IN A RADICAL departure from earlier policy, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) will now look beyond the Hindu Kush region and establish links to study other mountain regions of the world. This is in line with its strategic plan for the 1990s, titled "Towards 2000", which also proposes major changes in the mode of governance of ICIMOD.

Started in 1983, ICIMOD has run into criticism for its supposedly "vague" agenda that can lead to misinterpretation. The review report calls for the transformation of the centre from the existing "inter-governmental/regional pattern of governance into a genuinely international institution", by enlarging the board of governors and reconstituting it as a donor support group.