Musings: The Importance of UNESCO

UNESCO is chartered with huge responsibilities, but shackled with a small budget -- on the order of US$300 million per year. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has lead responsibilities in the United Nations system for there areas, and also for communications and information.

Compare UNESCO's budget for its world wide responsibilities with some U.S. entities. My county's school system, for example, has an operating budget of some $2 billion per year plus an investment budget of some $230 million a year. The U.S. Federal Government spends $116 billion per year on research and development, and of course that is only part of what is spent on R&D in the country, and the expenditures on science include not only research and development but many other scientific functions as well. The global market value of cultural and creative industries (producing and distributing such goods and services such as books, CDs, videogames and sculptures) has been estimated at US$ 1.3 trillion and is rapidly expanding; between 1994 and 2002, international trade in cultural goods increased from US$38 billion to US$60 billion. The United States -- with a population of over 400 million, and per capita GDP of $43,500 -- spent 8.8 percent of GDP on information and communications technology in 2005.
As the above graph shows, the number of intergovernmental organizations exploded in the last half of the 20th century. UNESCO is now one of thousands of such organizations. We tend to lose track of the work and impacts of individual intergovernmental organizations in the mass of such organizations. So too, we tend to assume that these organizations with relatively small budgets also have relatively limited impact.

In the case of UNESCO, I would suggest that the impact has been quite significant:

Education

The community of nations has embarked on an ambitious program to provide Education for All, and includes ambitious educational goals within the Millennium Development Goals. UNESCO's function over the years has been to keep international attention on education, and on the need to work to assure people's human rights to education. In the current situation, it has worked to help assure that educational statistics are comparable among countries, and provides forums where national governments have to defend their educational performance before both their own citizens and other nations. It is likely that global educational achievements are much greater than they would be had there not been a United Nations body to do that which UNESCO does in education.

Science

In its early years, UNESCO's influence was critically important in the creation of the International Center for Theoretical Physics and the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN); these organizations have helped both to illuminate the nature of the universe and to spread modern physics worldwide. The role of CERN in the creation of the World Wide Web might alone justify UNESCO's existence.

The role of UNESCO's Intergovernmental Science Committees has been quite important. In oceanography, UNESCO has helped the scientific community to work in ways transcending national borders, and is working to develop tsunami warning systems to serve all of the world at risk from tsunami disasters. The hydrology program is allowing collaborative work to characterize water resources, and helping to create a knowledge base that can be trusted in negotiation on control and allocation of water resources. The Man in the Biosphere program has resulted in a collaborative structure of hundreds of bioreserves, where mankind is learning how to protect the biospere.

Culture

UNESCO's World Heritage Center has recognized more than 800 natural and cultural sites that are so important that they can be fairly called the heritage of all mankind. For each, the country in which the site is located has produced a detailed study of the site and a plan for its protection. Monitoring of the state of those sites encourages countries to work hard to achieve that protection, and over the history of the program only one country has withdrawn a single site from the network.

UNESCO has also catalized the creation of a body of international conventions that protect cultural property. Since the protection of Abu Simbelm UNESCO has provided a system that helps to protect cultural heritage during emergencies and wars, and helps to regulate international trade to prevent the trade in stolen artifacts and other cultural property.

Communications

UNESCO provides a mechanism for the United Nations to militate for freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Every time a reporter is killed or imprisoned anywhere in the world, UNESCO protests and in so doing draws public attention to the event.

UNESCO also serves the United Nations system to promote libraries, to support a culture of the book, and more recently to promote the development of digital information serving the countries on the wrong side of the digital divide.

Why is UNESCO Important to the United States?

The points above are made to illustrate that UNESCO is important to the community of nations. To our State Department, which concerns itself primarily with security and economic issues, those services may not be convincing. Of course, U.S. foreign policy is also concerned with supporting the international humanitarian programs desired by the American public, and UNESCO's programs in Africa are prototypical of the multilateral approach to development assistance.

UNESCO was created to promote the international cooperation of national intellectual communities -- educatoral, scientistific and cultural. Indeed these communities in the United States value the contacts with their peers abroad, and expect the foreign policy apparatus of government to facilitate that networking. UNESCO is, in realizing these aspirations, an important element of foreign policy.

The State Department is increasingly recognizing the importance of "soft diplomacy" as a necessary complement to the "hard diplomacy" focusing on economic and military power. The United States needs to restore the confidence of other nations that this country will negotiate in good faith, with understanding and respect for the positions of others, and UNESCO provides a useful forum for that purpose.

As Archibald McLeish, the writer and Librarian of Congress, so memorably said in the negotiations leading up to the creation of UNESCO, "Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that we must begin to build the defenses of peace." Building those defenses is a long term process, and it is one best accomplished by the community of nations working together. Thus UNESCO, with its work with education and with the intellectual communities of the nations of the world, should be a significant element in U.S. soft diplomacy.

Musing About the Future of UNESCO

Last night we held a panel discussion in our graduate class on UNESCO. The class focused on UNESCO's future in the 21st century. The discussion focused on how UNESCO could adapt to the changes that will surely occur over the next 40 years or so.

Coincidentally, I have been reading Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity by William J. Baumol, Robert E. Litan, Carl J. Schramm. The authors focus on innovation as the basis of economic success of nations. For advanced developed nations, working at the forefront of technology and having relatively high costs of labor, companies must invent, not only innovate by copying. The authors also realize that most invention comes from individual entrepreneurs and small firms. However, they note that it is large firms that have the resources to take an invention and develop it into a widely used, high quality, reliable product. Successful large firms not only continue to innovate by acquiring and building on ideas from outside (and occasionally inventing from within(, they also get rid of activities by decentralizing management, selling off divisions, or closing down things which are no longer profitable.

Perhaps UNESCO, with its 2000 people can take the successful commercial firm of a comparable size and learn from their approach. It seems clear that would be better served by a sharper focus. Many of its most successful programs have their own oversight bodies and receive most of their financing from other sources, not UNESCO. Perhaps a process of formally either turning activities into independent agencies, or of decentralizing by delegation of full authority to the staff and directors of some of these activities might help. This sounds easy, but in fact is very difficult. The management of the reengineering and restructuring of relations in downsizing processes requires great leadership if it is to be done well.

UNESCO often finds innovations thrust upon them -- new standards setting documents, new centers, new programs. Some of the best programs were started in this way. Russel Train was the motive force behind the invention of the World Heritage program, which the secretariat carried to success, as Roger Revell and a few other scientists were the originators of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Committee, which UNESCO also made a success. Indeed, even in the cases of Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals, UNESCO took on tasks developed outside and ran with them. Again, the management of innovation in a large, complex organization is also very demanding of skills and time.

UNESCO needs very good management to select among all the innovations suggested each year those which are really practical and important, those which fit with UNESCO's mandate and capabilities, and those which UNESCO can do well. It also needs good management to decide which of its current activities not to do, and to make the best, most appropriate arrangements for their termination or decentralization.

