“What UNESCO for the Future”

"A reflexion on current and future trends, on potential gaps that must be filled and on future scenarios, with a foreword by Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, and an introduction by Mr Pierre Sané, Assistant Director-General of UNESCO for Social and Human Sciences."

‘What UNESCO for the future?’ proceeds from a reflexion on current and future trends and potential gaps that must be filled, on future scenarios and on ‘What UNESCO?’ in terms of its role today as a participant that could influence the processes of global transformation.

‘What UNESCO for the future?’ reflects on UNESCO’s possible responses to the rising global challenges it faces today. In other words, what role could our Organization have within the United Nations system, and what contribution could it make towards resolving the main challenges and threats of the twenty-first century?

If, as some think, we have effectively arrived at a crossroads – that we are reaching a point of no return in a number of fields (water, energy, climate change, pollution, terrorism, nuclear power) – what UNESCO will allow us to face this future? What relationship to foster between the Organization’s fields of competence and its functions? What methods to use to reach the world’s most vulnerable populations if we are to build intellectual co-operation worthy of the name?

This publication presents the addresses given in the course of this forum by sixteen personalities:

* Jacques Attali
* Robert Badinter
* Boutros Boutros-Ghali
* Souleymane Bachir Diagne
* Fatma Haddad-Chamakh
* Ping Huang
* Albert Jacquard
* Randolph Kent
* Yersu Kim
* Achille Mbembé
* Edgar Morin
* Hisashi Owada
* Miguel Rojas-Mix
* Carolina Rossetti Gallardo
* Ghassan Salamé
* Tu Weiming

Andre Varchaver comments:

- Most interesting and valuable as a well written historical account of how UNESCO came to be and, - importantly - the role of the United States in its creation is to be found in the reprint of "Planning the Organization of UNESCO, 1942-1946; a Personal Record" by Frank Richard Cowell, former Secretary-General of the British National Commission for UNESCO, written on the occasion of UNESCO's 20th anniversary. I am tempted to say that it should be required reading for all of us as well as the members and staff of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO.