EFA - Global Monitoring Report 2008

EDUCATION FOR ALL BY 2015: WILL WE MAKE IT?

A mid-term assessment of where the world stands on its commitment to provide basic education for all children, youth and adults by 2015.

What education policies and programmes have been successful? What are the main challenges? How much aid is needed? Is aid being properly targeted?

Click here to read the report (PDF)!

UNESCO launches new fund to advance Global Literacy

First Lady Laura Bush announced today that UNESCO will receive more than $2 million from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to launch the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) Fund, a new initiative that will advance global literacy. UNESCO is the lead agency for the coordination of the UN Literacy Decade.

Read more!

UNESCO-World Sky Race Join Together

The World Heritage Center and the World Air League, a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization, have established a partnership aiming to promote environmental protection and the use of lighter-than-air skyships as a means to reduce pollution and pressures caused by transportation.

The World Air League is currently promoting the World Sky Race, an historic tour and competition of lighter-than-air skyships racing 30,000+ miles. It also will be setting up on its website a means to make charitable contributions to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Don R. Hartsell, World Air League (WAL) Commissioner and Managing Director is also Chairman of Solex Environmental Systems, Inc.

Training-the-Trainers in Information Literacy

Information Literacy is the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information.
The American Library Association

Information and media literacy enables people to interpret and make informed judgments as users of information and media, as well as to become skillful creators and producers of information and media messages in their own right. UNESCO encourages the development of national information and media literacy policies, including in education.

In September 2007, the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Council for the Information for All Program (IFAP) decided to fund a global scale-up project on information literacy and agreed on a series of regional Training-The-Trainers workshops in information literacy.

The project foresees to organize a series of 11 Training-the-Trainers workshops in information literacy, to be held from 2008 to 2009 in several institutions of higher education covering all regions of the world.

Read more!

UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura to Visit U.S.A.

UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura will attend the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly. During his visit to New York, 21 - 25 September. He will meet UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and participate in a series of high-level events:

• 22 September: White House Symposium on literacy; luncheon hosted by First Lady Laura Bush; high-level meeting on Africa’s development needs


• 23 September: meeting of the five UN agencies responsible for the Education For All (EFA) program; host lunch on “Financing Education for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)”, and present Rumi Medal to Afghanistan President Karzai


• 24 September: side event hosted by United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Spain on the MDG Achievement Fund


• 25 September: act as rapporteur in Roundtable on Education and Health.

White House Symposium on Literacy

Mrs. Bush, who serves as an Honorary Ambassador
to the United Nations Decade of Literacy,
addresses a UNESCO roundtable in 2007.

First lady Laura Bush will host a symposium titled “Advancing Global Literacy: Building a Foundation for Freedom,” in New York on September 22, 2008.

First Ladies from over 80 countries, ministers of education and other high-ranking representatives are expected to underscore how literacy helps build a strong foundation for freedom during this White House Symposium.

Read more!

International Day of Peace, 21 September 2008

Each year the United Nations system celebrates the International Day of Peace on September 21st. As part of the observation of the day, this week UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura awarded the 2008 UNESCO Prize for Peace Education to the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (South Africa) in recognition of its outstanding efforts in building sustainable reconciliation through education and in addressing systemic injustice in Africa.

UNESCO Global Literacy Conference in Mexico City Highlights U.S.-Sponsored Programs

A Bolivian mother reads to her infant son
© Photo Whitehouse Conference on Global Literacy

Two U.S. government funded literacy programs will be among the organizations highlighted at the upcoming UNESCO Regional Conference for Global Literacy in Mexico City, on September 10-13, 2008.

• Alfalit International, Inc. (Bolivia), a USAID funded non-profit educational organization that offers literacy and basic education programs in 25 countries.
• Educatodos (Honduras), an alternative basic education delivery system created by the Ministry of Education and USAID for out-of-school youth and adults to complete a primary and lower secondary (grades 7-9) education.

HP-UNESCO Partnership

Scientists at the Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in Dakar (Senegal) are now better placed to cooperate with researchers overseas thanks to the installation of the first computing grid at the university, the fruit of a joint effort by the UNESCO/Hewlett-Packard project “Reversing Brain Drain into Brain Gain for Africa” and the Grid Computing Institute of France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

The project aims to provide universities in five African countries with grid computing technology so as to reduce migration of African university graduates by giving them the tools they need for their research.

The joint project “Reversing Brain Drain into Brain Gain for Africa” follows the successful implementation of a similar UNESCO/Hewlett-Packard initiative for Southeast Europe, launched in 2003.

Read more!

Some Great World Heritage Sites on the Internet

Archeological Zone of Paquimé, Casas Grandes, Mexico

Here are some sites to help you learn about and experience the world heritage sights selected by UNESCO:

• World Heritage Tour with interactive, panoramic images of some 300 sites
• The World Heritage List of WikiTravel with travel and tourist information
• The World Heritage Foundation with a fancy website, photos and more
• Friends of World Heritage, a non-governmental organization, that among other things offers tours of world heritage sites on it web pages.
• World Heritage Google Maps with interactive online maps
  
• UNESCO World Heritage and American Museum of Natural History Expeditions
• The Salmon's World Heritage List, by true aficionados.

Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries
Wolong, Mt Siguniang and Jiajin Mountains

Decentralization in the Culture Program

Underwater archaeology
the Saint-Honorat1 wreck 17th century
© UNESCO; M L Hour / Drassm

While UNESCO's Culture Program is centered in UNESCO's headquarters in Paris, a great deal of its work is decentralized into a network of Institutes and Centers, as well as country field offices and cluster offices providing education related services to a cluster of nations. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics provides statistical support for the education programs as well as the other UNESCO programs.

The World Heritage Center although located in Paris has its own World Heritage Committee which provides oversight for the program implementing the World Heritage Convention.

Other centers under the auspices of UNESCO and its culture program are:

• International Institute for the Study of Nomadic Civilizations (IISNC), Ulan Bator, Mongolia.
• International Institute for Central Asian Studies (IICAS), Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
• International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), Rome, Italy.
• Nordic World Heritage Foundation, Oslo, Norway.

The Cluster and Regional Offices for Culture

• Venice (Europe and North America)
• Havana (Latin America and the Caribbean)
  

UNESCO Intersectoral Platforms

In the 2008-2009 biennium, UNESCO is implementing a dozen "intersectoral platforms" that focus on key global challenges. The platforms promote an interdisciplinary approach through the combined action of UNESCO's five major programs: education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, communication and information.

The programs are:

1. Science education
2. HIV and AIDS
3. Education for sustainable development
4. Contribution to the implementation of the Mauritius Strategy for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS)
5. Fostering ICT-enhanced learning
6. Strengthening national research systems
7. Languages and multilingualism
8. Contributing to the dialogue among civilizations and cultures and a culture of peace
9. Support to countries in post-conflict and disaster situations
10. Priority Africa: coordinating and monitoring the plan of action to benefit Africa
11. UNESCO action to address climate change
12. Foresight and anticipation

Click here to see a Power Point Presentation
by a senior UNESCO official on the program!

Decentralization in the Education Program

While UNESCO's Education Program is centered in UNESCO's headquarters in Paris, a great deal of its work is decentralized into a network of Institutes and Centers, as well as country field offices and cluster offices providing education related services to a cluster of nations. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics provides statistical support for the education programs as well as the other UNESCO programs.

The Centers and Institutes of the Education Program are:

• The International Bureau of Education (IBE)
  
• The UNESCO International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA)
  
• The International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)
• The International Center for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (UNEVOC)
  
• The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning
• The Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE)
  
• The European Center for Higher Education (CEPES)
• The International Center for Girls' and Women's Education in Africa (CIEFFA)
  
• The International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC)
  

Other Centers or Institutes under the auspices of UNESCO

• International Research and Training Centre for Rural education, Boading, China
• Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding, Inchon, Republic of Korea
• Guidance, Counseling and Youth Development Centre for Africa, Lilongwe, Malawi
• Regional Centre for Book Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, Bogotá, Colombia
  

The Cluster and Regional Offices for Education

• Dakar (Africa)
  
• Beirut (Arab States)
  
• Bangkok (Asia and Pacific)
• Santiago Chile (Latin America and the Caribbean)
  

The Intangible Heritage Network

This network's website is dedicated to the involvement of non-governmental organizations and civil society in topics related with the intangible cultural heritage. The network's founders feel that "the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage represents an important achievement concerning the recognition and advancement of cultural rights. Moreover, it has involved State Parties undersigning it in a consistent exercise towards the identification and study of their intangible cultural heritage."

YOu might want to check out this site with interesting photos posted by the Intangible Heritage Network.

Online Volunteer Needed

One or more online volunteers sought to help post materials on this blog. The volunteer would scan the UNESCO websites to identify materials from UNESCO's educational and/or cultural programs worth spotlighting, such as news, new events or publications, or interesting programs. The blog is widely read internationally, but is especially focused on materials of interest to people in the United States.

Several neophyte bloggers have learned to post on the site in less than one hour. An effort of an hour or two per week on the average should do the job, and would be greatly appreciated.

If you are interested, please send an email to me with your biography or a brief description of your background and interests.

john.daly@gmail.com

UNESCO Courier: Claude Lévi-Strauss

A recent issue of the UNESCO Courier is devoted to remembrance of Claude Lévi-Strauss, the great Anthropologist who published often in The Courier, was very close to UNESCO during his life, and was even in his 90's an active participant in the celebrations of UNESCO's 60th anniversary in 2005.

Go to the Issue!

Quotations:

“The efforts of science should not only enable mankind to surpass itself; they must also help those who lag behind to catch up.”

“No doubt we take comfort in the dream that equality and fraternity will one day reign among men, without compromising their diversity.”

“Nothing indicates racial prejudices are diminishing and indications are not lacking to suggest that after brief local respites, they surge up again elsewhere with renewed intensity. Which is why UNESCO feels the need periodically to take up again a struggle whose outcome is uncertain, to say the least.”

“But who better than UNESCO can draw the attention of scientists and technicians to the fact (which they so often tend to overlook) that the purposes of science are not only to solve scientific problems but to find answers to social problems as well.”

UNESCO roundtable on the development, culture and identity of indigenous peoples

Image © Ayodele Banjo

A roundtable titled “Indigenous Peoples: Development with Culture and Identity” is to take place 15 September at UNESCO Headquarters*. It is to lay the ground for reflection on this theme which will also be discussed at the 9th session of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) to be held in New York in 2010. Participants are to focus on the contribution of indigenous approaches to sustainable development in the age of globalization. They will also seek to reinforce cooperation among indigenous peoples, governments and the United Nations system as a whole.

The event will be opened by the UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura. Participants will include Victoria Tauli-Corpuz (Igorot, Philippines), Margaret Lokawua (Karamoja, Uganda) and Carlos Mamani Condorí (Aymará, Bolivia), respectively chair and members of the UNPFII. John Scott of the Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity; Julian Burger, Coordinator, Indigenous Peoples and Minorities Unit, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR); Anaisabel Prera, Guatemala’s Ambassador to France and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO; and Darriann Riber of the Danish International Development Agency will also be participating.

An estimated 350 million indigenous peoples live in over 70 countries and speak more than 5,000 languages: such is the importance of indigenous people today. Their cultures express the powerful links between humanity and nature, between tradition and modernity, offering a holistic view of the world. They could become a source of renewal for the future. Despite their major contribution to cultural diversity and to sustainable development, many of them are marginalized and deprived of basic human rights.

Read more!

Thanks to the Readers of this Blog!

Technorati rank for this blog is 1,542,567.

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Thus, our readers have put this blog in the top two percent of all blogs.

Thank you very much!

We hope it has and will continue to provide useful information and insights,

UNESCO's Abdul Waheed Khan: ICT to shape the future of education and learning

Abdul Waheed Khan, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, shares his insights on education and the role of ICT for socio-economic development in the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) Through The Looking Glass Series. More!

Juan Luis Guerra: UNESCO Artist for Peace

UNESCO's Director-General will designate the Dominican musician Juan Luis Guerra UNESCO Artist for Peace during a ceremony on 15 September at the Organization’s Headquarters in Paris.

Read More!

Friends of World Heritage on Facebook

Friends of World Heritage, a U.S. based non-governmental organization, has created a group on Facebook, and also has established a Facebook fanpage where you can share information with the other members of the group.

Indigenous Peoples: Development with Culture and Identity

From 15 to 17 September, UNESCO will host the annual meeting of the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples and welcome the first official visit to UNESCO of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Read more!

“Water and Peace for the People”

What if the countries in the Middle East had no choice but to get along in order to share the region’s meagre water resources? This is the starting premise of Jon Martin Trondalen’s book “Water and Peace for the People”, which will be launched on 11 September at UNESCO.

“Water and Peace for the People”, released by UNESCO Publishing, offers a practical guide that suggests concrete ways to resolve these crises. Analyzing what is at stake in each situation while releasing new information, the author examines the conflicts in the Upper Jordan River between Israel and Syria around the Golan Heights, between Israel and Lebanon over the Wazzani Spring, and the longstanding water dispute between Palestinians and Israelis. Challenges confronting Turkey, Syria and Iraq in sharing water of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers are also assessed.

Read more!

UNESCO commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is being commemorated in a year-long campaign by the UN system. UNESCO, like the rest of the agencies of the system, is evaluating its progress in respecting and promoting human rights. The motto of this campaign is “Dignity and Justice for All of Us”.

In addition, the 61st Annual Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), which was held at UNESCO Headquarters from 3 to 5 September 2008 by the United Nations Department of Public Information, focused on the commemoration of the Declaration’s 60th anniversary.

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in over 300 languages)
• UNESCO's Plan of Action
• Commemoration in the UN system

About the UNESCO Website

Alexa, a company providing information about website use, reports that 0.014 percent of global internet users visit the UNESCO website. Consequently, at the moment, UNESCO's website ranks number 8,136 in cyberspace in terms of traffic. (By comparison, the Americans for UNESCO website ranks 9,968,024; the AU education and culture blog ranks 5,434,393; the AU science and communications blog ranks 5,790,834.) Alexa also reports that the percentage of global Internet users who used UNESCO's website has gone down over the past three months. On the average, a visitor to the UNESCO website downloads about 2.5 pages of material.

10.7 percent of the visitors to the UNESCO website are from the United States.

The most visited pages are:

• The UNESCO homepage
• The World Heritage Center
• The UNESCO Documents and Publications
  
• The International Bureau for Education
• UNESCO's vacant posts website
• The UNESCO Communication and Information Program website
  
• The UNESCO Institute for Statistics
• UNESCO Webworld
• UNESCO Publishing
• The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
• The HIV/AIDS Impact on Education Clearinghouse

U.N. Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations

For the first time in its 60 year history the annual meeting of some 1,700 non-governmental organizations affiliated with the United Nations will take place outside of the United Nations headquarters in New York.