John Daly

UNESCO Destroys 100,000: Director General Launches Investigation

Molly Moore and John Ward Anderson write in The Washington Post (April 13, 2008):

For more than two decades, 250 historians and specialists labored to produce the first six volumes of the General History of Latin America, an exhaustive work financed by UNESCO, the United Nations organization created to preserve global culture and heritage.

Then, over the course of two years, UNESCO paid to destroy many of those books and nearly 100,000 others by turning them to pulp, according to an external audit.

"This is the intellectual organization of the United Nations system," Aziza Bennani, Morocco's ambassador to UNESCO, said in an interview. "How could an employee of UNESCO make a decision to destroy these books?"

Homero Aridjis, Mexico's ambassador, said at the organization's executive council meeting this week, "This is not only a blow to the culture and knowledge of entire populations and nations, it contradicts the mandate entrusted to UNESCO." He demanded an internal investigation.

UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura said it was "completely incomprehensible and inappropriate" that some of the organization's "most important and successful collections" were ordered destroyed, including histories of humanity and Africa, and surveys of ancient monuments.

The article also states:

According to the report, the destruction occurred in 2004 and 2005, when UNESCO's overflowing book storage warehouses in Paris were relocated to Brussels. Rather than pay to move 94,500 books, auditors reported, UNESCO officials ordered them destroyed. The books were turned to pulp for recycling, the audit says.

Nino Muñoz Gomez, director of UNESCO's Bureau of Public Information and chief of the publishing division, said that at least half of the destroyed volumes were outdated and contained obsolete statistical data.

The audit notes that some publications were out of date but says others "on historical or purely literary themes (poetry anthologies, stories from all lands in translation) were not at all affected by obsolescence." It says a "solution other than destruction" should have been considered, "such as free distribution to libraries.".....

Because too many books often were ordered and others were never distributed properly, tens of thousands piled up in UNESCO's storage facilities at a cost of about $100,000 a year, until the agency decided to shift distribution functions to a Brussels company and move its stocks there.

Muñoz Gomez, who assumed his post in April 2005 and was chief of the publishing section for nine months while the book destruction was taking place, said he did not learn of it until early 2006, when a new employee showed him thousands of dollars in bills for the pulping.

He said he authorized payment of those bills "of several thousand euros each" but did not realize the magnitude of the operation. "All we knew is the bills were sent by the company and we had to pay the bills," he said in an interview.

Read the full Washington Post article.

Read the Director General's comments on the situation.


"He who destroys a good book, kills Reason itself …"
John Milton (downloaded from a UNESCO website)

Telephone Conference of the U.S. National Commission For UNESCO

The U.S. National Commission for UNESCO will meet by conference call on Wednesday, April 23, at 11a.m. The meeting of this advisory committee will last until approximately 12:00 p.m., and the call is open to the public.

The U.S. National Commission for UNESCO was asked to provide recommendations on a proposal received to establish a UNESCO Chair. For more information about the Program see http://www.state.gov/p/io/unesco/c14222.htm. The call will also be an opportunity to provide an update on recent and upcoming UNESCO and U.S. National Commission for UNESCO activities.

For more information on this conference call, or to participate in it, please contact the Executive Secretariat of the National Commission at 202-663-0026.

David Adams Website: Global Movement Towards a Culture of Peace

David Adams until his retirement from UNESCO in 2001 was responsible for UNESCO's commemoration of the International Year of the Culture of Peace and was the architect of many of the Culture of Peace programs. Following a career as Professor of Psychology for 23 years at Wesleyan University, he had come to UNESCO in 1992 to develop the Culture of Peace Program.

He currently maintains a website in support of the development of a global culture of peace.

Go to the Culture of Peace website.

Editorial: The United States Positions At UNESCO

What should be the United States position with respect to UNESCO as we enter the 21st Century?

UNESCO seeks to build the defenses of peace in the minds of men. It seeks to promote international cooperation among the intellectual communities of its member states, It is the lead agency for the United Nations in education, science, culture and communications. It describes itself as a laboratory of ideas, as a standard setter, as a clearing house, as a builder of capacity in Member States and as a catalyst for international cooperation.

The United States cooperated in the creation of UNESCO, with post World War II leaders seeing it as important to a variety of U.S. foreign policy interests. It withdrew from UNESCO in 1984 when -- due to UNESCO's bureaucratic inefficiencies and to some areas in which the majority of governments opposed the positions of the United States -- a later administration concluded that UNESCO no longer was a cost-effective vehicle for achieving U.S. foreign policy objectives. In 2002, following improvements in the operations and efficiency of UNESCO and changes in aspects of UNESCO's policies and programs, the United States government decided to rejoin the Organization.

U.S. Foreign Policy Objectives

The dominant foreign policy objectives of the United States are assuring the security and economic health of the nation. Humanitarian concerns are also important, realized through provision of relief to the victims of disaster and provision of foreign assistance for the alleviation of poverty. There are increasing concerns for global problems, such as protecting the health of the nation from global epidemics, protection of the global environment, and protection of World Heritage from the threats that arise from globalization.

The State Department has also maintained a program of cultural diplomacy, which has been under-appreciated. Cultural diplomacy has the potential to help bridge the cultural divides between the people of the United States and the peoples of other nations, tand indeed to prepare U.S. government officials to deal with people from other cultures.

It is also important that the U.S. builds support for and reduces resistance to its own diplomatic priorities. Importantly, diplomats engage in give and take in international fora, supporting the priorities of other nations and building alliances.

UNESCO's Potential Importance to U.S. Diplomacy

UNESCO's efforts to promote peace through appropriate education programs, and its ability to promote better understanding among people of different cultures are increasingly important to U.S. security, as indeed is UNESCO's ability as a neutral party to allow the global scientific community to reach consensus on issues such as the location and availability of water resources or the appropriate management of ocean resources.

UNESCO's leadership of the global Education for All program, its intergovernmental scientific programs, its World Heritage program, and its network of conventions governing cultural property are additional examples of highly cost- effective vehicles for the United States by which UNESCO is achieving objectives of U.S. foreign policy as well as objectives of many other member states.

UNESCO can serve as a neutral venue for discussions between the United States and other nations. In some cases those discussions are important in themselves and in others they are important in building confidence for later negotiations. Similarly, it serves as a venue in which other countries can meet, advancing peace processes and cultural understanding in ways that are indirectly important to the United States.

UNESCO offers a vehicle to help network U.S. educations, scientists and cultural leaders with their counterparts in other nations. Such networking is important in achieving a number of foreign policy objectives, and indeed is so valued by the U.S. communities involved that it is itself an increasingly important objective in terms of service to the public.

Priorities

As a result of the 18 year absence of the United States from UNESCO membership, the immediate concern is to reestablish U.S. influence in the governance of UNESCO while seeking changes in policy and programs that further advance U.S. foreign polity interests.

Another immediate priority is reacquainting the U.S. communities with UNESCO, and increasing the involvement of leaders of those communities in the work of UNESCO. In this respect, the U.S. National Commission could again be an important instrument as it was in the distant past.

