UNESCO Venice Newsletter - Issue N°1 2010 (January-March)

The UNESCO Venice Newsletter is a quarterly newsletter published in English by the UNESCO Office in Venice. This issue of the UNESCO VENICE Newsletter features articles about Science and Culture, UN initiatives and joint programming in the region.

Download the issue (PDF file)

Irina Bokova and Rod Beckstrom at UNESCO Paris

Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, talks to Rod Beckstrom, President and CEO of ICANN. The video was made in Paris on 10 December 2009, when a significant step was taken towards greater linguistic diversity on the Internet when UNESCO signed an agreement with ICANN – the body that assigns online addresses to Internet users – to help put into operation the first multilingual domain names.

UC Davis helping Biosphere Reserve in Uruguay

Shore birds at Uruguay's Eastern Biosphere Reserve

University of California, Davis, scientists are helping rice farmers in Uruguay stop polluting their waterways -- including drinking-water sources and a globally valuable nature reserve.

With funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty International Center, the UC Davis researchers helped Uruguayan university colleagues devise a simple water test that tells whether it is safe to drain flooded rice fields.

The test checks for the herbicide clomazone, which is used on 78 percent of Uruguay's rice fields.

Developing best rice-farming practices to avoid release of toxic chemicals to the environment is especially urgent in Uruguay, because water drained from the country's main area of rice cultivation flows into the marshlands of the Eastern Biosphere Reserve (Reserva de Biosfera Humedales del Este). This reserve is managed as part of the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve Program, which promotes environmentally sustainable human development.

Read more!

Slovak representative visits with UNESCO Center for Peace

Photo by Travis Pratt
Michal Pavuk, head of the political section for the Embassy of Slovakia, center, speaks Thursday morning with Guy Djoken, executive director of UNESCO Center for Peace, at the Bernard Brown Community Center in Frederick.

Source: Frederick News Post

Michal Pavuk, head of the political section for the Embassy of Slovakia, nn Thursday visited the the UNESCO Center for Peace, a UNESCO club in Frederick Maryland.

Guy Djoken, executive director of the UNESCO center, said he invited Pavuk, along with several other foreign ambassadors, as a way to brin

Rita Colwell Wins The Stockholm Water Prize

Rita Colwell, a Professor working with the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, has won the Stockholm Water Prize worth $150,000, for conducting a research on finding techniques to prevent Cholera and other waterborne illnesses.

Dr. Colwell is a member of the Board of Directors of Americans for UNESCO. She has had a long and distinguished career, including serving as the Director of the National Science Foundation, President of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute and President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Read more about Dr Colwell.

Read more about the award to Dr. Colwell.

Congratulations Rita!

International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

21 March

The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on 21 March. On that day, in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid "pass laws". Proclaiming the Day in 1966, the General Assembly called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.

UNESCO Links

• International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
• Fight Against Racism, Discrimination and Xenophobia
• Promoting Tolerance

Cyberschool LInk

Museum of Biodiversity to Open in Panama

The Museum of Biodiversity is to be opened in Panama this year, in a spectacular building designed by Architect Frank Gehry. The Museum will be an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. This year is also:

• the celebration of the centennial of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and
• the International Year of Biodiversity

The Smithsonian has long provided global leadership in the science of biodiversity and it is quite appropriate that it is supporting the creation of this spectacular new facility in a country in which it has had so long and importance a scientific presence.

UNESCO is joining the Convention on Biological Diversity, the lead UN body for the IYB, to make the IYB an effective instrument to advance the cause of biodiversity conservation. During the Year, UNESCO will lead several activities which aim to educate and to raise public awareness on the reasons for conserving biodiversity, to fill the gaps in our knowledge of biodiversity and to catalyze further international action for its sustainable use.

The United States has been little involved in UNESCO's important programs dealing with the science of Biodiversity since Representative Don Young of Arkansas put a hold on U.S. participation in such programs in the late 1990s.

This is the year to renew and reaffirm U.S. commitment to international collaboration on the science of biodiversity, and especially to UNESCO's program titled "People, Biodiversity and Ecology".

John Daly

The opinions expressed in this posting are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Americans for UNESCO.

Evaluation of Learning and Development at UNESCO

UNESCO’s Internal Oversight Service (IOS) contracted Cathexis Consulting to carry out an evaluation to assess the relevance of UNESCO’s learning and development policy in meeting the current and future needs of the Organization. The study was also to evaluate the effectiveness and key results of the policy's associated activities. The evaluation was intended to identify strengths as well as to determine where changes are needed and to recommend actions to be taken by the key stakeholders. The evaluation was expected to make recommendations with respect to the appropriateness of its policy as well as to the implementation process.

