UNESCO

 

(UNESCO), specialized agency of the United Nations, with headquarters in Paris. Its counterpart in the League of Nations was the International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation. UNESCO was founded in 1945 and became an agency of the United Nations in 1946. It has 192 members. The organization's policies are decided by the general conference, which meets every two years; it consists of one representative for each member. The executive board, with 34 members elected for three-year terms, and a secretariat, headed by a director-general, carry out the program. National commissions or cooperating bodies of member states act as liaisons between UNESCO and national educational, scientific, and cultural organizations. UNESCO seeks to further world peace by encouraging free interchange of ideas and of cultural and scientific achievements and by improving education.

After World War II, UNESCO worked for the physical reconstruction of the educational facilities of war-devastated countries by building up library and museum collections. Since 1950 it has organized projects for primary education in Latin America, Asia, and Africa; it has also encouraged cultural exchanges between East and West, undertaking translations of important writings and organizing personal exchanges. A most important long-range UNESCO program concerns the problem of “fundamental education”—teaching people to read and write and to meet the problems of their environment. Centers to train educators have been established in Cambodia, India, South Korea, Liberia, Thailand, and Turkey, and fundamental-education centers have been set up in Latin America and in the Middle East.

In 1959, UNESCO set up an international committee to preserve and restore cultural property, which played a leading role in preserving Egyptian monuments threatened by the construction of the Aswan High Dam (see under Aswan). Funds were collected and experts assembled from all over the world in a successful effort to save the monuments, including the famous Abu-Simbel temples of Ramses II. In the 1970s and 80s, UNESCO was mired in controversy over the insistence of the developing nations, supported by the Soviet bloc, that it establish a “New World Information Order.” At issue was a move to establish an international press code and licensing system for journalists, facilitating press controls by governments. The United States withdrew its membership (1984), followed by Great Britain and Singapore, charging UNESCO with budgetary extravagance and hostility to free press and free markets. By the mid-1990s, however, UNESCO was helping E European journalists adjust to a free press. Great Britain rejoined in 1997, and the United States rejoined in 2003.

Bibliography

See W. H. C. Laves and C. A. Thomas, UNESCO (1957, repr. 1968); G. H. Evans, The United States and UNESCO (1971); P. Lengyel, International Social Science: The UNESCO Experience (1986); R. A. Coate, Unilateralism, Ideology, and U.S. Foreign Policy (1988); W. Preston, Jr., et al., Hope and Folly: The United States and UNESCO, 1945–1985 (1989).

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UNESCO flag
Org type:	Specialized Agency
Acronyms:	UNESCO
Head:	Director General of UNESCO Koïchiro Matsuura  Japan
Status:	Active
Established:	1945
Website:	www.unesco.org
Wikimedia Commons:	UNESCO
Portal:	United Nations Portal

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established in 1945. Its stated purpose is to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through education, science, and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the UN Charter.[1]

UNESCO has 193 Member States and 6 Associate Members. The organization is based in Paris, with over 50 field offices and many specialized institutes and centres throughout the world. Most of the field offices are "cluster" offices covering three or more countries; there are also national and regional offices. UNESCO pursues its action through five major programmes: education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, and communication and information. Projects sponsored by UNESCO include literacy, technical, and teacher-training programmes; international science programmes; the promotion of independent media and freedom of the press; regional and cultural history projects, the promotion of cultural diversity; international cooperation agreements to secure the world cultural and natural heritage and to preserve human rights; and attempts to bridge the world-wide digital divide.

Structure

Three bodies are responsible for policy-making, governance, and day-to-day administration at UNESCO:

• The General Conference
• The Executive Board
• The Secretariat

The General Conference is a gathering of the organization's member states and associate members, at which each state has one vote. Meeting every two years, it sets general policies and defines programme lines for the organization.

The Executive Board's 58 members are elected by the General Conference for staggered four-year terms. The Executive Board prepares the sessions of the General Conference and ensures that its instructions are carried out. It also discharges other specific mandates assigned to it by the General Conference.

The Secretariat consists of the Director-General and his staff and is responsible for the day-to-day running of the organization. The Director-General, who serves as the public face of UNESCO, is elected for a (renewable) four-year term by the General Conference. The staff currently numbers some 2100, of whom some two-thirds are based in Paris, with the remaining third spread around the world in UNESCO's 58 field offices. The Secretariat is divided into various administrative offices and five programme sectors that reflect the organization's major areas of focus.