Of course, the United States is interested in UNESCO's ability to work effectively and efficiently. UNESCO will not be an useful vehicle for achieving U.S. foreign policy objectives if it is allowed to be ineffective or inefficient in carrying out its constitutionally assigned mission. Thus the U.S. should use its influence in the governing bodies of UNESCO to assure it is well led and efficiently run.

UNESCO's most important objectives have not been met in six decades of its existence, and will not be quickly met in the future. Every U.S. administration seeks to have results to show in four or eight years. The U.S. should be willing, given the modest size of the UNESCO budget, to give priority to those long term efforts likely to contribute most to peace and prosperity in a livable environment.

Perhaps the most important priority might be to fully incorporate UNESCO as an instrument of U.S. cultural diplomacy, encouraging the organization to promote cultural development in its member states. UNESCO quite properly follows the mandate of its member states to protect and promote cultural diversity. Globalization often results in pressures driving cultural changes which are unpleasant to the members of the changing cultures and indeed sometimes immoral or unethical to the majority of the people.

This is not to say that cultural change itself is unacceptable, but rather that the directions and processes of cultural change must be more acceptable. While the world's cultures are hugely diverse, there is wide agreement among nations on universal rights of man. Consequently, there is likely to be wide agreement that cultural changes are acceptable when they help to assure that people within a culture can more fully achieve those rights. Indeed, it is clear that cultural development is important for achieving peace, for assuring that peoples rights to a decent life, and indeed for assuring freedom of expression and freedom from coercion.

Thus U.S. cultural diplomacy should seek to encourage UNESCO to promote processes which engage the members of the cultures of the world to embrace those changes which will help them to more fully achieve the rights of their members which all nations have agreed to be universal rights.

John Daly
The ideas expressed in this posting are those of the author alone, and do not necessarily represent those of Americans for UNESCO or any other organization.

Editorial: UNESCO Needs to be Reinvented for the 21st Century

UNESCO still reflects the management systems of the time it was created in the aftermath of World War II. It is time to reorganize UNESCO, taking into account the advances in organizational design made possible by the Information Revolution, and prepare UNESCO for the challenges of the 21st Century.

UNESCO should focus on International Networks. It should decentralize, outsource back office functions, conduct much more of its activity via the Internet, focus far more on its core functions, and spin off functions that distract it governors and leaders from those core functions.

Why UNESCO Is the Way It Is

When UNESCO was founded, transportation was far less developed than it is today; there was no commercial jet air travel, and the international air travel system was rudimentary. People in developed nations listened to the radio, but the transistor radio had not yet been invented and much of the world was even out of radio broadcast range. Television was an invention waiting for a market. Making an international phone call was a lengthly and expensive undertaking. The intellectual communities that UNESCO was designed to serve were concentrated in a couple of score of rich countries, and got their information from print media.

There were few intergovernmental organizations in existence before the 1940s, and thus few models that UNESCO could copy. The most applicable was probably the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation with its 40 national committees, and the founders of UNESCO did indeed draw heavily on that experience. However, at that time the dominant organizational form used by government and corporations was hierarchical with a central headquarters and dependent field offices. There were few international corporations in today's sense of that term, and even fewer that emphasized knowledge services.

Not surprisingly then, UNESCO was created with a highly centralized bureaucracy (in Paris), and depended heavily on publication in the print media for its information products. Its founders rejected a French proposal that the national delegations to UNESCO be tripartite, with representatives of the National Commissions and Civil Society as well as government; government was given full control. National Commissions were, however, included in the UNESCO constitution both to advise their governments and to serve as channels of communication between UNESCO and the educational, scientific and cultural communities within the member states.

With decolonization and the epoch of development assistance, UNESCO had to reorganize to some degree in order to carry out its development assistance mission. Similarly, as the network of intergovernmental organizations exploded to include thousands of such organizations, and as governments became more familiar with the concepts of intergovernmental organizations and organized to deal with them on a regular basis, many of the successful UNESCO programs were restructured to have governance shared between UNESCO and their own intergovernmental governance committees. Similarly, many decentralized centers and Institutes came into being, and many have governance structures that respond to UNESCO and to their external donors.

21st Century Management

The Information Revolution has led to major changes in management theory. The hierarchical organization of the 20th century was an effective way to manage national systems that were created to achieve economies of scale in production of goods and services and to distribute products via the elaborating transportation infrastructure to national markets. Companies grew by vertical integration of productive and distribution activities, and later by aggregation of different enterprises into conglomerates. Since intra-organizational information systems were at the time more efficient in coordinating the disparate operations of production and distribution than were markets, large organizations were created.

In the 21st century, e-commerce has come to demonstrate that market processes can be more efficient that intra-organizational ones. Business to business e-commerce is growing, and corporations are focusing more on core competencies, buying the inputs needed for those competencies in one set of markets, and selling their products in another set of markets. Indeed, back office functions, once thought to be core functions of any organization, are not only being outsourced, but are being outsourced from developed to developing countries to achieve economic efficiencies. Similarly, we find government to business e-institutions being developed as well as business to customer e-commerce thriving in businesses such as eBay, Amazon, and Dell. e-government is increasingly improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government to citizen transactions.

Mass communication has developed greatly in the later part of the 20th century, so that most people obtain more information from electronic than from print media. Moreover, the Internet has resulted in point to point communication being as cheap as mass media communication. The World Wide Web is a far more efficient way for UNESCO to interact with the global community that are paper books and periodicals. Indeed, with the development of community radio and satellite communications, it is possible to reach many of even the most isolated communities with up-to-the-minute information.

While it is far more feasible for people to travel to and from Paris than in the past, video conferencing is an increasingly useful approach to face-to-face communications among people who live in widely separated places; video and audio streaming via the Internet can make the proceedings of such conferences cheaply available to a global audience, with each member tuning in from his or her home or office at a time he or she finds most convenient. Thus Internet mediated dialog is likely to increasingly substitute and complement in-person meetings.

Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia of Life illustrate that new Internet based technologies can substitute for earlier management-intensive approaches to the development of bodies of reliable information, and moreover can result in those bodies of information being more current than would be possible with traditional approaches.

Social networking, which probably began with the scientific community in the United States via email and inter-networking, and expanded to include online depositories of scientific papers, has exploded with the growth of Facebook, Linkedin, and other social networking platforms. Today the scientific community continues to gather at large scientific meetings and to disseminate information through peer-reviewed paper journals, but a far richer and more timely networking is taking place over the Internet.

Implications for UNESCO

Studies of governmental organizations that have successfully embarked on e-government efforts have suggested that the process goes through several stages, each of which subsumes and builds upon the previous stages:

1. The establishment of a presence on the Internet.
2. The provision of information via the Internet.
3. The conduct of transactions via the Internet.
4. The ultimate restructuring and reorganization of functions and processes to utilize the Internet.

UNESCO has already accomplished stages one and two, and is conducting some transactions via the Internet. It is now time for the organization to undertake the completion of the process of restructuring and reorganizing to fully utilize the potential provided in the new Global Information Infrastructure. It should revamp its publication policies, reinvent its websites, and build a global information network to be far more effective in the provision of information to the global community. It not only should be far more proactive in moving its transactions to the Global Information Infrastructure, but it should also find ways to dis-intermediate the international communications among the national intellectual communities that it serves.