Learning and development has advanced tremendously in UNESCO since 2004 when the learning and development policy was developed. In the space of five years, UNESCO has thus moved from very minimal attention on learning and development to implementing a suite of training programmes made possible through a dedicated learning and development funding envelope each biennium.

The evaluation found that the learning and development policy is generally consistent with recognized good practice; however, its actual implementation needs further attention. The authors of the report noted that the budget for implementation of the learning and development policy was reduced from the 2006-7 biennium to the 2008-9 biennium, and further reduced for the current 2010-11 biennium. It recommended that the College of Associate Directors General review the policy and its implementation.

Authors: Martha McGuire (Team Leader), David MacCoy and Burt Perrin, January 2010. (PDF, 64 pages)

Comment: I was surprised that UNESCO had not had a formal policy for staff development and learning until 2004, and most surprised that an organization built around its expertise in education had not done better in implementing the policy. The reduction in resources devoted to learning and organizational development seems inappropriate. JAD

An Interview with E. O. Wilson

2010 has been named as the International Year of Biodiversity, and UNESCO is commemorating the year with a number of activities. Edward O. Wilson was the Key Note Speaker for the inaugural event. The Harvard scientist was an excellent choice for the honor because of his decades of leadership in scientific and public efforts to increase understanding of the crisis in biodiversity and the need to take action to halt the extinction of species. Having won two Pulitzer Prizes, Professor Wilson is also eloquent in his passion for the subject.

I quote from the interview UNESCO published with Dr. Wilson:

Q. Is it already too late to avert disaster?

A. It is not too late to stem and then halt the extinction of species and the ecosystems they compose. We are certainly too late to save some of them, but global action now can keep the final loss to a minimum. Science and technology will be a crucial part of the solution. Although vertebrates, corals, plants are reasonably well known, and form the basis of current conservation practice, the great majority of insect and other invertebrates remain unknown to science, as well as almost all bacteria and other microorganisms. These latter "Little things that run the world" are crucial to the survival of the larger creatures, including ourselves. We need a major initiative to explore the little known planet on which we live, in order to preserve its life. We also need to know far more about the life cycles and ecological relationships of both the known and unknown species. The science to achieve this should be fed directly into innovations in conservation as well as to advance technology in many fields.

Read the full interview!

A New UNESCO Center

The UNESCO Executive Board is expected to approve, at its next meeting in early April, the proposal to create a Category 2 Center Regional Research and Documentation for Women, Gender and Peace Building in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. The Democratic Republic of the Congo reaffirmed its willingness to host the center.

Read the feasibility study!

2010 Women in Science Laureates

Discover the 2010 L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Laureates in life sciences. 5 amazing women. 5 world regions. 5 scientific breakthroughs for a better world...

“The World’s Challenge to Education”

Karl Earl Mundt (June 3, 1900 – August 16, 1974) was an American educator and a Republican member of the United States Congress, representing South Dakota in the United States House of Representatives from 1938 to 1948 and in the United States Senate from 1948 to 1973. Representative Karl Mundt was a critical supporter of UNESCO and was a primary figure in urging the United States to join UNESCO. It is possible that, without his urging and support, the United States may not have joined. Mundt gave several speeches on UNESCO and the importance of joining UNESCO. These are excerpts from Mundt’s speech at the UNESCO founding meeting:

“After all, we educators have a special responsibility in this postwar era not only because we have this vast and valuable human raw material with which to work and not only because the world is more and more turning away from wars and the weapons of wars as a means of procuring proper human behavior in international affairs. Basically, we have a special responsibility to meet the great new challenge which is now ours in helping the world learn how to control the terrible new force unloosed in its midst because, I the final analysis, the atomic bomb was conceived by scientists whom our profession had educated.”

“It is not the noble pronouncements of princes and potentates which preserve the peace – it is the attitude which men have in their hearts and express in private conversations which actually count. It is to be hoped that eventually a code of international good behavior can be conceived through the operation of UNESCO so that boys and girls throughout the world may be taught the basic concepts of tolerance, justice, order, and peace-preserving international behavior. Greater by far than the dissimilarities of race, color, creed economic, governmental, and political concepts as well as geographical differences are the similarities which exist among human beings everywhere. UNESCO will strive to harness these similarities together into a great invincible phalanx which will hold at bay the future dogs of war.”(15)

“In establishing the University of Virginia, the great Thomas Jefferson selected as a motto for the institution, ‘Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free’ UNESCO is designed to help people throughout the world to learn the truth. In the final analysis the truth – better than any other single factor – can help free this world from war forever.”

