An Exercise on UNESCO Governance

Irina Bokova, the new UNESCO Director General

Yesterday we had a classroom exercise in the GWU graduate seminar on UNESCO focusing on the election of the UNESCO Director General last year. The seminar has focused on the history of UNESCO and UNESCO's programs to this point, while the exercise focused on UNESCO governance.

By UNESCO governance I mean

• its legislative bodies, the General Conference and its Executive Board with representatives of its member nations,
• the Director General which the legislative bodies elect, and
• the Director General's senior staff who are contracted and are not under the International Civil Service.

Fortuitously, the nine members of her senior staff were announced this week.

The students in the seminar are all Masters level students from the George Washington University International Education Program. While most are employed or have been employed, they do not have experience either with upper management or with the the political bodies that determine policy for intergovernmental organizations.

Thus the purpose of the exercise is to help students to understand not only the formal operation of the governance structures to set policy and direct operations, but also the way that the processes of governance affect the organization. For example, when UNESCO was created 65 years ago, the Executive Board was composed of individuals chosen for their personal excellence and their commitment to the purposes and program of UNESCO; some decades ago the UNESCO Constitution was changed and the Board was thereafter composed of the Permanent Representatives to UNESCO of those nations elected to serve on the Board. This change significantly affects the processes of the Board, its choice of Director General, and thus the Organization as a whole.

Describing the process by which Irina Bokova was elected Director General of UNESCO not only shows by example how the legislative processes work in UNESCO (and how governments use diplomacy to influence the choice of a Director General), but also help the students to understand what kind of person is likely to be elected to the post.

The nine candidates for UNESCO Chief

and the Chair of the Executive Board

The election has been termed especially contentious, but I suspect that there have been other occasions in which the election of the Director General has also been vigorously contested, such as that won by Luther Evans or that in which Amadou M'Bow finally declined to run for a third term.

What was different about this election was that it was held in the Internet age. It was possible to quickly obtain reports on the election for all parts of the world and it was even possible to search for reports in languages one does not speak and quickly obtain acceptable translations of the reports found via the Internet.

Utilizing these aids I was able to create a website on the election some months before the Executive Board met and to add material to the website on a continuing basis during the critical period. Surprisingly, a number of people stepped up to help me in that effort and indeed people working for various candidates also began to correspond with me. I assigned students the website as a resource for the class exercise.

The naming of the nine senior staff members (Deputy Director and eight Assistant Directors General) provided an opportunity to discuss the problems not only in finding experts to lead the various program and administrative units within the Organization, but also to achieve geographic and gender balance, a team that can work together well with each other and the Director General, and to satisfy the Ambassadors from the key member nations and the various UNESCO constituencies.

If you are interested in obtaining the Power Point presentation for the class exercise, the educational objectives for the exercise and other related materials, please send an email request to: john.daly@gmail.com

The Executive Board in session.

UNESCO Chief Announces Her New Senior Staff

UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova has announced the new members of her senior staff:

• Deputy Director General: Getachew Engida
• Assistant Director General for the Education Sector: Qian Tang
• Assistant Director General for the Natural Science Sector: Gretchen Kalonji
• Assistant Director General for the Social and Human Sciences Sector: Maria del Pilar Alvarez-Laso
• Assistant Director General for the Culture Sector: Francesco Bandarin
• Assistant Director General for the Communications and Information Sector: Janis Karklins
• Assistant Director General for the Sector for External Relations and Cooperation: Eric Falt
• Assistant Director General for the Administration Sector: Khadija Ribes
• Assistant Director General for the UNESCO’s Africa Department: Lalla Aïcha Ben Barka

The new staff members are expected to take office on July 1, 2010.

