Employment Strategies Branch, International Labour Organization, Globalization, Technology and Employment in the 1990s and Regional Integration, 1995/96.

• Sahnoun, Mohammed (Algeria), former Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations and Co-ordinator of UN Operations in Somalia, Problems of Marginalization in Africa; Challenges Posed by Forced Migration and Refugees; and Issues Posed by Agenda 21 with Particular Reference to Africa, 1993/94. 

Pearson Fellows are nominated by IDRC's President and approved by IDRC's Board of Governors. Interested individuals should forward a curriculum vitae along with a statement of intent to Fellowships and Awards. Only nominated candidates will be contacted.

Dr. Ajit Bhalla: Pearson Fellow 1995-96

Since completing his PhD at the University of Manchester in 1964, Dr. Bhalla, a citizen of India, has had a distinguished career with the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva. Dr. Bhalla was founder of the ILO's World Employment Program (WEP), a program that encourages creative ideas for meeting the basic needs of the poor through advisor services to governments, donors, and employers' and workers' organizations; technical cooperation in developing countries; research; and dissemination of information.

WEP research has produced a wide range of ground-breaking studies: the role of the urban informal sector in overall development and employment policies; technological and structural changes and their impact on employment and income distribution; farm and non-farm linkages; building national technological capabilities; environment, employment, and development interrelationships as well as those between environmental degradation and poverty alleviation; the socioeconomic impact of new technologies; and poverty reduction through technology blending.

As Chief of ILO's Employment Strategies Branch, Dr. Bhalla directed research on the following topics: development strategies for the 1990s; macroeconomic policies and employment expansion; structural adjustment policies and their impact on poverty; and environment, poverty and development.

Dr. Bhalla completed a busy and productive year at IDRC as Pearson Fellow. He led a project, Globalisation, the Information Highway, and Marginalisation, through which six papers by distinguished scholars have been commissioned (this work will be published in 1997). Dr. Bhalla travelled across Canada, giving and attending seminars. He visited IDRC's regional offices in Asia, Latin America, and South Africa, exploring possibilities for new projects and collaborative initiatives. Dr. Bhalla has been particularly helpful in arranging introductions to key development thinkers in Japan.

Dr. Bhalla has continued working on four manuscripts: Globalisation and Innovations; Regional Blocs: Building Blocks or Stumbling Blocks?; Social Exclusion Revisited; and Market Failures, Government Failures, and Implementation Failures.

Mohammed Sahnoun: Pearson Fellow 1993-94

Following studies at the Sorbonne and New York University, Ambassador Sahnoun has had a distinguished career in diplomacy for Algeria as Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Ambassador to Germany, France, the United States, Morocco and the United Nations. He has been advisor to the President of Algeria. His career as an international civil servant includes work as Deputy Secretary General of the Organization of Arab Unity, Deputy Secretary General of the General Arab League, and most recently Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations and co-ordinator of UN operations in Somalia. Ambassador Sahnoun served on the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland) and he is a member of the Board of the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

During his tenure as Pearson Fellow at IDRC, Ambassador Sahnoun was active within Canada and abroad, advising and consulting governments and organizations on problems of marginalization in Africa, challenges posed by forced migration and refugees, and issues highlighted by Agenda 21 with particular reference to Africa. He took part in gatherings such as the African Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution (South Africa), the "Conférence sur l'intervention et la souveraineté" at the Sorbonne (France), and the Open Forum of the State Department (U.S.A.).

IDRC hopes to publish a compilation of essays based on the many talks Ambassador Sahnoun was invited to give during his tenure as Pearson Fellow. These essays distill an impressive mix of experience and practice in international public affairs and diplomacy into a gently offered wisdom and an appeal to reasonable men and women to learn from history and to weigh carefully the choices offered in a world where all is in flux.

Since completing his tenure, Ambassador Sahnoun has continued making important contributions to international public affairs. With support from the Dutch government, Ambassador Sahnoun worked under the aegis of the Earth Council and the Green Cross Foundation on a draft of an Earth Charter. An outline of the charter was presented to the 50th anniversary meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations. The Earth Charter, in final form, is due to be tabled and discussed at the 1997 meeting of the General Assembly marking the fifth anniversary of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (The Earth Summit) which took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 1992.

Most recently he was based in Geneva as a Special Advisor to UNRISD's War Torn Societies Project. He is currently the Special Commissioner for the Great Lakes Region of Africa, a joint appointment of the UN and OAU.