Editorial: The Government Should Not Impose Staff on UNESCO for Political Reasons

Colum Lynch has published an article titled "The Decline of the International Civil Servant" inForeign Policy magazine stating:

The U.N. practice of hiring political appointees has ensured American, French, and British dominance of key U.N. jobs in management, peacekeeping and political affairs. But it has chipped away at the U.N. ideal of the impartial international civil servant, loyal to the founding principles of the U.N., and not beholden to the state that helped get them the job.

He cites the United States Government as one among several nations pressuring the United Nations to employ politically-connected citizens:

Earlier this month, Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, circulated a letter nominating a single candidate, Tony Lake, to lead the U.N. Children's Fund, an organization that receives most of its funds from the United States, when President Bush's candidate, Ann Veneman, steps down in April. It remains unlikely that Ban, who is ostensibly responsible for hiring the UNICEF chief, will challenge Rice.

UNESCO's Secretariat should consist of international civil servants chosen for their ability to carry out UNESCO's mission. It is especially important that its senior staff -- Assistant Directors General and Director Grade officers -- not only leaders with unchallenged expertise, but officials whose devotion to the organisation is above suspicion. Moreover, UNESCO's important functions depend on the large numbers of educators, scientists and cultural leaders who provide advice and council through UNESCO's committees and boards without pay. They too must be chosen according to the needs for expert advice and not due to the political pressure applied by UNESCO member states.

It is especially important at this moment that UNESCO have both the freedom and incentive to choose well, as the new Director General is in the process of recruiting her Assistant Directors General. He cabinet will have enormous influence on the ability of the organization to carry out its import mission effectively and efficiently.

We expect the United States Permanent Delegation to UNESCO to be vigilant in seeing that UNESCO chooses the very best team possible. Of course, the Permanent Delegation should assure that qualified Americans are considered for positions in the Secretariat and for advisory spots in UNESCO advisory bodies. Indeed the Government, National Commission and Permanent Delegation should seek to assure that there is a strong representation of Americans in UNESCO. They should do so primarily by working to assure that there are very highly qualified American applicants considered for all relevant posts.

The United States should use its considerable influence in UNESCO governing bodies to insist that UNESCO resist pressures from member states and their delegates to bypass competitive processes in appointment. Our Permanent Delegation to UNESCO should seek to enlist allies among other Delegations in that process. It can only do so effectively if it is above suspicion, so that it is doubly important that it not apply inappropriate pressures on UNESCO.

John Daly

The editorial opinions expressed above are those of the author alone, and do not necessarily represent those of Americans for UNESCO.

International Women's Day 2010

Every year in March, UNESCO celebrates International Women’s Day (March 8) by hosting a flagship program, consisting of round-tables, conferences, exhibitions and cultural events that highlight issues relating to the empowerment of women and the promotion of gender equality.

Click here for a description of all the events organised by the Division for Gender Equality of the Bureau of Strategic Planning.

A debate on “Gender Equality, Education and Training”, which took place over four weeks between 457 women and men from all corners of the globe, proved so successful, it is to be prolonged. the debate will continue until the High-level Event held by the United Nations General Assembly on the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals in September 2010.

U.S. Scientist Wins L'OREAL-UNESCO Science Prize

Elaine Fuchs, Professor at the Laboratory of Cellular Biology of The Rockefeller University was awarded the prize “for the discovery of stem cells and key processes involved in skin development, maintenance and repair”. The prize, one of five awarded each year to outstanding women scientists, includes $100,000 for the recipient.

The Science Prizes and 15 international UNESCO-L’Oréal Fellowships were awarded last week at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

According to Rockefeller University:

Dr. Fuchs received her B.S. in chemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1972 and her Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1977 from Princeton University. She was a postdoc at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1977 to 1980. Dr. Fuchs was the Amgen Professor of Basic Sciences at The University of Chicago before coming to Rockefeller in 2002. She was named the Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor the same year. She has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 1988.

Dr. Fuchs has received a number of honors and awards, including the Bering Award and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Award for Scientific Excellence in 2006, the Dickson Prize in Medicine in 2004, the Novartis/Drew Award in Biomedical Research in 2003, the Cartwright Award from Columbia University in 2002 and the Women in Cell Biology Senior Women’s Career Achievement Award in 1997. In 1994 Dr. Fuchs was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2005 and the NAS in 1995. She was named one of the Nation’s Outstanding Scientists by the White House in 1985 and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Illinois and the Mount Sinai and New York University Medical Schools.