Most importantly, it should begin to undertake the re-engineering of its structure and processes, and the restructuring of the institutions that form its interface with the governments of its member states, with civil society organizations, and with the global and national intellectual communities it was born to serve.

John Daly
The opinions expressed in this posting are those of the author alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of Americans for UNESCO or any other organization.

Editorial: Towards a UNESCO World Forum

UNESCO should begin program of international conferences, involving intellectual leaders from all over the world, under the title of The UNESCO World Forum. The World Economic Forum involves political and business leaders to focus on global issues. TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) has expanded from its original focus on three fields, and can now be described as an annual event in which the world's leading thinkers gather to to find inspiration. The UNESCO World Forum would be an intellectual complement to these series.

This editorial suggests the creation of a forum that draws among the world's foremost intellectuals for discussions to determine the priority to be given by the global community of nations to the major issues of the day and of the century, and to address how those issues might best be addressed by the peoples of the world.

The major trends of our time are the increasing capacity of mankind to effect physical changes and the increasing intellectual capacity of mankind. Since the reconstruction after World War II, when priorities were clearly to prevent future world wars and to reconstruct the damage that had been inflicted by the first and second world wars, the agenda of the community of nations has expanded to include the protection of human rights, nation building, the reduction of poverty in all of its aspects, culturally sensitive management of the ever-more-rapid process of social change and the safeguarding of cultural heritage and diversity, and the protection of the environment. Unfortunately, mankind has failed to develop the wisdom with which to apply its increasing capacities to deal effectively with this agenda.

The UNESCO World Forum would draw on educational, scientific and cultural leaders of the world to meet together and to discuss and debate. It would encompass some of the functions of UNESCO's World Philosophy Forum, and of the Dialog Among Civilizations, being more inclusive than the former in its participants, and more inclusive than the latter in expanding beyond the focus on peace. Educators would be included, not only because of the intellectual power of academia, but because they bring a special understanding of how to build the solutions to global problems starting in the minds of men. Leaders from science and technology would be needed because of their in depth knowledge of mankind's problems and resources, and the technologies that can be brought to bear to apply those resources to the resolution of those problems. Cultural leaders, especially from the arts and humanities, would be included for their broad and integrating perspectives.

Historical Antecedents

The League of Nations system, having failed to prevent World War II, was replaced by the United Nations System, with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as an independent organization tapping into the intellectual communities in its member nations.

One of the key antecedent organizations was the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation, which formed a secretariat for the International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation, which had enlisted such luminaries as Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Béla Bartók, Thomas Mann, Gilbert Murray and Paul Valery. Some 40 national committees on intellectual cooperation were created linking to the International Committee, including an active one in the United States. "Numerous conferences and symposia were held under the auspices of the International Institute in Paris. Among the topics taken up by these conferences as the world situation became more menacing were the psychological causes of war and methods of promoting peaceful change as a substitute for war."

Vincenzo Pavone points out that there has been a long term tension between a global model of UNESCO which emphasized its role in the long term solution of global problems and an intergovernmental model that focused on intergovernmental cooperation in the attack of relatively immediate problems. That tension was present at the creation of UNESCO, when the model of the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation was counterposed with the proposals of the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME) for a massive effort to rebuild the educational infrastructure of Europe and to deal with the massive physical and mental impact of World War II on Europe's children. It reflects, to some degree, the tension between the pragmatism of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian cultures versus the Latin Cultures of France and Latin America.

The greatest successes of UNESCO have probably been in programs that exemplify the intergovernmental cooperation model, such as UNESCO's leadership in Education for All, the World Heritage Program, the Intergovernmental Scientific Programs, and the development of the legal instruments which establish an intergovernmental system for the protection of cultural heritage and diversity. Yet the impact of UNESCO in its sixty years seeking to build the defenses of peace in the minds of men should not be underestimated.

Yet the balance has swung heavily to the intergovernmental model. The Executive Board, which once included members chosen for their intellectual star quality, now consists of representatives of governments elected by the General Conference (and of course the permanent delegates to UNESCO are diplomats named by the governments they represent.)

UNESCO was created at the time that the atom bombs were dropped by the United States on Japan; the world had been given a vivid illustration of the power to move from scientific abstraction to terrifyingly powerful technology. It is not surprising that the founders of UNESCO saw the need to leaven science with humanism. As science has become more powerful in the six decades of UNESCO's existence, the need for a consilience of knowledge, a synthesis of the knowledge of man's different communities. Unfortunately, UNESCO in accommodating its bureaucratic realities, still tends to stovepipe its educational, scientific and cultural programs. The proposed UNESCO Global Forum would be a giant step away from reductionism towards consilience.

The proposed UNESCO World Forum would seek not to draw representatives uniformly from the member nations, but from UNESCO's constituent educational, scientific and cultural communities. It would seek rather representation from different cultures and civilizations rather than from nation states.

The proposed UNESCO World Forum is not intended to detract from UNESCO's critically important efforts to promote intergovernmental cooperation in priority educational, scientific and cultural areas. Indeed, it would be best accomplished by an increase in UNESCO's already severely strained budget and staff capabilities.

Conclusion

The UNESCO World Forum is proposed to complement the pragmatic intergovernmental efforts of UNESCO by drawing on the world's intellectual leaders to address the world's agenda of long term issues, drawing on UNESCO's experience as a laboratory and clearinghouse of ideas.

John Daly
The ideas expressed in this posting are mine alone, and do not represent those of Americans for UNESCO or any other organization.

ICT in Education

The Asia-Pacific Program on ICT in Education managed by the UNESCO Office in Bangkok is publishing a series of studies on ICT in education. The program makes a large number of publications available on via the Internet.

These include:

Integrating ICTs into Education: Lessons Learned (Volume 1)

A Collective Case Study of Six Asian Countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand

SchoolNetworking: Lessons Learned (Volume 2)

A Collective Case Study of Five Asian Countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand

Initiating and Managing SchoolNets: Lessons Learned (Volume 3)

Experiences of Eight Asian Countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Viet Nam

New Edition of the UNESCO Courier

Poster© Mark Bakker (The Netherlands)
IYPE student contest
Planet Hot-Spot

Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, encourages us to change our lifestyle to minimize our ecological footprint, the new measuring unit invented by Mathis Wackernackel, also included in this issue.

How can we “manage the unavoidable to avoid the unmanageable”, according to Italian climatologist Filippo Giorgi’s formula, is the question raised by this issue of the Courier, devoted to the International Year of Planet Earth.

Read The UNESCO Courier

UNESCO's Actions in the Field of History

The Economist this week has an article titled "Textbook wars: An intolerant attitude to a controversial history." It states:

HISTORY textbooks are a test of a country's tolerance. Do they bristle with grudges, or do they see other countries' point of view? In Germany, for example, historians have worked successfully on joint textbooks with Polish and French colleagues.

