Officers of Americans for UNESCO

Americans for UNESCO has recently elected a new slate of officers. The full slate of AU officers consists of:

President                                            Mary Futrell

Senior Vice-President                   Ray Wanner

Vice-President                                 Susie Rauch

Vice-President                                 Emily Vargas-Baron

Vice President/Treasurer            Richard Nobbe

Secretary                                             Laura Engel

More on the 40th Anniversary Celebrations

Also as part of the effort to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the World Heritage Convention...

 

On Monday the Smithsonian and UNESCO announced the launch of a joint project called "Protection, Preservation and Prosperity: Stories of World Heritage."

 

The project highlights 10 World Heritage sites around the world and features a new website and a mobile app, along with an educational curriculum and poster-based exhibition.

 

You can check it out right here! 

World Heritage Passport

As part of the 40th Anniversary Celebration of UNESCO's World Heritage Program, the National Park Service has coordinated the release of a new National Park Service passport specifically aimed at U.S. World Heritage sites.

 

Some of you may be familiar with the National Park Service passport program, which promotes travel to our nations park sites and recognizes travellers who do.

 

Tying World Heritage sites in the U.S. to the NPS Passport idea was an idea that came out of our UNESCO Commission - and the National Park Service really followed through on it.

 

Check out the whole story here!

Call for proposals for presentations

The U.S. National Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) is hosting it's 16th Annual International Scientific Symposium next May in Savannah, GA.

 

Between now November 15th, organizers are accepting proposals for presentations to be made at the conference. If you have an abstract that you'd like to submit, go here!

 

The State of World Heritage in the United States

The World Heritage flag

Along with several other partners, The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation convened a conference of U.S. World Heritage program stakeholders in Charlottesville, VA this past June.

 

The gathering produced some excellent ideas and recommendations for how the tap the potential of the World Heritage program in the U.S.. You can read the report from the conference, which was just released, here.

  

America's World Heritage

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, the National Park Service has produced a short film on all the World Heritage sites in the U.S. These stunning images remind us why these sites were deemed to have truly global significance, connecting them to a world-wide network of such iconic places as the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China. Enjoy!

Cultural Heritage Event

Rutgers University's program in Cultural Heritage and Preservation is convening a conference on Cultural Preservation in the 21st Century this October 12 - October 14. The meeting has been recognized by UNESCO as an official World Heritage 40th Anniversary Event. If you are interested in attending or would like to find out more - go here.

 

The conference will feature a poster competition - if you'd like to get in on that action - go here! The deadline for that is Wed 8/15!

Fall 2012 Laura Bush Travelling Fellowship Deadline Approaching

Do you know any U.S. students who are planning to do a short-term research project overseas relating to education, natural science, social science, communications, or culture?

If so, please let them know about the Laura W. Bush Travelling Fellowship. This program named in honor of our former First Lady is designed to help young Americans conduct short term research projects abroad relating to the sectors of UNESCO's mandate.

The next application deadline is Monday 9/24/12. Find out more here.

2011 U.S. National Commission for UNESCO Annual Meeting

The 2012 U.S. National Commission for UNESCO Annual meeting has been tentatively set for Monday 11/26/12 in Washington, DC.

The Commission will again be accepting the hospitality of George Washington University, as it did last year.

A Call to Action: Forest Whitaker encourages youth to speak out

http://www.planwithyouth.org

Forest Whitaker, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Peace and Reconciliation and a co-founder of the International Institute for Peace, sends an inspirational message to youth everywhere, encouraging their participation in the online discussions for the upcoming Policy Forum on 'Engaging Youth in Planning Education for Social Transformation'. This virtual, pre-forum dialogue is important becauseit will shape the discussions at the event in Paris, ensuring that voices of youth are included in the Policy Forum's Agenda for Action.

Task Team Report: Realizing The Future We Want For All

In this report, the UN System Task Team lays out a vision for transformative change towards the future we want. The report was prepared to inform the open and inclusive consultations that are taking place in preparation for an ambitious development agenda beyond 2015..

Overview


Enormous progress has been made towards achieving the MDGs. Global poverty continues to decline, more children than ever are attending primary school, child deaths have dropped dramatically, access to safe drinking water has been greatly expanded, and targeted investments in fighting malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis have saved millions.