Read Ambassador David Killion's blog posting on the awards!

Click here for a video of Dr. Fuchs discussing her life in science!

U.S. Opinion on the United Nations

"Americans told the United Nations in Gallup Poll results released on Feb.19 that the UN must do better. Only 31 percent of the respondents thought that the international body is “doing a good job,” up from 26 percent the previous year, marking the highest approval rating since 2005, when George W. Bush was president."

While the poll applies to the United Nations per se rather than directly to UNESCO, it seems likely that opinions of UNESCO which is much less known in the United States are heavily influenced by opinions of the UN. There poll indicated that Republicans had more negative views of the UN than did Democrats, with Independents in an intermediate position.

Source: "US Public to UN: We Support You But Do Better," By John Washburn, UNA-USA World Bulletin, March 2010.

Conference on UNESCO and the Cold War

A conference on UNESCO’s links with the Cold War, organized by the International Scientific Committee for the UNESCO History Project, will be hosted by the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCAS), University of Heidelberg, (Germany) on 4-5 March 2010.

The Symposium, which is part of a cycle of conferences on the history of UNESCO, will address a number of issues, such as the influence of the Cold War on UNESCO, and the role the Organization was able to play in easing tensions between the two opposing blocs.

Read more!

Among participants in the meeting are:

• Leland Conley Barrows, Professor, Voorhees College, United States
• Christian Ostermann, Director, Cold War International History Project (CWIHP), United States
• Jacob Darwin Hamblin, Department of History, Oregon State University, United States

Go to the Conference website!

UNESCO launches Women Make the News 2010

On the occasion of International Women’s Day (8 March), UNESCO joins forces with international and regional media organizations to launch the annual Women Make the News (WMN) initiative. Under the theme “Towards Gender Sensitive Indicators for Media: Best Practices for Gender Perspective in Media and in Media Content”, WMN 2010 is intended to initiate a global exchange on the importance and the need for gender sensitive indicators for media organizations.

Read more!

The UNESCO Multimedia Archives

The UNESCO Multimedia Archives provide viewers with a number of videos produced by UNESCO in support of its mission in the promotion of education, science, culture and communications in the pursuit of peace.

World Bank Group and the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Pledge to Protect Wetlands

The Livanjsko Polje Ramsar site in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

(photo by Tobias Salathé)

The World Bank Group and the Secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (RAMSAR) on February 16 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for cooperation in a program of scientific and technical exchange including technical expertise and capacity building related to wetlands and climate change.

Specifically, the MoU provides for cooperation between the two institutions on the following aspects:

a) The assessment, formulation, and development of climate change projects in wetlands.

b) The development of tools and methodologies to assess the magnitude of carbon sinks in mangroves.

c) The assessment of biomass density in wetlands.

d) The development of the wetlands typology and protocol for assessing net carbon storage or CO2 emissions under different conditions.

e) The formulation of “carbon sink assets” in wetlands.

f) Joint reporting in the technical scientific literature of the results of the cooperation; and

g) Exchange of scientific and technical support for the purposes of the points referred above

Read more!

Presidential Science Envoy Dr. Elias Zerhouni Visits UNESCO

On February 10, Dr. Elias Zerhouni met with UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova and key UNESCO ambassadors and secretariat staff. In his meetings, he outlined the Obama Administration's plans to develop scientific centers of excellence in the Muslim world, to use modern technologies to create economic and social opportunities, and to foster enterprise within individual countries on a local level.

"We must promote the idea of impactful science and technology initiatives that lead to entrepreneurship and to wealth creation."

Dr. Elias Zerhouni is on a ten-day trip to France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait in his role as Presidential Science Envoy. Dr. Zdfhouni is a distinguished radiologist who has published extensively on medical imaging. He served as Director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health from 2002 to 2008, after which service he returned to Johns Hopkins University, his long time academic home.

Dr. Zerhouni now serves on the boards of the Lasker Foundation, Research America, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and the Mayo Clinic Foundation. He also serves as an external chief advisor for global science and technology for Sanofi-Aventis and was named chair of the Maryland Economic Development Commission in April 2009. He was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2000.

A Profile of Esther Coopersmith

The Washington Scene recently published a profile of Esther Coopersmith, the longtime chair of the Advisory Committee of Americans for UNESCO. She was honored as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Intercultural Dialog last September. In conferring this honor, UNESCO's Director General paid

special tribute to Esther Coopersmith, whose energy and devotion to UNESCO’s ideals was a driving force in both the U.S. return and subsequent strong re-engagement. Over the past decade, she has been an outspoken advocate for UNESCO within the US, helping to make our work better known among the American public and forge new ties and friendships.

The UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors are celebrity advocates who use their talent and fame to spread the ideals of UNESCO by attracting the public’s attention to its activities. They include South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, French philanthropist Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, Princess Lalla Meryem of Morocco, and Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum.

I understand she is also to serve as a member of UNESCO's High Level Panel on Dialog of Civilizations which has its first meeting on Thursday, February 18th. The High Level Panel is to provide "thoughtful guidance and creative initiative" for UNESCO in its celebration of the 2010 International Year of Rapprochement of Cultures.

UNESCO and CTBTO sign agreement to benefit disaster mitigation and capacity-building in developing countries

Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, signed an agreement on 3 February with Tibor Tóth, Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), to enhance cooperation between the two organizations, notably for the benefit of tsunami early warning systems and capacity-building in developing countries.

The verification regime of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) uses cutting-edge technologies and scientific methods to monitor the planet for nuclear explosions. The resulting data offer a wide range of civil and scientific applications. The CTBTO also organizes workshops, seminars and other training activities around the world.

Read more of the ReliefWeb article!

UNESCO identifies post-disaster priorities for science in Haiti

I quote in full from a UNESCO webpage:

Water was one of the most urgent priorities. UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Science in Latin America, situated in Montevideo, has been in touch with the National Committees of UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme (IHP) in countries across Latin America, which are eager to backstop projects by the National Committee in Haiti to improve water management. IHP committees are helping to put together an action plan for integrated water resources management with the participation of institutions linked to the IHP National Committee in Haiti. On 29 January, the co-ordinators of the regional IHP programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean met with staff from the UNESCO offices in Montevideo, Havana, Mexico City, Quito, Brazil and San Jose, to put together a proposal. Moreover, within UNESCO’s Groundwater for Emergency Situations programme, there are plans to liaise with other competent UN bodies to identify groundwater resources in Haiti which could provide a safe water supply.

UNESCO will contribute to mapping Port-au-Prince for multi-hazards and risks. It will also help to rehabilitate the heavily damaged Centre national de l’information géospatial (CNIGS) in Haiti. Bernard Hadjadj, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova’s Special Envoy to Haiti, had paid a visit to the centre and was able to speak to one of the surviving experts. UNESCO will also be providing Haiti with advice on basic building codes and practices to help ensure that reconstructed buildings are able to withstand any future disaster far better than during the 12 January earthquake. For the longer term, UNESCO has prepared a proposal for the establishment of the Haitian Institute of Science, Engineering and Disaster Risk Reduction to assess risks from natural hazards, design and implement plans at both the national and local levels to mitigate the effect of natural disasters and provide education and training while boosting public awareness.

UNESCO has also obtained satellite images to elaborate detailed risk assessment cartography for cultural heritage in Haiti . This is being done within the framework of the joint European Space Agency–UNESCO Open Initiative on the Use of Space Technologies to support World Heritage.

Prior to the earthquake, there were plans to create the first biosphere reserve in Haiti. Transborder co-operation holds great potential, as the Dominican Republic would be able to help Haiti identify ways to increase agricultural productivity along the border.

Meanwhile, experts from UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) have launched a full performance assessment of the Caribbean Tsunami Warning System. Preliminary results should be available by mid-February. Some IOC experts are travelling to the Dominican Republic in the first week of February to provide technical assistance for the island’s coastal hazards and warning systems, which include tsunamis, in agreement with the IOC’s Haitian partners. A field survey to capture essential scientific data is also under preparation.

UNESCO will be advocating reconstruction that fully takes into account the need to make Haïti safer than before from natural hazards.

Related links:

:: See the interview of Badaoui Rouhban (More)
:: UNESCO Natural Disaster Reduction Programme (More)
:: Mobilizing for Haiti (More)
:: UNESCO Director-General appeals for emergency aid for Haiti (More)

Int'l Symposium on Heritage Recording & Information Management in the Digital Age (SMARTDoc Heritage)

The Graduate Program in Historic Preservation/School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania in collaboration with the R. Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (University of Leuven) are organizing an International Symposium on Heritage Recording and Information Management in the Digital Age (SMARTDoc Heritage), March 26-27, 2010 in Philadelphia, USA.