But in Slovakia, where relations with the former imperial power, Hungary, have deteriorated sharply since 2006, the mood has swung the other way. The education minister, from the Slovak National Party, has sidelined plans for a joint history textbook. That follows a decision by Slovakia's parliament last year to endorse the Benes decrees, which legalised brutal measures against the country's supposedly Hitlerite German and Hungarian populations in 1945-48.

Created at the end of World War II, one of UNESCO's first efforts was to help the nations emerging from the war to rewrite their history texts. The Nazi and Fascist governments had sought to indoctrinate their youth with party myths rather than educate them, and there was an obvious need to revise those texts. Indeed, it was clear that education for peace required a more fair balance to the history books in use in Europe.

In the six decades of its life, UNESCO has produced a number of series of historical reference books. In each case, it has established an advisory panel, not only composed of experts, but also representing a variety of nations and cultures. The effort has been not only to use the best sources and most up-to-date understanding of each historical topic, but also to define a history that avoids the biases of viewpoint that might be introduced within an given national tradition or political culture.

In recent years, UNESCO has launched a series of collected works - People writing their own history. Instead of just tracing the past of nations, these collections aim to provide a greater understanding of civilizations.

The collections aim to help readers gain a global understanding of the evolution of societies, flourishing of cultures, major currents of exchange and interaction with other parts of the world.

These collections also aim to provide a culturally relevant perspective. They provide the point of view of the populations concerned, whose past has often been distorted, discredited or treated as peripheral to the history of the colonizers and the dominant nations – those who usually write history. The idea here is to rediscover a people's consciousness and the vision it develops of its own destiny. This shift in perspective is reflected by the significant number of local historians, with impeccable academic credentials, who contributed to these collections as editors and authors.

To learn about UNESCO's these series, click on the following:

• History of Humanity
• General History of Africa
• History of Civilizations of Central Asia
• General History of Latin America
• The Different Aspects of Islamic Culture
• General History of the Caribbean

Many history texts produced under these programs are still available from UNESCO Publications.

Note especially the volumes from the History of Africa.

Video: UNESCO building peace in the minds of men

UNESCO considers education, science, social science, culture and communication as the means to achieve the ambitious objective of its founding charter: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.”

UNESCO has created a wonderful video, which is only 12 minutes long, to describe its origins and its work. You can see it on your own computer via streaming video.

Click here to go to the website for the video!

Questioning UNESCO's Efforts on Culture and Development

Mapping Authority and Survival or Well Being.
Source: R. Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization

In a recent paper for the World Bank, Amartya Sen (Nobel Prize laureate in Economics) wrote:

(C)ulture interacts with development in many different ways. It is involved in both the ends and the means of development. But the acknowledgement of the importance of culture should not be translated instantly into ready-made theories of what works, what needs to be cultivated and what must be preserved. There are complex epistemic issues involved in identifying the ways in which culture may or may not influence development, and also deeply ethical and political issue of the social choice involved in accommodating diverse concerns.

Indeed, even the values that are associated with economic development can be interpreted in quite different ways, and may require more than simple admonitions to cultivate this or eschew that.

Indeed, notably in the work of another Nobel Prize winner, Douglas North, economists have recently emphasized the importance of institutions in economic development. That emphasis has come to complement earlier emphases on fixed capital and human capital and on economic policies. The institutions of concern to these economists, such as rule of law and markets, are important aspects of culture, and depend on a variety of cultural values.

Pippa North, a distinguished political scientist, and Ronald Inglehart, one of the founders of the World Values Survey program write, emphasize the importance of culture in democratization. They recently wrote:

A fundamental problem facing the worldwide process of democratization is the continued lack of gender equality in political leadership. The basic facts are not in dispute: Today women represent only one in seven parliamentarians, one in ten cabinet ministers, and, at the apex of power, one in 20 heads of state or government. Multiple factors have contributed to this situation, including structural and institutional barriers. But what is the influence of political culture? Are attitudes toward women as political leaders a significant barrier to their empowerment? In particular, how important is culture as compared with structural and institutional factors? These are the questions that our study seeks to address.

In short, the interaction of culture and development is of critical importance in the world today. Understanding that interaction is important in ameliorating poverty and in the social and economic development of poor nations as well as in managing the transition from the industrial society to the knowledge society.

The Potential Role for UNESCO

UNESCO's middle name is "Culture". Since its creation after World War II, UNESCO has been the lead agency in the United Nations system for culture. It provides a unique forum for intellectual leaders from all over the world to come together to discuss cultural matters. It is uniquely empowered and equipped to be a clearinghouse for information and analysis of the role of culture.

UNESCO has been guided by its member nations for decades to focus its programs heavily on development and on the needs of poor people in poor nations. It has been asked to play an important role in achieving the Millennium Development Goals set forth by the United Nations. At the World Summit for the Information Society, UNESCO was given a leading role in the UN system in catalyzing development of the knowledge society.

UNESCO has played an important role in raising consciousness of the importance of preservation of cultural heritage. The World Heritage Center, perhaps UNESCO's flagship unit, has encouraged UNESCO's member states to preserve and protect hundreds of world heritage sites all over the earth. The Memory of the World program is helping to preserve mankind's documentary heritage, and UNESCO is a partner in the development of the World Digital Library.

UNESCO has negotiated seven Conventions which form the body of international law controling the protection of tangible and intangible cultural property. The looting of art from conquered countries and the distruction of archaeological sites have been greatly reduced since the creation of UNESCO because of UNESCO's ability to bring the nations of the world together to negotiate these treaties.

The aforementioned UNESCO efforts in the protection of the world's cultural heritage illustrate the role that it can play in promoting productive cultural dialog among its 193 member nations. Its Culture of Peace Program is another example of the way in which UNESCO can help its member nations come together to address a critical international issue from a cultural perspective. UNESCO's Anticipation and Foresight Program (adminstered by the Social and Human Sciences program within its Philosophy portfolio) further illustrates the ability of the Organization to serve as a laboratory of ideas, bringing the best thinking from the global intellectual community to the service of UNESCO's member states.

UNESCO does work in the field of Culture and Development. It has been a useful agency in creating knowledge about and interest in emerging fields such as sustainable cultural tourism and cultural industries for developing economies. An independent World Commission on Culture and Development (WCCD) was established jointly by UNESCO and the United Nations in December 1992 and was active in the 1990s. UNESCO played an important role in the Stockholm Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies for Development in 1998.

Still, UNESCO's efforts in the field of culture and development seem less extensive and less effective than those in the field of preservation of cultural heritage. One wonders whether in the 21st Century UNESCO should redouble its efforts to bring together the leaders of the world's inellectual community and serve more effectively as a laboratory of ideas on Culture and Development. Indeed, if UNESCO can catalyze the creation of a consensus on culture-based appoaches to promote social and economic development and on cultural objectives of social and economic development, should it not then embark on a program of capacity development to assist its member states to utilize the knowledge of that consensus?