More than 2000 delegates are to meet at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris from 3 to 5 September 2008 under the banner of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Declaration was signed in Paris, and it was therefore considered fitting that the NGO meeting be held there. UNESCO played a key role in the deliberations leading to the Declaration, carrying out a landmark study to demonstrate that indeed, all cultures did recognize common human rights.

The Conference will provide:

• background on the human rights treaty system (Day 1);
• perspectives on the implementation of human rights in the context of on-going challenges as well as emerging issues worldwide (Day 2); and
• outlooks on how to make better use of existing mechanisms for the protection of human rights at the international and national levels, as well as to examine ways to empower civil society at the local level (Day 3).

It will be opened by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon via video-conference at 10:00 a.m. on 3 September 2008.

Read more!

The UNESCO Courier: 2008 - number 7

Literacy is the best remedy

Finishing primary school makes it five time more likely that the person is informed about HIV and AIDS. Malaria, which kills a million people a year, is most deadly among the illiterate. Literacy and good health are inseparable. This is the theme of International Literacy Day (8 September) and the 2008 UNESCO International Literacy Prizes.

Read the new issue of the UNESCO Courier focusing on literacy and health!

China Moving to Protect World Heritage Site

The Mogao Grottoes, 492 decorated caves hewn from a cliff between the 4th and 14th centuries C.E. 25 kilometers, are one of Buddhism's most revered shrines. The are found in southeast of Dunhuang, an ancient Silk Road way station in western China.

The current issue of Science magazine states:

In designating Mogao a World Heritage Site in 1987, UNESCO hailed it as a "unique artistic achievement" whose 45,000 square meters of murals include "many masterpieces of Chinese art." "No other place compares to Mogao," says Qu Jianjun, a geographer at the Cold and Arid Regions Environment and Engineering Research Institute (CAREERI) in Lanzhou.

That's why China is launching a new effort to safeguard the caves. Earlier this year, its National Development and Reform Commission approved a $38 million project to protect Mogao's fragile artworks from three major threats: salt leaching from groundwater, exhalations and body heat from droves of tourists, and shifting sand dunes. Later this year, CAREERI plans to open an environmental research center in Dunhuang, dedicated in large part to Mogao and directed by Qu.

Education for All on the Global Stage

UNESCO will spotlight Education for All during a number of events during the last quarter of 2008. UNESCO will participate in one of the eight roundtables at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra, Ghana (2-4 September). UNESCO will also participate in the thematic roundtable on health and education at the High-Level Event on the Millennium Development Goals on the 25th of September.

The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2009 -- focusing on governance, financing and management of education -- is to be launched during the International Conference on Education (25-28 November, Switzerland).

The annual meeting of the High Level Group on EFA -- to be attended by heads of state, education ministers, bilateral, multilateral and civil society organizations -- is to be held 16-18 December in Norway.

The next four months also count a series of regional preparatory conferences leading up to the May 2009 CONFINTEA VI conference on adult learning. These conferences are being held in Latin America and the Caribbean (10–13 September, Mexico); the Asia-Pacific (6 – 8 October, Republic of Korea); sub-Saharan Africa (5–7 November, Kenya); and for the Europe-North America region, in Hungary (3–5 December).

Read about UNESCO’s ongoing core initiatives in education:

TTISSA: Teacher Training Initiative in Sub-Saharan Africa
A 10-year UNESCO initiative to improve teacher-training capacities in 46 sub-Saharan countries.

LIFE: The Literacy Initiative for Empowerment
A 10-year UNESCO initiative targeting the 35 countries with 85% of the world's illiterate population.

EDUCAIDS: The Global Initiative on Education and HIV/AIDS
EDUCAIDS
A UNESCO-led initiative carried out with 10 UN agencies to help governments provide a comprehensive response in the area of HIV/AIDS education.

Consult UNESCO’s action in education worldwide, country by country

Globalization and Language

UNU/UNESCO International Conference · 27 & 28 August, 2008

United Nations University Headquarters Tokyo, Japan

The UN University and UNESCO are offering the 2008 international conference on:

Globalization and Languages: Building on Our Rich Heritage

UNESCO launches two education-related websites

The Educational content and curriculum website was launched by the International Bureau of Education. Country Dossiers illustrate the Bureau’s recent activities in different parts of the world. The site is trilingual with a number of additional pages translated in Chinese, Russian and Arabic. It accommodates for slow internet connections and includes a larger text option for the visually impaired.

The Latin American and Caribbean education website from UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean provides users with detailed information on a wide range of educational topics, in both Spanish and English. The site includes detailed information of initiatives and networking efforts undertaken by the Regional Bureau, as well as news, events, documents and recommended publications. Bibliographic searches can also be run on UNESCO publications.

" Historic Preservation and America in the World"

Donovan Rypkema, a Washington consultant on historical preservation with both domestic and international experience, has posted a very interesting and thought provoking essay on his Heritage Strategies Blog.