Beginning in 2006 Robin Letelier brought his vision of an integrated graduate level course in heritage recording, documentation and information management to the Program in Historic Preservation at the University of Pennsylvania. Today that course curriculum, now under the direction of Mario Santana, represents the synthesis of principles and practices considered fundamental knowledge for all heritage professionals. This symposium, initially planned by Robin at UPenn, is dedicated to that vision and his tireless effort to promote heritag e conservation through research, teaching, and public service.

Read more!

More information about the symposium: http://www.smartdocheritage.org

UNESCO Meeting on Biodiversity

Source: Maxims News Network, February 4, 2010

"Concern about the unprecedented erosion of biodiversity was discussed at the event organized at United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) headquarters recently by high-level participants including Irina Bokova, the new UNESCO Director-General; Davidson Hepburn, Chairperson of UNESCO General Conference; Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); Jochen Flashbarth, President of the Bureau of the Conference of the Parties (COP 9) to the CBD; Monique Barbut, Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson of the Global Biodiversity Facility (GEF) and Angel Cropper, Deputy Executive Director the the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

"There was a unanimous conclusion of all the participants that halting the unprecedented erosion of biodiversity and raising awareness of the need to change our behaviour are urgent priorities.

"The Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, declared in a video message at the opening of the meeting that, 'We must not be discouraged by the outcomes' of the UN Climate Change Conference last December in Copenhagen."

Read more!

SHS e-News -- Just published

SHS e-News 47

February 2010

www.unesco.org/shs/e-news

• UNESCO/ISESCO Arab Research-Policy Network on Economic,

Social and Cultural Rights (ARADESC)

UNESCO Office in Rabat

Rabat, UNESCO Office in Rabat, 2009. 9 p. (brochure)

MA/2009/SS/PI/1

Available in English [PDF, 489 KB], Arabic [PDF, 625 KB] and French [PDF, 290 KB]

• Philosophy, a School of Freedom

Just published in Arabic [PDF, 16 MB]

Already published in English [PDF, 14 MB] and French [PDF, 15 MB]

World Press Freedom Day, 2010

The University of Queensland in Brisbane Australia has launched the official 2010 World Press Freedom Day global conference website at www.wpfd2010.org.

Read the press release.

New Issue of A World of Science

A World of Science (January–March 2010)

IN FOCUS
2 Wildlife in a warming world

NEWS
10 Science must be a priority, says new UNESCO head
10 Concern over budget for science
11 Colombia hosts Year’s largest space marathon
11 Launch of consortium for science in the South
12 Three science prizes awarded
12 A biosphere school for Guinea Bissau
13 Healthier oceans vital for combating climate change
14 Collapse of karez forces Iraqis to abandon homes
14 Sustainable development needs cultural dimension
15 Two Nobel Prizes for L’ORÉAL–UNESCO laureates
15 18 countries test tsunami system

INTERVIEW
16 Farouk El-Baz returns to the Moon

HORIZONS
18 The Bushbuckridge healers’ path to justice
21 Can a blue dye help save the Aral Sea?

IN BRIEF
24 Diary
24 New releases

Click here to download the issue (PDF)

February 2nd is World Wetlands Day

Laguna Hedionda, Los Lípez Ramsar site, Bolivia (Photo Omar Rocha)

Best wishes to the Secretariat for the Ramsar Convention (Convention on Wetlands of International Importance) on World Wetlands Day, celebrating the 39th anniversary of the its adoption. The Ramsar Convention is a site-based intergovernmental treaty which encourages countries to identify and manage specific places so that their values and benefits are protected for future generations. It is the only global environmental treaty that deals with a particular ecosystem.

World Heritage and Ramsar sites are commonly associated throughout the world. Some notable examples include Brazil's immense Pantanal wetlands, the Sundarbans mangrove forests of Bangladesh, the Tubbataha National Marine Park in the Philippines and the Danube Delta in Romania.

UNESCO is the Depository of the Ramsar Convention. UNESCO and Ramsar join efforts to preserve important sites.

Apollo 11 moon site named California historical resource

Buss Aldrin Gazes at Tranquility Base

"On Friday, California became the first state to register the items at Tranquility Base as an official State Historical Resource.

"The unanimous vote by the eight-member California State Historical Resources Commission is part of a five-state effort to have Tranquility Base become a national historic landmark and then a world heritage site.

"Texas is part of that effort, along with New Mexico, Alabama and Florida — the other states highly involved in the Apollo program.

"Some scientists want to have Tranquility Base designated a U.N. World Heritage Site in advance of what they believe will be unmanned trips to the moon by private groups, and even someday by tourists."