Controversy and reform

UNESCO has been at the centre of controversy, particularly in the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and the former USSR. During the 1970s and 1980s, UNESCO's support for a "New World Information and Communication Order" and its MacBride report calling for democratization of the media and a more egalitarian access to information was condemned in these countries as attempts to destroy the freedom of the press. UNESCO was perceived by some as a platform for communist and Third World countries to attack the West, a stark contrast to accusations made by the former USSR in the late 40s and early 50s.^[1] In 1984, the United States withheld its contributions and withdrew from the organization in protest, followed by the United Kingdom in 1985 and Singapore in 1986. Following the change in government in 1997, the UK rejoined; the United States rejoined in 2003. As of 8th October 2007, Singapore has rejoined this organisation. During the intervening period, considerable reforms have been implemented in UNESCO.

These included the following measures: the number of divisions in UNESCO was cut in half, allowing a corresponding halving of the number of Directors — from 200 to under 100, out of a total staff of approximately 2,000 worldwide. ^{[citation needed]} At the same time, the number of field units was cut from a peak of 79 in 1999 to 52 today. Parallel management structures, including 35 Cabinet-level special advisor positions, were abolished. ^{[citation needed]} Between 1999 and 2003, 209 negotiated staff departures and buy-outs took place, causing the inherited $10 million staff cost deficit to disappear. ^{[citation needed]} The staff pyramid, which was the most top-heavy in the UN system, was cut back as the number of high-level posts was halved and the “inflation” of posts was reversed through the down-grading of many positions. Open competitive recruitment, results-based appraisal of staff, training of all managers and field rotation were instituted, as well as SISTER and SAP systems for transparency in results-based programming and budgeting. ^{[citation needed]} In addition, the Internal Oversight Service (IOS) was established in 2001 to improve organizational performance by including the lessons learned from programme evaluations into the overall reform process. In reality though, IOS's main tasks involve auditing rather than programme oversight; it regularly carries out audits of UNESCO offices that essentially look into administrative and procedural compliance, but do not assess the relevance and usefulness of the activities and projects that are carried out. ^{[citation needed]}

Programming coherence and relevance remains a challenge at UNESCO. One of the main reasons for this is that activities and projects can be identified and supervised by various services within the organization (divisions and sections based at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, UNESCO regional and cluster field offices and international institutes) with insufficient coordination between them. ^{[citation needed]}

Activities

UNESCO deploys its action in the fields of Education, Natural Sciences, Social and Human Sciences, Culture, Communication and Information.

• Education: UNESCO is providing international leadership ^{[citation needed]} for creating learning societies with educational opportunities for all populations; it supports research in Comparative education; and provides expertise and fosters partnerships to strengthen national educational leadership and the capacity of countries to offer quality education for all. Such as
  • International Institute for Educational Planning, IIEP: A centre for training and research to strengthen the capacity of countries to plan and manage their education systems
• UNESCO also educates people through the use of 'statements':
  • Seville Statement on Violence: A statement adopted by UNESCO in 1989 to refute the notion that humans are somehow biologically predisposed to organised violence.
• Designating projects and places of cultural and scientific significance, such as:
  • International Network of Geoparks
  • Biosphere reserves, through the Programme on Man and the Biosphere (MAB), since 1971
  • City of Literature; in 2007 the first city to be given this title will be Edinburgh
  • Endangered languages and linguistic diversity projects
  • Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity
  • Memory of the World International Register, since 1997
  • Water Resource Management, through the International Hydrological Programme (IHP), since 1965
  • World Heritage Sites

• Encouraging the "free flow of ideas by images and words" by:
  • Promoting freedom of expression, press freedom and access to information, through the International Programme for the Development of Communication and the Communication and Information Programme
  • Promoting universal access to ICTs, through the Information for All Programme (IFAP)
  • Promoting Pluralism and cultural diversity in the media

• Promoting events, such as:
  • International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World: 2001–2010, proclaimed by the UN in 1998
  • World Press Freedom Day, 3 May each year, to promote freedom of expression and freedom of the press as a basic human right and as crucial components of any healthy, democratic and free society.
  • Criança Esperança in Brazil, in partnership with TV Globo, to raise funds for community-based projects that foster social integration and violence prevention.
  • International Literacy Day