The MDGs are making a real difference in people’s lives and, with strong leadership and accountability, this progress can be expanded in most of the world’s countries by the target date of 2015.

After 2015, efforts to achieve a world of prosperity, equity, freedom, dignity and peace will continue unabated.

The UN is working with governments, civil society and other partners to build on the momentum generated by the MDGs and carry on with an ambitious post-2015 development agenda.

At the September 2010 MDG Summit, UN Member States initiated steps towards advancing the development agenda beyond 2015 and are now leading a process of open, inclusive consultations on the post-2015 agenda. Civil society organizations from all over the world have also begun to engage in the post-2015 process, while academia and other research institutions, including think tanks, are particularly active.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has established a UN System Task Team to coordinate preparations for beyond 2015 and to support the work of a High-level Panel that the Secretary-General will appoint to advise him on the post-2015 agenda. President Yudoyono of Indonesia, President Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Prime Minister Cameron of the United Kingdom have accepted the Secertary-General's invitation to co-chair the High-level Panel.

The post-2015 agenda will reflect new development challenges and is linked to the outcome of “Rio+20” -- the UN Conference on Sustainable Development -- that took place in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

UNESCO contributed to the report. Check the UN website providing a number of resources related to the task force report.

The Economist on UNESCO's World Heritage Program

The Economist magazine has published an article (July 18th 2012) on the UNESCO World Heritage Program. I quote extensively from the article:

As of this month, the following unlikely mixture of people and agencies found themselves tarred with the same brush: Liverpool City Council, the developers and municipal authorities of Panama, the Islamist rebels of West Africa and the quarrelsome bishops of some ancient Christian churches in the Middle East. They all bear a share of responsibility for the fate of places that have recently been deemed by UNESCO to be “World Heritage Sites in danger”. 

During its latest annual gathering, which ended on July 6th, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee (a rotating group of 21 member states) also added 26 new places to the list of locations it considers to have “outstanding universal value” to humanity. The total now comes to 962. It then named five places as “World Heritage Sites in danger”—a label that can either imply solidarity with a country, or a rebuke for poor conservation. This year’s additions to the danger list consisted of Liverpool’s old harbour area, which is said to be imperilled, at least aesthetically, by a giant construction project; two early European settlements in Panama which face a similar challenge; and the tombs and shrines of Mali which have been ruthlessly targeted by an army of zealots professing a puritanical form of Islam....... 

(T)here are no easy ways to maintain heritage sites in relatively poor countries; it requires delicate balancing acts, much local diplomacy and long-term engagement, according to organisations that work in that field. Even a well-functioning state, be it democratic or authoritarian, will fail to conserve monuments unless local people see an interest in maintaining their heritage and using it rationally, says Vincent Michael, new chairman of the Global Heritage Fund (GHF), based in California. The effort will collapse if cultural heritage is seen either as a pesky impediment to making money, or as something to be exploited for short-term gain. Nor should local economies ever be too reliant on tourism, which can fall as rapidly as it rises.

I also wanted to share this photo of a beautiful structure shielding a site newly added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.

From 2006 to 2010, Global Heritage Fund supported conservation and community development at Çatalhöyük, one of the largest and best preserved Neolithic sites found to date.  Two years later Çatalhöyük has been inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Church of the Nativity - a World Heritage Site

Church of the Nativity

This past week there was plenty of follow-up in the wake of thedecision to inscribe the Church of the Nativity to the World Heritage list, and the destruction of cultural sites in Timbuktu.

 

National Public radio did a story a story about the Church of the Nativity, which you can listen tohere. 

 

The Jerusalem Post offers an op-ed piece here. Jonathan Zimmerman offers a particulary interesting piece from the American perspective in the Philadelphia Inquirer, which you can read here.

 

Earlier in the week there was a brief flurry of news reports about extremists calling for the destruction of the Pyramids at Giza, but since then it has been revelead that the source for this news was a hoax.

 

Yesterday Secretary Clinton reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to protecting and preserving special places reflecting cultural and natural heritage by announcing a $200,000 U.S. grant for the World Heritage City of Luang Prabang during a stop in Laos.  

Here is UNESCO's clarification of Palestine's relationship to the World Heritage Convention.

Repairing heritage site in Timbuktu in 2005

World Heritage Committee Meeting Business

Timbuktu sites and their damage

The 36th Session of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee has been quite controversial.