Source: Statesman.com

Secretary Clinton During Her Visit to Paris

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, yesterday in Paris acknowledged the Ambassador and Permanent Representative to UNESCO, David Killion. She thanked Ambassador Killion for helping the Untied States to reenter UNESCO, and for setting the right tone, and for his work on many of the important issues that matter to our country.

She said:

I also want to acknowledge Ambassador Killion’s work with the new UNESCO Director-General Bokova, whom I met with last week. I was proud to offer our support for the organization’s comprehensive agenda, not only encouraging freedom of expression and promoting advances in science and engineering, but concentrating on women and girls around the world, particularly their education, something which is key to America’s efforts to stabilize countries, to resolve conflicts, to raise the aspirations and incomes of societies. And I look forward to working with David.

Irianian Scientist Delegate to UNESCO's SESAME Assassinated

Source: "Killing of Professor Sparks Fight Over His Science and His Politics," Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, Science 22 January 2010: Vol. 327. no. 5964, p. 401, DOI: 10.1126/science.327.5964.401-a

Iranian physicist, Masoud Alimohammadi, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Tehran, was picked to be Iran's representative for an international scientific facility being built in Jordan called SESAME, Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East.

Last week, Alimohammadi was assassinated by a remote-controlled motorcycle bomb outside of his apartment. And the country's guardians clutched him even tighter to their bosom. Iranian authorities characterized the killing as an attempt by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies to rein in Iran's nuclear program.

SESAME is of course a UNESCO backed initiative.

UNESCO IYB Biodiversity Science-Policy Conference

2010 is the United Nations’ International Year of Biodiversity (IYB). In kicking off its year long program of events celebrating biodiversity and the global effort to preserve it, UNESCO last week held its IYB Biodiversity Science Policy Conference. Scientists participated in the conference to present new scientific findings on biodiversity and ecosystem services, including in relation to global and climate change and to assess related implications for policy-making.

While taking into account the priorities expressed by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Conference was intended to pay special attention to the voice of the scientific community in order to bring novel knowledge that could be used in the context of biodiversity-related decisions.

The Keynote Address at the conference was presented by Ed Wilson, America's grand champion in the battle to recognize, classify and preserve biodiversity.

Check out the abstracts of the papers presented.

Read the speech by Director General Bokova opening the meeting. (In French)

Ambassador Killion Meets With Americans for UNESCO

Ambassador Killion sits at the head of the table

Photo: Nicole Varchaver

Ambassador David Killion, together with Kelly Seikman (the Director of the UNESCO Affairs Office in the State Department) and Elizabeth Kanick (the Executive Director of the National Commission for UNESCO), met yesterday with members of the Board of Directors of Americans for UNESCO. They expressed great satisfaction with the visit of UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova to the United States. Director General Bokova met with both the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Education as well as with Congressional leaders during her visit, and all offered encouragement for her efforts to lead UNESCO and support for UNESCO's mission to promote peace, education, science and culture.

We were also informed that there will soon be recruitment of new staff members for both the UNESCO Affairs Office and the Delegation in Paris), and that efforts are under way to reconstitute the National Commission membership and plan for a meeting of the National Commission this year.

UNESCO is currently recruiting senior staff to fill out Director General Bokova's team, including a new Deputy Director General and seven Assistant Director Generals. The conversations this week were of course often concerned with Haiti, but also with efforts to improve education and especially girls education. 2010 is the International Year of Rapprochement of Cultures, and of course UNESCO will play a key role in its observation.

Elizabeth Kanick to Killion's left and Kelly Seikman to his righ

Photo: Nicole Varchaver

Video: Secretary Clinton Meets Director General Bokova

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I’m just so delighted to have this meeting and to have a chance to talk with the new director general about the upcoming agenda for UNESCO. We are so pleased to have her here in the United States and at the State Department, and I look forward to a very substantive discussion today and a lot of work ahead.

DIRECTOR GENERAL BOKOVA: Thank you. Thank you very much. I am very pleased to have my first official visit in the United States. I hope this is a new, fresh start of our cooperation. I’m very excited. We have an agenda. It’s education, it’s science, it’s climate change, it’s education of girls, of women, literacy. I am very much looking forward to talking to you about all these issues.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you so much.

DIRECTOR GENERAL BOKOVA: Thank you. Thank you very much.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you all.

Click here to see the video!

