among the 159 member countries of the United Nations Organization which
are treated as country units, while smaller countries are grouped
together in regions. The number of equations used is approximately 13
700, while the number of software steps for computation is approximately
100000. Computation, including tabulation, can nevertheless be performed
very rapidly, and only about 20 minutes is required to make forecasts
from the present up to the year 2000. The FUGI model is at present being
used by the Projections and Perspectives Studies Branch, Department of
International Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, for
simulations of United Nations medium- and long-term international
development strategies, while the Project LINK model is being used for
short-term forecasts (Onishi, 1985). Stimulated by our latest joint
research with the United Nations University on a 'global early warning
system for displaced persions', we have felt the need for our FUGI model
to go beyond its present capacities centred on an 'economic' model (in
the rather traditional, restricted sense of the term) and to develop
into a model that can in the future analyse 'global problematiques' or
'global complexes of symptoms' and complicated questions including
various types of environmental problems and the sorts of displaced
persons issues to which we are now directing our attention. We are thus
expanding the scope of our fifth-generation FUGI model, presently under
development, to deal with such issues.