  In 2010, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space
began consideration of a new agenda item under a three-year work plan on the
International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI). The main objectives of ISWI are
to contribute to the development of the scientific insight necessary to improve
understanding and forecasting capabilities of space weather as well as to
education and public outreach. The United Nations Programme on Space
Applications, implemented by the Office for Outer Space Affairs, is
implementing ISWI in the framework of its United Nations Basic Space Science
Initiative (UNBSSI), a long-term effort, launched in 1991, for the development
of basic space science and for international and regional cooperation in this
field on a worldwide basis, particularly in developing countries. UNBSSI
encompassed a series of workshops, held from 1991 to 2004, which addressed the
status of basic space science in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America
and the Caribbean, and Western Asia. As a result several small astronomical
research facilities have been inaugurated and education programmes at the
university level were established. Between 2005 and 2009, the UNBSSI activities
were dedicated to promoting activities related to the International
Heliophysical Year 2007 (IHY), which contributed to the establishment of a
series of worldwide ground-based instrument networks, a node of which is also
operated by the Office for Outer Space Affairs. Building on these
accomplishments, UNBSSI is now focussing on the ISWI.