Dr. Gretchen Kalonji is an American who has had a distinguished career at the University of California system, the University of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the University of California since 2005, she was responsible for university wide international strategy development. The UC announcement of her appointment stated:

At UW, she has led a campus-wide effort to integrate collaborative international research activities into curricular pathways of students, across the disciplines and from freshmen to doctoral level. This initiative, entitled UW Worldwide, has been honored with multiple grants and awards, both in the United States and in partner regions. Over the past 10 years, Kalonji has been the principal or co-principal investigator on more than $19 million dollars of related grants.

Professor Kalonji’s work, both in materials science and in educational transformation, has been recognized by numerous awards and honors, including: the Presidential Young Investigator Award; the George E. Westinghouse Award from the American Society for Engineering Education; the Leadership Award from the International Network for Engineering Education and Research, and the National Science Foundation’s Director’s Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars, the highest honor offered by the NSF. Professor Kalonji has held visiting faculty appointments at numerous universities and institutes around the world, including the Max Planck Institute (Germany), the University of Paris (France), Tohoku University (Japan), and Sichuan University and Tsinghua University (China). She serves on numerous national and international advisory boards and committees, particularly for projects and organizations focusing on innovations in education, equity and access in higher education, and international science and engineering. Prof. Kalonji has been called upon to give more than 115 invited lectures in institutions around the world.

Read more about the new staff.

A World of Science (April–June 2010)

Contents Vol. 8 No 2

IN FOCUS
2. Eight predictions for 21st century conservation

NEWS
10 Women laureates battle parasites and disease
10 UNESCO comes to Haiti’s aid
11 Biodiversity target will not be met in 2010
12 Post-2010 targets must recognize key biodiversity areas
12 Afghanistan launches plan for higher education
13 First karez restored in Iraq
14 Iraq joins Avicenna Virtual Campus
14 The Scarlet Knight arrives in Spain

INTERVIEW
15 David Hills on what industry can learn from nature

HORIZONS
17 Fisheries in a cod climate
20 All you ever wanted to know about biodiversity...

IN BRIEF
24 Diary
24 New releases

Download the issue (PDF)

Science Projects in the UNESCO Participation Program

The UNESCO Participation Program provides direct assistance to initiatives undertaken by Member States, in line with the priorities that they themselves determine, in the Organization’s fields of competence. These projects are financed by an allocation of the Regular Programme that is separate from the allocations assigned to the Program Sectors.

Assistance under the Participation Programme is provided to Member States or Associate Member States upon requests submitted through National Commissions (requests from individuals cannot be considered). International NGOs may also benefit from assistance under the Participation Program. The domain of assistance is quite broad, as shown by the following examples of successful projects submitted during the 2008-2009 biennium to the Natural Sciences Sector:

• Establishment of a Seismological Training Center at the Jordan Seismological Observatory
• Implementation of a solar lighting system for schools (Guinea)
• Application of satellite remote sensing for integrated management of coastal and marine ecosystems (Mozambique)
• Institutional strengthening of hydrometeorological services (Bhutan)
• Establishment of flash flood forecasting and warning system in the Keumya River basin (Democratic Republic of Korea)
• Promoting Science education in primary schools through the provision of Basic Science Equipment (Saint-Vincent and the Grenadines)

Among other things, assistance under the Participation Programme may comprise the
provision of fellowships and study grants.

Read more!

UNESCO Symposium Offered for 4th Time

Students doing presentation on the UNESCO culture program

The seminar on UNESCO offered in the International Education Program of George Washington University is nearing completion. During the semester approximately half of the sessions are led by students who present overviews of the various programs of UNESCO. The other half of the classes are devoted to people with long experience with the Organization describing their experience, focusing on the history of the Organization and the process of representation to UNESCO. In the four semesters the course has been offered, 55 students have developed a detailed comprehensive understanding of UNESCO, and indeed have learned how to study a large complex organization. Click here for a detailed description of the course as it was offered last year.

Students attending to the presentation

The UNESCO-HP Brain Gain Initiative

The migration of highly-skilled people is having a significant impact on higher education and research in developing nations, as universities and research centers have to retain highly-skilled and increasingly mobile professionals in increasingly competitive labour markets.