He starts with the observation:

(N)o objective observer and no one who has traveled to foreign countries in recent years can escape three realities: 1) among both America's friends and America's opponents regard for the United States has fallen dramatically in recent years; 2) the regaining of the respect and the reestablishment of the leadership of the United States will take concentrated effort over a long period of time - perhaps a generation or more; and 3) essential to that effort will be the reengagement of the American government with international institutions, most of which were created through the leadership of the United States.

He then goes on to suggest twenty reasons why historic preservation not only can play an important role in a reenergized public diplomacy, but needs to play that role. Finally, he suggests ten steps that the United States Government could take in the international promotion of historic preservation.

"When was the last time that virtually every country in the world was on the same side of the same issue - India and Pakistan, Israel and the PLO, Africa and Europe, North America and South America? It was n the condemnation of the wanton destruction of the Buddhist statuary in Afghanistan by the Taliban - a historic preservation issue.

Conversely, in recent years perhaps the best example of the impact of symbolic healing was the restoration of the Old Bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina funded by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the World Monuments Fund."
Donovan Rypkema

Editorial Comment: The UNESCO led efforts to save Abu Simbel is the most famous example of a global effort of historic preservation. The support by Ted Turner's United Nations Foundation of UNESCO's World Heritage Center is perhaps America's best example of a public-private partnership in soft diplomacy. JAD

Veronika, UNESCO Arkhangelsk Project

My name is Veronika, and I’m 9 years old. I live in Krasnoborsk with my babouchka (grandmother), Maria Alexandrovna Iourileva. When I was born, my mother was very young.

She was 16 and didn’t know how to look after me. She left when I was 5 months old, and I stayed alone with my father. He didn’t know how to look after me either, he’s an alcoholic. Then, it was my father’s mother who took me in. She has a small pension (2.700 rubles a month, around 100 US$) as she worked for 38 years in an orphanage. She had a very tough life. She is ashamed of her daughter, and she left her husband as he was an alcoholic too. She never would have thought that her family could be this unhappy.

In my grandmother’s small house, she’s 57 years old, there is also my great grandmother who is 86 and very ill. My grandmother is very kind and gives me all that she can. With the UNESCO project, I go to the arts and crafts section of the cultural center three times a week, and I take part in all activities like skiing and theater.

My grandmother has a very beautiful voice. She sings in the veterans’ choir. She says that singing, and I think so too, helps us survive and keep hope. She encourages me in everything, she is proud of my successes and she gives me a lot of love.

International Literacy Day

International Literacy Day

8 September

Literacy is a cause for celebration since there are now close to four billion literate people in the world. However, literacy for all – children, youth and adults - is still an unaccomplished goal and an ever moving target. A combination of ambitious goals, insufficient and parallel efforts, inadequate resources and strategies, and continued underestimation of the magnitude and complexity of the task accounts for this unmet goal. Lessons learnt over recent decades show that meeting the goal of universal literacy calls not only for more effective efforts but also for renewed political will and for doing things differently at all levels - locally, nationally and internationally.

First Lady Laura Bush is UNESCO's Honorary Ambassador for the Decade of Literacy. Her designation came in recognition of her dedication to learning and the promotion of reading, her commitment to universal education and literacy, her work on behalf of libraries and the sharing of knowledge, and her outstanding efforts in support of teachers and the teaching profession.

UNESCO Literacy websites

• Literacy
  
• UN Literacy Decade (2003-2012)
• UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014)
• Literacy for All
• Education for All
• Literacy Exchange - World Resources on Literacy
• EDUCAIDS - The Global Initiative on Education and HIV/AIDS

Read the UNESCO Director General's message
on International Literacy Day! (PDF file)

The International Day of Peace

The United Nations' International Day of Peace - marked every year on September 21 - is a global holiday when individuals, communities, nations and governments highlight efforts to end conflict and promote peace.

We the World, a non-governmental organization, provides a website with more than 700 associated events celebrating peace efforts during an eleven day period from September 11 to September 21, in support of the United Nations event.

“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men

that the defences of peace must be constructed.”

The UNESCO Constitution

UNESCO was created in the aftermath of World War II as an integral part of the United Nations peace keeping system. UNESCO's function was the long-term effort to build the defenses of peace in the minds of men through the promotion of education, science and culture. The promotion of peace has always been central to its program.

Promotion of the Culture of Peace is one of UNESCO's special themes, cross cutting all of its sectoral programs. Among its actions are a number of prizes recognizing efforts to promote peace:

• UNESCO Prize for Peace Education

This prize, awarded biennially, supports activities designed to increase awareness and mobilize consciences in the cause of peace.

• The Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize

The Prize, established in 1989, is intended to honor living individuals, and active public or private bodies or institutions that have made a significant contribution to promoting, seeking, safeguarding or maintaining peace.

• UNESCO Cities for Peace Prize

The UNESCO Cities for Peace Prize pays tribute to the initiatives of municipalities which have succeeded in strengthening social cohesion, improving living conditions in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and developing genuine urban harmony.