• Founding and funding projects, such as:
  • Migration Museums Intitiative: Promoting a the establishement of museums for cultural dialogue with migrant populations.[2]
  • UNESCO-CEPES, the European Centre for Higher Education: established in 1972 in Bucharest, Romania, as a de-centralized office to promote international co-operation in higher education in Europe as well as Canada, USA and Israel. Higher Education in Europe is its official journal.
  • Free Software Directory: since 1998 UNESCO and the Free Software Foundation have jointly funded this project cataloguing free software.
  • FRESH Focussing Resources on Effective School Health [3].
  • OANA, the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies
  • International Council of Science
  • UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors
  • ASOMPS, Asian Symposium on Medicinal Plants and Spices, a series of scientific conferences held in Asia
  • Botany 2000, a program supporting taxonomy, and biological and cultural diversity of medicinal and ornamental plants, and their protection against environmental pollution

Prizes, awards and medals

UNESCO awards several prizes in science, culture and peace, such as:

• Carlos J. Finlay Prize for Microbiology
• Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize
• Great Man-Made River International Prize for Water Resources in Arid and Semi-Arid Areas
• International José Martí Prize
• International Simón Bolívar Prize
• Javed Husain Prize for Young Scientist
• Jikji Memory of the World Prize for individuals or institutions that have made significant contributions to the preservation and accessibility of documentary heritage.
• Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science
• L’Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science
• Sergei Eisenstein Medals for merit in cinematographic art.
• Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation
• UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize
• UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of ICT in Education
• UNESCO Mozart Medal for contribution to world peace through music and the arts.
• UNESCO Prize for Peace Education
• UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education
• UNESCO Science Prize
• UNESCO/Institut Pasteur Medal
• UNESCO Artist for Peace
• Creative Cities Network
• Seal of Excellence for Handicrafts

Postage Stamps

Various countries have issued postage stamps commemorating UNESCO. The organization's seal and its headquarters building have been common themes. In 1955 the United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) issued its first ones honoring the organization.

While UNESCO has never separately issued stamps valid for postage, from 1951 to 1966 it issued a series of 41 "gift stamps" to raise money for its activities. Designed by artists in various countries, they were sold at a desk by the UNPA counter located in the United Nations Headquarters building in New York City. No longer available at the UN, most of these Cinderella stamps can be purchased at low cost from specialty stamp dealers.

Directors General

1. Julian Huxley,  United Kingdom (1946–1948)
2. Jaime Torres Bodet,  Mexico (1948–1952)
3. John Wilkinson Taylor,  United States (acting 1952–1953)
4. Luther Evans,  United States (1953–1958)
5. Vittorino Veronese,  Italy (1958–1961)
6. René Maheu,  France (1961–1974; acting 1961)
7. Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow,  Senegal (1974–1987)
8. Federico Mayor Zaragoza,  Spain (1987–1999)
9. Koïchiro Matsuura,  Japan (1999–present)

Locations

UNESCO has offices in many locations across the globe; its headquarters are located in Paris, France.

• Maps and aerial photos for 48°′00″N 2°′″E / 48.85, 2.306Coordinates: 48°′00″N 2°′″E / 48.85, 2.306
  • Maps from Google Maps, Live Search Maps, WikiMapia, Yahoo! Maps, or MapQuest
  • Topographic maps from TopoZone
  • Landuse survey from GlobalGuide

References

1. ^ Grahm, S. E. (April 2006). "The (Real)politiks of Culture: U.S. Cultural Diplomacy in UNESCO, 1946–1954". Dimplomatic History 30 (2): 231–251. 

External links

• UNESCO.org Official UNESCO website
  • whc.unesco.org Official World Heritage website with the full World Heritage List and extensive databases
  • portal.unesco.org UNESCO offices worldwide
  • portal.unesco.org UNESCO Culture Sector
• unesco.org/webworld - Communication & Information Programme
  • UNESCO - Information for All Programme
  • World Press Freedom Day
• TooYoo UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages
• unescobkk.org Asia Pacific Heritage
• UNESCO Science Prizes
• UNESCO - Institute for Statistics
• UNESCO - International Bureau of Education
• UNESCO - International Institute for Educational Planning
• UNESCO Nairobi Education Programme
• UNESCO.org Water sustainable development and conservation of freshwater resources in the world
• Unofficial links
  • UNESCO - IOC Project Office for IODE, Ostend (Belgium)

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