Reception for Irina Bokova

I was fortunate enough yesterday to attend a reception to honor UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova hosted by the United Nations Foundation. The reception was held in the Rayburn Office Building of the U.S. House of Representatives. Representative Russ Carnahan, who had met with Bokova earlier in the day, welcomed the many guests to the reception. Ambassador David Killion, the U.S. Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, introduced Director General Bokova, who made a few gracious remarks, underlying the importance of UNESCO and her intention of making it a still more effective and important organization. I remain awed by her command of languages. I can testify personally that she speaks flawless English and French, and have been told by a friend who is a native speaker of Russian that her Russian is perfect. A Bulgarian, I hear she also speaks Spanish, bring her to a total of five languages.

Director General Bokova was in the United States for the launch of the 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report at the United Nations. She shared the podium at that event with United Nations Director General Ban Ki-Moon. She met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday before the reception, an indication of the importance that the Obama administration gives to UNESCO's educational, scientific and cultural programs.

It is time to strenthen UNESCO's earthquake science program

In a conference in 2008, a scientist from the University of Texas forecast the likelihood of a major earthquake in Haiti. We see now that he was correct, and can only regret that there was not more done to prepare Haiti and its people for that event. Today there is a massive expression of American concern for the people of Haiti who have already suffered a huge death toll, one that is likely to increase from illnesses in the aftermath of the earthquake. The development of this poorest nation in the hemisphere has been set back for years, and it is clear already that there will be a period of years needed simply to reconstruct that which has been damaged.

There is no way to prevent earthquakes, but it is possible to build in such a way as to reduce the damage done by earthquakes and to prepare for relief to ameliorate the suffering that follows them. UNESCO's Geosciences program includes efforts to mitigate the risks of geohazards. Indeed it has created a project that is working specifically in the cities of Latin America.

In the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, UNESCO moved to create a global tsunami warning system, based on a center in Hawaii. It is now time for the United States to encourage and help UNESCO to strengthen its efforts to reduce geohazard risks, especially in our own neighborhood, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Interview with Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO

The Interview was held on January 20th at United Nations headquarters in New York.

"UK meeting aims for new global biodiversity deal"

Source: Richard Black, BBC News, 18 January 2010.

Ingredients of a new deal on protecting global biodiversity are likely to be decided this week at a London meeting.

About 55 nations are sending delegates to the meeting, which will be chaired by UK and Brazilian ministers.

A key aim is to agree what sort of targets should be set at October's UN biodiversity summit for curbing the loss of species and ecosystems.

UNESCO is celebrating 2010, the United Nations Year of Biodiversity, and has an important program on People, Biodiversity and Ecology. Notable within this program is the world network of 553 bioreserves which has developed under UNESCO encouragement. The network provides a global mechanism for research and the development of the understanding needed to preserve biodiversity.

Editorial Comment: Unfortunately, the Bush administration withdrew U.S. support for the the participation of American scientists and U.S. bioreserves in the global network. The U.S. National Commission has recommended that the participation be restarted, and that remains a challenge for the new team appointed by the Obama administration. 2010, the Year of Biodiversity, would seem to require action on this recommendation.
John Daly
(The opinions expressed above are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of Americans for UNESCO.)

UNESCO is seeking a new Deputy Director General

UNESCO is advertising the post of Deputy Director General. The deadline for applications for the post is March 14th, 2010. If strong candidates apply from the United States, there is every reason to believe that an American might be selected for the position.

The position description states:

Within the framework of UNESCO’s mandate and its strategic objectives, the Deputy Director-General provides strategic direction and oversight to the Director-General on the general management of the Organization, its response to Member States’ priorities and Executive Board and General Conference decisions.

The incumbent supports the Director-General in ensuring coherence of activities and programmes, at Headquarters and in the Field, that cross functional sectors.

The incumbent will specifically:
- Provide strategic direction and advice to the Director-General on programmes and operations.
- Undertake initiatives of high priority at the request of the Director-General.
- Assist the Director-General to heighten public awareness of UNESCO’s priority activities.
- Represent the Director-General and chair various meetings and task forces.
- Act on behalf of the Director-General during her absence and when required.
- Carry out and hold additional responsibilities as delegated by the Director-General.

Read more!

UNESCO urges 'Malsin's immediate and unconditional release'

The Ma'an News Agency reports the following:

UNESCO and the office in the occupied Palestinian territories and Gaza strip is expressing deep concern about the detention of the Chief English Editor of the Ma'an News Agency, Mr. Jared Malsin, a U.S. citizen, by the Israeli authorities at the Ben Gurion International airport on 12 January, 2010 and the plans to deport him.

Ma'an is editorially independent and pluralistic Palestinian news agency, based in Bethlehem. During the past five years, UNESCO has worked together with Ma'an to supported several initiatives and projects in cooperation with Ma'an that promote freedom of expression, access to information and development of the Palestinian society.