The New Edition of The UNESCO Courier is Out

British writer Doris Lessing returns to her country of birth, Zimbabwe, and denounces our jaded world. Franco-Ivorian author Véronique Tadjo explains how travels can morph into exile. Spôjmaï Zariâb tells the story of war torn Afghanistan, from her Paris vantage point. Michal Govrin, from Israel, reveals the impassioned dimension of an unending conflict. In the United States, Indian author Kiran Desai questions the fate of belonging to two cultures. Argentine poet María Medrano builds a bridge between the free world and incarceration. All are women between two shores.

© Laurent Giorgetti
"In between" is how these women define

U.S. PRIORITIES IN UNESCO

Laura Bush, Honorary Ambassador for the United Nations' Literacy Decade and a passionate promoter of literacy in the United States, looks forward to working with UNESCO to build strong education programs in each member country. (AP/WWP)

The U.S. State Department provides a website describing its view of U.S. priorities in UNESCO.

Go to that website!

UNESCO and the U.S. Department of Education

The U.S. Department of Education's International Affairs Office provides this website describing the importance of UNESCO to the U.S. education community, and describing some useful links as well as a contact person for the office.

UNITWIN Network: Gender, Culture, Development

Dr. Sonia Bahri
UNESCO’s UNITWIN program Chief.

UNESCO's Gender, Culture and People-Centered Development community involves Boston University's Women Studies Program (WSP)! As of mid March 2008, there were 14 UNESCO Chairs plus this UNITWIN Network established in the field of Gender.

Its blog is intended to allow readers to reflect and communicate on important gender issues that are shaping development. BU's Women Studies Program (WSP) directed by Dr. Shahla Haeri explores and analyzes the social, political and economic factors that influence women worldwide. Beginning this year, the Program will be participating with partners in India in UNESCO's university education twinning and networking scheme, UNITWIN.

The UNITWIN Program began in 1992 and aims to share information in all major fields within UNESCO. The goal is to promote North-South and South-South cooperation and communities of practice which will enhance institutions, primarily in developing countries. UNITWIN provides a platform for universities and research institutions to work with UNESCO to support national development efforts.

McBride and the New International Information Order

It occurred to me on St. Patrick's Day that I might tell you a little about the McBride Report. it was one of the items identified as a cause of the U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO in the 1980s. Sean McBride was from perhaps Ireland's most famous family, and is one of ten Nobel Prize laureates from that island. Yet his name is also associated, incorrectly, with the U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO. Here is the story.

In 1974, the United Nations passed a resolution calling for a New World Information Order. During the 1970's the United Nations was also the site of debates on a New International Economic Order. Both efforts can be seen as related to decolonization and the rise of power of the newly independent states in intergovernmental affairs, as well as their belief that new international orders were required in justice to repair the legacies of poverty and undedevelopment that remained from colonialism.

In 1976, UNESCO’s Director General Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow -- following up the UN resolution, with the approval of the General Conference -- appointed a distinguished committee headed by Sean McBride to report back to UNESCO on the international communications and information order. Given that, with leadership from the United States, communication and information had been included as the "other C" in UNESCO's charter, this was not only reasonable but almost necessary. The committee worked over several years, and submitted its report in time for the UNESCO general conference of 1980, and it was sent on to the member nations for their attention. That report, titled Many Voices, One World, has been increasingly seen as a useful and prescient view of the need to give voice to poor people in poor nations.

The discussion of communications and information at the General Conference was not limited to the recommendations of the McBride Report. The delegates of the emerging developing nations had developed their own elaborate set of recommendations, and the United States and other delegations from developed nations opposed many of the specifics. At last a resolution was adopted by consensus, although the UK delegation stated that they would have opposed it on a vote.

One authority states that the Belgrade declaration affirmed that UNESCO should play a major role in the examination and solution of problems in this domain. "The assembly also agreed on a number of guidelines for the new information order:

1. elimination of the imbalances and inequalities which characterize the present solution;

2. elimination of the negative effects of certain monopolies, public or private, and excessive concentrations;

3. removal of the internal and external obstacles to a free flow and wider and better balanced dissemination of information and ideas;

4. plurality of sources and channels of information;

5. freedom of the press and information;

6. the freedom of journalists . . . a freedom inseparable from responsibility;

7. the capacity of developing countries to achieve improvement of their own situations, notably by providing their own equipment, by training their personnel, by improving their infrastructures and by making their information and communication means suitable to their needs and aspirations;

8. the sincere will of developed countries to help them attain these objectives;

9. respect for each people’s cultural identity and the right of each nation to inform the world public about its interests, its aspirations and its social and cultural values."

The General Conference of UNESCO in 1980 as always conducted a full agenda of business on the organization's educational, scientific and cultural programs. However, the press in the United States covered little but the discussion of the New World Information Order. While the U.S. Delegation report on the General Conference was not especially negative about the NWIO, the issues continued to draw attention from the members of the press media. (Editor's note: I have always suspected that the media objected not only to their perception that UNESCO was enabling state control of media in countries with coercive governments, but that the international press services were also concerned that the call for pluralism which might diminish their oligopoly control of world news. JAD)

UNESCO had been drawing negative comment from other segments of the American Public, especially among conservatives, starting from its creation. The idea of a global forum for discussions between East and West, North and South was not universally accepted during the Cold War. Perhaps the low point in suspicion of UNESCO came during the McCarthy era when seven Americans were forced out of UNESCO's International Civil Service due to allegations of Communist sympathies.

Some Americans had been concerned about the potential impacts of UNESCO educational efforts on American schools. Others had been concerned by the anti-Israeli sentiment expressed by many Arab and developing nations in its fora. Indeed, there remains a segment of the American public that expresses concern about UNESCO's drawing global attention to America's World Heritage sites and biosphere reserves.

UNESCO then as today had a huge mandate and a limited budget. It had been subjected to pressures to improve efficiency, as it is still. There also seemed to be a real cultural divide between Amadou M'Bow, the African Director General, and officials of the conservative Reagan administration. In any case, the combination of factors proved too much, and Elliot Abrams, then Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, announced in 1981 that the United States would withdraw from UNESCO. (Editor's Note: Yes, the same Elliot Abrams who was convicted in 1991 on two misdemeanor counts of unlawfully withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra Affair investigation; he is also the well known neoconservative who is currently Deputy National Security Advisor in the Bush White House, and who appears to have been deeply involved in the decisions on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more generally in Middle Eastern affairs during all of the Bush administration. JAD)

Unfortunately, the old disagreements about the New International Information Order have been unfairly linked in the literature to Sean McBride's name. The McBride Report produced in 1980 is still available on the World Wide Web. In its honor, McBride's name has been given to the The MacBride Round Table on Communication. Had its importance been more fully recognized by the Reagan administration, the Report could have helped the world better respond to the Information Revolution, as well as better respond for a need for information services that would better contribute to international development and poverty alleviation.

The old controversy can little diminish Sean McBride's career as Ireland's most distinguished jurist, as one of the people most responsible for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and as one of the people responsible for Amnesty International. In the United States he is now perhaps best known for the McBride Principles that helped bring the international pressures in support of the peace process in Northern Ireland and for his critically important efforts to end apartheid in southern Africa.

Read more about Sean McBride

Read more about the McBride Report.