UNESCO and HP joined forces in 2003 to develop several projects, using innovative technology to create a “brain gain” for regions that are particularly impacted by the exodus of academics and scientists.

In 2009 UNESCO and HP agreed to scale up the initiative to help create a sustainable university e-infrastructure for science, bringing together higher education institutions and research centres in Africa and the Arab States region and allowing them to pursue innovative education projects.

By the end of 2011, this infrastructure could span some 100 higher education institutions in 20 countries provided like-minded corporations and organizations join UNESCO and HP in this initiative.

Click here to learn more!

World Book and Copyright Day

The World Book and Copyright Day, on 23 April, is the occasion to highlight the importance of the fight against piracy to preserve creativity. The World Anti-Piracy Observatory (WAPO), launched in January 2010, is an innovative web-based reference tool that provides detailed information on national anti-piracy measures and policies. In addition, WAPO contains useful information on best practices, capacity-building, awareness-raising, and news pertaining to anti-piracy activities worldwide.

Read more!

• The World Anti-Piracy Observatory Website: Online platform for a global exchange of information

• The World Anti-Piracy Observatory Newscorner: Worldwide news and events

• Collection of National Copyright Laws: Access to national legislations of UNESCO’s Member States

• The ABC of Copyright (pdf): An overall view of copyright essentials

• 10 Music Contracts (pdf): Tools for artists and professionals in the music sector

Join the Unesco-L'Oreal fellows international community!

Interns Begin Work at Frederick UNESCO Club

Zsofia Szabo, a Hungarian, and Stephen Perrine, an American, have begun internships at the UNESCO Center for Peace, a UNESCO club in Frederick, Maryland. Read more in the Frederick News Post.

Wole Soyinka, Literature Nobel Laureate, on Haiti

Twelve years of measuring linguistic diversity in the Internet: balance and perspectives

Written by Daniel Pimienta, Daniel Prado and Alvaro Blanco, this publication is an update to the previous UNESCO study on this subject that was issued for the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005.

FUNREDES and Union Latine have designed an original research method to measure linguistic diversity in cyberspace. The aim was to use search engines and a sample of word-concepts to measure the proportionate presence of these concepts in their various linguistic equivalences.

Research, undertaken from 1996 to 2008, enabled interesting indicators to be built to measure linguistic diversity. The paper describes the research method and its results, advantages and limitations. It also provides an overview of existing alternative methods and results, for comparison.

The paper concludes with the examination of different perspectives in the field which have in the past been considered to have been characterized by a lack of scientific rigor. This has led to some misinformation about the dominant presence of English on the Web. It is a topic that is only now slowly attracting due attention from international organizations and the academic world.

Download the report (PDF)

Competition “10 ideas for tomorrow's Africa” (deadline: 30 April 2010)

Within the framework of the 50th anniversary of African independence, the Social and Human Sciences Sector of UNESCO (SHS) is launching a “Call for Ideas” for prospective proposals in favour of Africa’s development within the next decade.

Among the proposals, which should be submitted before Friday 30 April 2010 at midnight (Paris time), 10 ideas will be selected by an international jury and presented by their author(s) during 10 small-scale conferences to be held at UNESCO Headquarters, in mid-June 2010.

These 10 contributions to the thinking on Africa’s future will also be published in a special issue of SHSviews magazine.

Each proposal is expected to develop one idea which would amplify the positive effects and reduce, or contain, the negative impacts of the major trends observed in Africa on one of the 10 following topics:

Topic 1: Economy and Development (Environment, Food Security, New Information and Communication Technologies…)

Topic 2: Governance, Policy, Institutions, Leadership

Topic 3: Regional Integration, Population, Migration, Urbanization

Topic 4: Cultural Identities (Languages, Religions…)

Topic 5: Youth

Topic 6: Human Rights, Gender and Justice

Topic 7: Diaspora

Topic 8: Peace, Security and Conflict

Topic 9: Health, Education and Social Development

Topic 10: International Relations

READ MORE!