A New UNESCO Publication

The International Peace Commission, which grew out ot the Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize process, held its first meeting in UNESCO Headquarters, hosted by the Secretary General. The International Commission for Peace Research also grew out of the Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize.

The book Water and Peace for the People will be launched on 11 September at 6 p.m. at UNESCO Headquarters.

What if the countries in the Middle East had no choice but to get along in order to share the region’s meagre water resources? This is the starting premise of Jon Martin Trondalen’s book “Water and Peace for the People”, which will be launched on 11 September at UNESCO.

In an international climate of tension, conflicts related to water in the Middle East are more than ever in deadlock. “Water and Peace for the People”, released by UNESCO Publishing, offers a practical guide that suggests concrete ways to resolve these crises.

© Jon Martin Trondalen
Culvert for an irrigation from the
Euphrates River, South of Bagdad

Mondialogo School Contest Finalists

Reuters reports:

50 schools at the final of the Mondialogo School Contest in Beijing - among them U.S. students from Allison Park (Pennsylvania), Lewisburg (West Virginia) and Land O'Lakes (Wisconsin)

The three U.S. finalists are the A. W. Beattie Career Center, the Greenbrier East and the Conserve School.

The contest, initiated by Daimler and UNESCO in 2003, seeks to encourage dialog between school students of different cultural origins, by rewarding the best work on international and intercontinental joint projects: examples include musical works, plays, collages, photographic documentation, sculptures or Internet pages. Through the intercultural project work, school students are intended to develop understanding, tolerance and respect for people with different cultures, religions, languages and origins. This year 2,740 school teams with a total of 36,000 school students between the ages of 14 and 18 from 144 countries took part.

Read more!

UNESCO's Programs for Children in Need

You can contribute to UNESCO's Programs for Children in Need!

Click here to learn how!

Program for the Education of Children in Need

UNESCO created the Program for the Education of Children in Need in 1992 to offer a future to vulnerable children through education. Since its creation, over US$33 million has been raised in private funds and these have been fully and directly invested into immediate support for over 332 projects in 92 countries worldwide.

Street children

According to UN sources there are up to 150 million street children in the world today. Chased from home by violence, drug and alcohol abuse, the death of a parent, family breakdown, war, natural disaster or simply socio-economic collapse, many destitute children are forced to eke out a living on the streets, scavenging, begging, hawking in the slums and polluted cities of the developing world.

Children victims of war and natural disasters

Over the last decade alone, armed conflict has claimed the lives of over 2 million children. Another six million have been left wounded or disabled for life. One million have become orphans. It is estimated today that more than 300,000 children have been enrolled in militia groups and armies and been forced to carry a gun. Half of those they kill are other children. Whether it is in Afghanistan, Iraq or in conflict-ridden areas of Africa, UNESCO has played a vital role in providing education and relief. The first to suffer from a lack of sanitation, infrastructure and order after a catastrophe are the most vulnerable: children. Outbreaks of disease following natural disasters hit children the hardest. UNESCO’s Program for the Education of Children in Need seeks to be on hand to offer relief and reconstruction expertise.

Children with special needs

Despite governments signing up to many a convention and seemingly supporting international guidelines on children with special needs, prejudices and exclusion still form part of everyday life for many children with special needs around the world. Since 1992, ther projects for children with special needs have been carried out in the following countries: Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cuba, Egypt, India, PDR Lao, Mexico, Morocco, Russia, Uganda, Vietnam.

Working children

Child labor is probably the single biggest obstacle to giving every child an education. The International Labor Office estimates the number of working children, aged 5 to 17, to be around 250 million. Many of these children come from impoverished rural families who have to employ every member to survive; others still work in dire situations of systematic exploitation in sweatshops and factories. Exposed to hazardous materials, working in servitude, many of these young laborers die an early death. The most destructive of child ‘work’ is prostitution. Around 2 million children fall within this area of employment worldwide. In Asia alone, perhaps more than 1 million minors, of both sexes, work in bars and brothels. Before long they are caught up in the deadly cycle of substance abuse and HIV infection.

For an overview of current UNESCO projects for children in need, select a region from the list below:

• Africa
• Arab States
• Asia and the Pacific
• Europe and North America
• Latin America and the Caribbean

A Conversation With Nina V. Fedoroff

The New York Times has published an interview with Nina Fedoroff, science adviser to the secretary of state and to the administrator of the Agency for International Development. I quote:

Q. WHY DOES THE SECRETARY OF STATE NEED A SCIENCE ADVISER?

A. Because science and technology are the drivers of the 21st century’s most successful economies.

There are more than six billion of us, and the problems of a crowded planet are everyone’s: food, water, energy, climate change, environmental degradation. Other nations, even those that have lost respect for our culture and politics, still welcome collaboration on scientific and technological issues.

Read more of the interview!

Read more about Dr. Federoff

Aksum Obelisk successfully repatriated and reinstalled

The third and last block of the Aksum Obelisk was successfully mounted by the UNESCO teams at the end of July in its original location in Ethiopia. The monument’s reinstallation was greeted with joy by the local people, who spontaneously organized musical concerts yesterday at the site.