Editorial: The U.S. National Commission for UNESCO

The decentralized agencies of the United Nations System have their own governance. The form of that governance varies from agency to agency. For example, the International Labor Organization has a system in which government, industry and labor are represented from each member nation. UNESCO is unique in that its constitution calls for each member nation to create a national body for the purpose of associating its principal bodies interested in educational, scientific and cultural matters with the work of the Organisation. That element of the constitution was negotiated among the founding nations at the creation of the organization, with strong support from the United States delegation, and has continued in force for six decades.

Read more about the U.S. National Commission.

The UNESCO constitution leaves to each member nation the decision of how best to involve its intellectual communities in its own national commission, but specifically calls for national commissions to serve as advisory bodies to their governments. With the reentry of the United States into UNESCO, the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO was reestablished and chartered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). The State Department has indeed used the National Commission to provide advice.

Some years ago, Bruce Smith wrote a book (The Advisors) about government advisory committees. One of its most memorable statements was that advisory committees are most effective when the person receiving the advice actually wants that advice and has requested it. That is a most reasonable suggestion. Indeed, most federal advisory committees are created by the agencies that they advise, and the FACA has sunset provisions so that committees created by one official do not live on to bother later officials who do not want their advice.

An exception, however, is where the Congress designates by law that the administration must have an advisory committee, as the Congress has done with the National Commission for UNESCO. In such cases, the existence of the independent advisory committees can be regarded in part as one of the of the checks and balances established in the U.S. system of government. In such cases, the administration is required to obtain and listen to advice whether its political officials want that advice or not.

In most federal advisory committees, the Executive Branch selects the members. The FACA requires that they do so in a fair and impartial manner, but the choice is left to the administration in power. In the case of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, however, the enabling legislation is unique in that it calls for 60 of the 100 members to be named by non-governmental organizations. Indeed, it calls on the National Commission itself to periodically review and, if deemed advisable, revise the list of such organizations designating representatives in order to achieve a desirable rotation among organizations represented.

Thus the Congress in exercising its oversight responsibilities over the Executive Branch has required the Department of State to seek advice from the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO and indeed has established a mechanism by which that Commission itself can assure the representative appointment of the majority of its members.

The FACA, passed into law long after the legislative authority for the National Commission was in place, recognizes that in some cases the provisions it creates for advisory committees in general will need to be adjusted to meet those imposed by laws establishing specific advisory committees; it grants authority to the White House to make such adjustments of its provisions as may be required in the FACA-mandated charters of the individual advisory committees.

When the new administration takes office in 2009, it should revise the charter of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO to assure that the Commission fulfills the roles envisioned in the UNESCO Constitution (and by reference in the National Commission's authorizing legislation). The new administration should convene a special session of the National Commission to revise the list of non-governmental organizations with rights to name members to the National Commission. It should revise the member of the National Commission accordingly. Having done so, the new administration should actively seek and utilize the advice of the Commission in its dealings with UNESCO.

Indeed, more generally, the new administration should return to earlier practices, utilizing the National Commission much more actively as a vehicle for informing the public about UNESCO and to improve liaison among the U.S. educational, scientific and cultural communities, UNESCO's programs, and the National Commissions of other Nations.

John Daly
(The opinions expressed above are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of Americans for UNESCO.)

U.S. National Commission for UNESCO Annual Meeting

The next meeting of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO will be held on May 21-22, 2007. Planning is in progress now for that meeting.

Rita Colwell Calls for Science Debate Among Presidential Candidates

Dr. Rita Colwell, a member of the Board of Directors of Americans for UNESCO, made this video as part of an effort broadly supported in the U.S. scientific community to encourage a debate on science among the candidate in the U.S. presidential election. The video is being widely distributed and viewed. Dr. Colwell is also the former Director of the National Science Foundation 1998-2004; Distinguished Professor, University Of Maryland/Johns Hopkins University School Of Public Health. She was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2006.

UNESCO and Afrika! Afrika!

Afrika! Afrika! is a new alternative to Cirque du Soleil -- circus-style theater with an African theme by Africans. More than 100 artists, eccentrics, dancers, singers and musicians coming from all over Africa, and from the African Diaspora, give a performance of more than two hours. Afrika! Afrika! is now touring Europe to rave reviews. The troupe has also traveled through Africa for two years from Mali and Morocco, from Egypt to South Africa.

One euro of each ticket sold for performances of Afrika! Afrika! – the so-called “Africa euro“ – is donated to the ”Art in Africa” Foundation of the German Commission for UNESCO to support African cultures. This foundation is the first of its kind worldwide. It was set up jointly by the German Commission for UNESCO and the Afrikanische Zirkus GmbH & Co. KG on the occasion of the world premiere of AFRIKA! AFRIKA! in Frankfurt am Main on 14 December 2005.

In August last year, UNESCO in Paris declared that the Afrika! Afrika! project would take place under its auspices, honoring an undertaking which will ensure that part of the proceeds return to Africa. The "Africa euro“ is donated for the purpose of promoting culture in Africa. When selecting the projects deemed eligible for support, the UNESCO Foundation is cooperating with the Goethe Institute. Due to their expertise and the presence of their institutions in Africa, UNESCO and the Goethe Institute are guarantors of an informed selection and promotion of the projects to be funded, projects that will exclusively serve African interests and not aim at implementing European ideas with regard to Africa.

Premiere of “Amazing Grace” at UNESCO

Ambassadors Oliver and Landymore at the screening of “Amazing Grace.”
© USUNESCO / Photo: Anne Turnacliff

The U.S. and the U.K delegations co-hosted the French Premiere of “Amazing Grace” at UNESCO on February 6, 2008, and were joined by the film’s producer, Philip Anschutz, who spoke about the film and his dedication to creating movies that engage wide-ranging audiences on stories of hope and courage.

The film is based on the life of British antislavery pioneer William Wilberforce. It was produced by Philip Anschutz, an American, and was directed by the U.K.'s Michael Apted (The World is Not Enough, Coal Miner's Daughter).

International Mother Language Day

International Mother Language Day

21 February

International Mother Language Day was proclaimed by UNESCO's General Conference in November 1999. The International Day has been observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.

The Bangladesh Embassy and Drishtipat DC are putting together an open-air event to commemorate International Mother Language day.It is to be held on February 23rd in Washington D.C. It will take place in Dupont Circle from 12:00 to 2:00 pm. Musicians from many countries will entertain.

(Rain location: 4pm at the Bangladesh Embassy, check www.bangladoot.org for updates)

Evaluation of UNESCO Anticipation and Foresight Programme

UNESCO’s Anticipation and Foresight program is intended to strengthen the Organization’s intellectual, ethical and strategic watch function – foresight activities are an integral part of UNESCO’s function as a “laboratory of ideas”. Two main activities were undertaken, namely: (i) development and publication of the UNESCO World Report, dedicated every two years to a new theme; and (ii) organizing the Twenty-first Century Talks and Dialogues, forums for prospective reflection and future-oriented debate that gathers together leading figures from different regions of the world. The UNESCO World Report was not included in the scope of the evaluation because it was considered too early to measure results and impact due to its recent release. The evaluators undertook documentary review and semi-structured interviews with UNESCO staff as well as with a variety of stakeholders.

Support for IYL 2008

There is a useful new website created by Don Osborn providing support for the International Year of Languages (2008). It is a temporary webpage for gathering information on strategies and methods for supporting the IYL.

UNESCO has an official portal page:

2008, International Year of Languages: Languages matter!

International Conference on Education

ICEs have been held regularly since 1934.

The 48th session of the International Conference on Education organized by the UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE), to be held in Geneva from 25 to 28 November 2008 on the theme “Inclusive education: The way of the future.”

UNESCO and Knowledge Sharing

Four new publications from UNESCO:

* UNESCO and knowledge sharing
Publ: 2008; 2 p., illus.; BPI/EPP/2008/PI/60M/03.

For over 60 years, UNESCO has had a mandate to “maintain, increase and diffuse knowledge” (Constitution, Art 1. 2 (c)). In response to the challenges of globalisation and the Information Society, it advocates a vision of “Knowledge Societies”. But what do we mean by “knowledge” at UNESCO and what links are there between the Organization’s knowledge sharing programmes and its knowledge management (KM)?

* UNESCO and knowledge sharing (2): the capacity-building function
Publ: 2008; 2 p.; BPI/EPP/2008/PI/60M/04.

The first of this four-part series of meetings examines two case studies, from ED and CI Sectors, to explore key concepts and issues connected with capacity-building.

* UNESCO and knowledge sharing (3): the clearing house function
Publ: 2008; 2 p.; BPI/EPP/2008/PI/60M/05.

The second in this four-part series examines two case studies – one of the longest-standing and one of the newest knowledge sharing initiatives of the Organization – to explore key concepts and issues connected with UNESCO’s role as a clearing house

* ICT-Enabled Knowledge Acquisition
Publ: 2008; BPI/EPP/2008/PI/60M/02.

The Communication and Information Sector's work on ICT-enhanced knowledge acquisition is anchored within the "knowledge mandate" and Constitution of UNESCO. It seeks to develop an integrated work stream, inter-relating with other emphases and competencies within UNESCO. This capacity-building work focuses on four tracks: (1) content development, (2) communication infrastructure, (3) capacity-building and (4) innovative applications.

Bush Sends UNESCO Anti-Doping Treaty to Senate

Cycling News reports:

The United States took one step closer to signing a treaty intended to help fight doping in sport when President Bush asked the Senate to ratify the International Convention Against Doping in Sport on Thursday. The World Anti-doping Agency (WADA)-backed agreement, which was drawn up under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), has already been ratified by more than 70 other nations.

The UNESCO treaty formalizes global anti-doping rules under the WADA code, getting around issues which prevented some governments, such as the United States, from being legally bound by documents of non-governmental organizations such as WADA.
The White House statement noted that the treaty was in agreement with existing US laws and policies, but the aim was to "solidify our Nation's place as a leader in the worldwide effort to rid athletics of cheating through chemistry."

The administration's decision to move toward ratification of the International Convention Against Doping in Sport is receiving positive press attention worldwide..

Federico Mayor on the Culture of Peace

Federico Mayor was the previous Director General of UNESCO. He is now Co-chair of the UN Alliance of Civilizations High-level Group and President of the Culture of Peace Foundation. In this short video he talks about the culture of peace.

From Friends of World Heritage

Grand Canyon : dawn panorama from Desert View
Photograph by Ian Parker

Places like Grand Canyon National Park and the Statue of Liberty in New York symbolize the best of U.S. natural beauty and history. But did you know these destinations are also UNESCO World Heritage sites?

Currently the United States has 20 World Heritage sites, and that list may grow. For the first time in over 25 years, the U.S. government is reviewing American places that may merit the international recognition that comes from being identified as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Is the next U.S. World Heritage site near you?

Last fall, the U.S. National Park Service received dozens of nominations from both publicly and privately owned sites throughout the United States that were interested in being a part of the United States’ “Tentative List” of World Heritage sites. Of these nominations, 14 have been selected by the Secretary of Interior as potential candidates for the next U.S. World Heritage site.

To learn more about these places and how the tentative list works, visit our website to view an interactive map of these sites.

Stay tuned as the United States and other countries select their potential sites, we’ll bring you more about places and peoples contending for what is sometimes considered the Nobel Prize for world’s most important natural and cultural sites.

The Friends of World Heritage Team
http://www.friendsofworldheritage.com/

The New Edition of the UNESCO Courier is Out

More than half of the 7000 languages spoken in the world are in danger of disappearing. Yet, they are an essential part of people's identity. The United Nations has proclaimed 2008 the International Year of Languages. To find out more, read the February issue of the UNESCO Courier.

This year the UNESCO Courier is celebrating its 60th anniversary. It is now interactive! Send your comments and the Courier will publish them.

James Michael Kulikowski, Deputy Assistant Director-General for External Relations and Cooperation

Jim Kulikowski receives plaque fromMatthew Cooper
at meeting of the UK National Commission

Appointed Deputy Assistant Director General for External Relations and Cooperation in August 2005, Jim Kulikowski leads the UNESCO Division responsible for relations with Member States and for National Commissions as well.

Prior to joining UNESCO, he worked for the U.S. Government for some 21 years. Of those, the first 16 were with the Appropriations Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, much of it dealing with the State Department and international organizations. Then, after joining the Senior Executive Service in 2000 as a senior career civil servant, he spent five years in Office of Management and Budget, again dealing with international affairs, and 6 months with the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services.

In 2002, he was detailed to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Geneva for four months during its startup phase, and then worked as part of the U.S. Delegation to the Global Fund in 2004 and 2005.

He also tried a couple of short stints as a lawyer in the private sector.

He has three degrees -- undergraduate, law and public health -- from Harvard University, and a diploma from the Phillips Exeter Academy.

Americans for UNESCO News

1. Dr. Stephen Knapp, the new president of George Washington University has join the Americans for UNESCO Advisory Council. Also joining the Advisory Council are Dr. Martin C. Jischke, President Emeritus of Purdue University, and Dr. Sally Mason, President of the University of Iowa.

2. The U.S. National Commission for UNESCO announced that its 2008 Annual Meeting would take place on May 19-20 at Georgetown University. Andre Varchaver, the President of Americans for UNESCO is on the Planning Committee for the meeting.

Human Rights: comments and interpretations; a symposium edited by UNESCO

Last week this blog recognized the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the preparation for the Declaration, UNESCO conducted a worldwide study of the recognized human rights in different societies. The results of that study were published in a book, Human Rights: comments and interpretations; a symposium edited by UNESCO, with a forward by Jacques Maritain, and contributions by Mahatma Gandhi, Harold Laski, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Chung-Shu Lo, Aldous Huxley, Ralph Gerard and other distinguished thinkers. The book has long been out of print.

That book is available online. Click here!

You may also be interested in

Teaching About the United Nations and

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

This is a report from a 1951 regional meeting of National Commissions for UNESCO.