1) Under a great deal of controversy and against the recommendations of preservation experts and religious leaders, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was inscribed to the World Heritage list under an emergency provision. Palestinian officials have already stated they intend to expand use of the World Heritage program. You can read U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO David Killion's statement about the Church of the Nativity here. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's reaction can be seen here along with an opposing viewpoint from the editors of Bloomberg News here. 

2) In Mali, a faction called Ansar Dine, which seized control of Timbuktu last week, have attacked some of the World Heritage sites in that city despite international outcry. You can read more details here. UNESCO's statement can be found here, and a reference to a U.S. statement can be found here.

3) During its meeting in St. Petersburg the World Heritage Committee designated 26 new sites (including the one in Bethlehem) to the World Heritage program. You can see the full list here.

   

“Forgive & love”, urges Kim Phuc on the 40th anniversary of the photo seen around the world

Terrified children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc (center)
as they run down a road near Trang Bang
after an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places.

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the iconic black-and-white photo taken of her during the Vietnam War, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Kim Phuc urges the world to forgive and show love.

Read more....

International Education Impact of U.S. Funding Cut from UNESCO

International Education Impact of U.S. Funding Cut from UNESCO is the topic of a new CEEP report.  The United States withheld its contribution to the budget of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) after the international body voted to grant member state status to Palestine last Fall.  CEEP has just published its report on possible impacts of this action, “UNESCO Without U.S. Funding? Implications for Education Worldwide.”

The new CEEP report presents the facts around the controversy, and includes the perspectives of four leaders in international education.  The four contributors present widely different views on how this will impact UNESCO programs and operations around the world.  They agree cutting the funds for the organization’s educational programs is very likely counter-productive to U.S. interests in international development, health, education, and economic growth.  However, they have different perspectives about what concerns them most and what the U.S. should do next.

Click HERE to read or download the report as a PDF document on the CEEP website.  Click HERE to see the IU media release that was issued about the report.

Rio + 20 / UNESCO - The Future we want

UNESCO Video: MEDLEY : BUT NOT FOR ME (George Gershwin) - OKLAHOMA KID (Riccardo Del Fra)

Riccardo Del Fra "MY CHET MY SONG" Quintet & Orchestre du Conservatoire de Toulouse Live at JAZZ IN MARCIAC - August 6 2011 Featuring : Roy Hargrove, Pierrick Pedron, Bruno Ruder, Billy Hart and Riccardo Del Fra Arrangements and composition by Riccardo Del Fra

Holocaust Education at UNESCO

Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau

On Friday 4/27 experts from around the world convened at UNESCO headquarters in Paris to discuss how and why the Holocaust has become a global point of reference for mass violence.

UNESCO's programs in Holocaust education continue to develop and strengthen on a number of fronts. The U.S. National Commission for UNESCO is currently working with Holocaust educators in the United States to promote the establishment of a Holocaust education network through UNESCO existing system of University Chairs. The Commission also recently submitted the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as a nominee for UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.

You can read more about the meeting here. 

How might the United States Better Participate in the Memory of the World Program

Signing of the Constitution

UNESCO established the Memory of the World Program in 1992. Impetus came originally from a growing awareness of the parlous state of preservation of, and access to, documentary heritage in various parts of the world.War and social upheaval, as well as severe lack of resources, have worsened problems which have existed for centuries.

In September, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the progam, there will be an international conference sponsored by UNESCO, titled The Memory of the World in the Digital age: Digitization and Preservation.

Many countries have established national Memory of the World Committees. It might be a good time for the United States to do so. Such a committee could share U.S. experience with the preservation of documentary heritage, helping other nations to preserve materials that they hold of global importance.

The U.S. National Archives has just put on display one of four copies in the world of the Magna Carta. Signed in 1297, this great charter established limitation of the king's power in British law. It remains as the basis of British democracy.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Opening sentence of the Declaration of Independence

The actual document of the Magna Carta joins the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution on public display in the National Archives. The Declaration of Independence is generally considered the most influential document in United States history. Its opening sentence has been claimed to be one of the best known in the English language. The United States Constitution is the oldest written constitution still in use, and has been used as a model by many other nations.

I would suggest that these three documents be nominated by the United States for the Memory of the World Register as part of the U.S. participation in the 20th anniversary of the program.