Weighing 150 tons and 24 meters high, the obelisk is the second largest stela on the Aksum World Heritage site in northern Ethiopia, close to the border with Eritrea. Transported to Rome by the troops of Mussolini in 1937, it was returned in April 2005 by the Italian government. Its dismantling in Rome, transport and reinstallation were funded by the Italian government.

Read more!

200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade

Source: Locke and Slavery

August 23rd is the day marked by UNESCO to commemorate the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. On March 2, 1807, the U.S. Congress approved an act to abolish the importation of slaves effective January 1, 1808. Thus, this year marks the 200th anniversary of that event.

Here are a number of useful resources available related to the anniversary celebration:

• The Global Slavery Rememberance website
• The U.S.National Commission Rememberance website
• UNESCO's Slave Trade Archives
• The Breaking the Silence project website. The project was created to help educators break the silence about the slave trade.
• ASPNet Breaking the Silence, a website created for the Associated Schools Project Network to facilitate teaching about the slave trade in those schools.

UNESCO CultureLink Network

The Network's aim is "to strengthen communication among its members, encouraging international and intercultural communication and collaboration. The Culturelink Network's long-term objective is the development of a world-wide information system for the study of cultural development and cooperation."

The CultureLink Website contains resources that emphasize the connections between culture and the broader aims of human endeavor that have been part of UNESCO's core constitutional mandate of "advancing, through the educational, scientific and cultural relations of the peoples of the world, the objectives of peace and the common welfare of mankind."

" The fight against doping; More than tactical success"

The International Herald Tribune suggests that the 2005 UNESCO Convention Against Doping in Sport may pay off with fewer abuses in these Olympic Games.

Before the 2005 convention, only members of sports organizations were held accountable or penalized for their actions. Now, all athlete support personnel, including coaches, trainers, managers, team support staff, agents, administrators, officials and medical or paramedical practitioners are open to scrutiny, as are those who manufacture or supply drugs to athletes.

Today, the convention encourages all countries to evenly apply antidoping laws and regulations and ensure the implementation of the World Anti-Doping code by all sports organizations. But while countries have rapidly ratified the convention, they need to move much faster to implement it.

United States ratifies International Convention against Doping in Sport

On 4 August, President George Bush signed the instrument of ratification of UNESCO’s International Convention against Doping in Sport, following its approval on 22 July by the US Senate. More than 90 countries have now ratified the Convention.

• Read the UNESCO news report.
• Read the Statement by the President

Latin America and the Caribbean: diversity, creativity and dialog

Latin America "resonates with varied forms of creativity, which constitutes what is perhaps its most common characteristic. In this way, this region has given rise to the notion of a culture rooted in diversity and renewal." Check out this material about UNESCO's Culture Program activities in the region:

Culture activities:
A regional point of vue
World Heritage List:
118 outstanding sites in 25 countries
The Garifuna Language, dance and music:
Common traditions in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua
Inspira Project (in Spanish):
An on-line regional course on Art Education
The Slave Route:
Places of Memory in the Caribbean
The CERLALC (in Spanish):
A regional centre promoting book publishing

Rattus Holmes and Felis Watson

As of Monday, visitors to the UNESCO Social and Human Sciences Program website* are able to find the weekly installment of an comic-strip adventure featuring Rattus Holmes and Felis Watson, detective heroes against doping in sport.

Entitled “The Case of the Spoilsports”, the comic strip dramatizes UNESCO’s anti-doping role and explores the importance of the International Convention against Doping in Sport, adopted by UNESCO’s member states in 2005.

In five chapters published weekly, the story the comic strip will trace how twin athletes react differently to the pressures of competitive sport.

Chapter 1: Sport, Glorious Sport [PDF]

Job: Director of the Division for Education Strategies and Capacity Building

Under the overall authority of the Assistant Director-General for Education (ADG/ED), the incumbent will lead the development and implementation of the programme of the Division and ensure that technical backstopping is provided to UNESCO Field Offices in implementing the Division’s programme and activities aiming at Member States' capacity to develop and implement educational
strategies and priorities, and enhance education systems management and governance.

Location: Paris
Deadline for Applications: 5 September 2008

Read more about the position!
Click here to apply.

Job: Chief of ICT in Education, Science and Culture Section

Duty station; Paris, France
Grade: P-5
Post number: CI-004
Closing date: 4 September 2008
Main responsibilities:

Under the overall authority of the Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information (ADG/CI) and the direct supervision of the Director of Information Society Division, the incumbent is responsible for the planning, implementation and evaluation of the strategy, regular program activities, and extrabudgetary projects of the Section. Working within the frameworks of UNESCO's Medium-Term Strategy (C/4s) and global developments plans, especially the Plan of Action adopted by the World Summit on the Information Society, the incumbent will be responsible for the following duties:

1. Provide intellectual, strategic and operational leadership of the Section by: (a) driving the preparation of strategies and the biennial programs and budgets; (b) guiding the conceptualizing, designing and implementation phase of the Section’s activities; (c) providing expert advice to internal and external stakeholders; (d) driving the multistakeholder cooperation and outreach of the Section through fostering contacts and joint projects with representatives ofMember States, UNESCO’s Intergovernmental bodies and civil society; (e) establishing and managing private sector partnerships.
2. Ensure the management of the staff of the Section by: motivating staff and providing mentoring; ensuring appropriate distribution of tasks; monitoring of timely and appropriate implementation of program and projects; establishing internal guidelines and procedures; ensuring quality and timely inputs of the Section to reports; establishing information and knowledge management procedures of the Section; monitoring and evaluating the performance of staff.
3. Plan and execute regular programme and extra-budgetary activities by: providing strategic advice in the use of ICTs in education, science and culture for Member States; recording and sharing information, knowledge and best practices; planning and executing projects of strategic nature in Member States; providing backstopping support to Advisers for Communication and Information in Field Offices.

Read More!

Global Aids forum opens in Mexico

A global conference on HIV/Aids has opened in Mexico City, a quarter of a century after the disease first became widely known.

According to BBC News, "the number of people with the condition around the world has gone down slightly overall. However, infection rates are still rising in some countries and access to the right treatment is also an issue. Across the world 33 million people are affected by the syndrome."

UNESCO will be involved throughout the conference in presenting sessions and activities to share new research and best practices on the global response to HIV and AIDS through education.

Read more about

• UNESCO at the Forum
• UNESCO's Response to HIV and AIDS

Guidelines for mainstreaming HIV and AIDS in the Education Sector

The NatCom Newsletter is Out

The U.S. National Commission for UNESCO Update, Volume 4, Issue 1 Winter/Spring 2008 has recently been published.

In This Issue:

• Comments from the Executive Director
• The U.S. World Heritage Tentative List
• International Year for the Planet Earth
• World Press Freedom Prize Awarded to Mexican Reporter
• President Bush Sends to Congress for Ratification the UNESCO Anti- Doping in Sports Convention
• Sixth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VI)
• 179th UNESCO Executive Board
• U.S. National Commission for UNESCO Laura W. Bush Traveling Fellowship Initial Recipients and Next Announcement
• U.S. National Commission for UNESCO Annual Meeting
• U.S. Museums Project Symposium
• Director-General’s Consultation with European and North American National Commissions
• UNESCO Youth@the Crossroads: A Future Without Violent Radicalization Symposium
• Water Forum and Director General Matsuura DC Visit
• UNESCO Job Vacancies

Americans Still Underrepresented on UNESCO Staff

These data provided by the State Department indicate that there are still too few Americans on the staff of UNESCO. As a result, Americans have unusual opportunities to join UNESCO, and will enjoy unusual support of their government in efforts to do so.

UNESCO uses a formula to balance staffing from its member nations. According to the formula, a minimum of 46 and maximum of 76 U.S. citizens should work for UNESCO. The targeted date to meet the minimum employee level is 2010. Two important avenues to increase employment of American citizens in UNESCO are:

1. The Young Professional Program –YPP (for under represented states)
2. The Associate Expert Program - extrabudgetarily funded

2008 U.S. National Commission for UNESCO Annual Meeting

The minutes of the May meeting of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO have been published online. The summary of the meeting includes those who attended, matters discussed, and conclusions reached.

The minutes are available in PDF format. To view the PDF file, you will need to download, at no cost, the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

-- 07/03/08 Meeting Minutes

Alexander Zemek new Executive Director of the NatCom

Alex Zemek has been officially appointed Executive Director of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO.

In September 2004, Alexander Zemek began service as Deputy Executive-Director of the National Commission. Before joining the State Department, he worked for the Department of Defense 2002-2004, where he helped with cabinet affairs, with the startup and management of the Defense Business Board, an advisory council of private sector senior executives created by Secretary Rumsfeld, and
with managing and staffing the Department's 63 federal advisory boards and commissions. During his last year in Defense, he served in Iraq with the Coalition Provisional Authority as both Special Assistant to Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III and interim Director of Personnel.

He joined the government after some years in the private sector, where he worked as a securities trader for Heartland Securities Corporation. He also taught high school in his hometown of Tolland, Connecticut.

He holds an honors degree in history from Yale University, where he captained the cross country team, and a graduate certificate in national security studies from the National Defense University. As a photographer, he has held many gallery shows, for example an exhibit in Connecticut highlighting his life in a small village in Kenya in 1998. He maintains his distance running and is an avid traveler who has visited 45 of the 50 US states and 35 foreign countries. He
lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Larry Seaquist's New Website

Larry Seaquist, long time member of the Americans for UNESCO Board of Directors, has created a new website in his quest for reelection to the Washington legislature.

ICTs in Education Prize: call for nominations

“Digital Opportunities for All: Preparing Students for 21st-Century Skills” is the theme of the 2008 UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of ICTs in Education. Funded by the Kingdom of Bahrain, the US$50,000 prize is divided between two winners. The deadline for submissions is 31 August 2008.

Read more!