Meeting of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO

I have heard unofficially that the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO will meet in Washington, D.C. from May 25th to May 27th, 2010. The meeting should soon be announced on the National Commission website.

The Power of Peace Network Introduction Video

Visit the Power of Peace Network's website. The Power of Peace Network is supported by UNESCO.

Social and Human Sciences at UNESCO: Special Issue 2001-2010 with SHSviews n°27

SHSviews’ first issue of 2010 has just been published in English, French and Spanish, and will also be available in Russian. Covering the news from January-March 2010, SHSviews 27 is accompanied by a special issue covering the strategy of UNESCO’s Social and Human Sciences programme for 2001-2011 and looks back over the main results obtained during the past decade.

In the table of contents of the special issue 2001-2010:

2 / UNESCO’s social and human sciences strategy for 2010-2011

3 / Three questions for… Pierre Sané

5 / The ethical challenges of climate change

8 / The Youth Challenge

9 / Strengthening the social research-policy nexus

10 / Promoting human rights and empowering women

12 / SHS: 10 years of action in pictures

CENTRAL POSTER / The UNESCO network in Social and Human Sciences

Biodiversity Is Our Life

I quote at length from the editorial by Julia Marton-Lefèvre, the director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, in Science magazine of 5 March 2010.

2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, in recognition of life on Earth. Eight years ago, more than 190 countries agreed, through the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, to reduce biodiversity loss by 2010. This October, the Convention will meet in Nagoya, Japan, to evaluate progress and agree on new biodiversity targets for the world. Shortly before that, the UN General Assembly will address the biodiversity crisis for the first time.

It is clear from many indices of biodiversity that the world has failed to meet the 2010 target. For example, in its Red List of Threatened Species, the International Union for Conservation of Nature documents the extinction risk of 47,677 species: 17,291 are threatened, including 12% of birds, 21% of mammals, 30% of amphibians, 27% of reef-building corals, and 35% of conifers and cycads. Tracking extinction risk over time through this index reveals even worse news, with dramatic declines in many groups, notably amphibians and corals. The Living Planet Index reveals that populations of wild species have declined by 30% since 1970; mangrove forests have lost a fifth of their area since 1980, and 29% of seagrass beds are gone.

This biodiversity loss has grim consequences for humanity. According to The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity study in 2009, half the welfare of the world's 1.1 billion poorest people flows directly from nature, through benefits including wild harvest, crop pollination, disaster mitigation, clean water provision, and maintenance of traditional cultures. The study estimates the total global annual economic cost of biodiversity loss, where it can be measured, to be between 1.35 and 3.1 trillion U.S. dollars. In addition, destruction of tropical forests (shrinking by 6 million hectares each year) is responsible for nearly a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions, driving climate change. Biodiversity loss deprives our descendants of currently unknown but potentially vast benefits. And in the sense that it cuts off humanity from the wonders of nature, the loss ultimately makes us less human.

UNESCO will be observing the International Year of Biodiversity, and its program titled People, Biodiversity and Ecology seeks to create an international network for the study of the natural sciences underlying biodiversity and how people can live in such a way as to conserve biodiversity.

Lagoa das Furnas - Azores

Photo: Arnaud Mader, © UNESCO

A World of Science (April–June 2010)

Contents Vol. 8 No 2

IN FOCUS
2. Eight predictions for 21st century conservation

NEWS
10 Women laureates battle parasites and disease
10 UNESCO comes to Haiti’s aid
11 Biodiversity target will not be met in 2010
12 Post-2010 targets must recognize key biodiversity areas
12 Afghanistan launches plan for higher education
13 First karez restored in Iraq
14 Iraq joins Avicenna Virtual Campus
14 The Scarlet Knight arrives in Spain

INTERVIEW
15 David Hills on what industry can learn from nature

HORIZONS
17 Fisheries in a cod climate
20 All you ever wanted to know about biodiversity...

IN BRIEF
24 Diary
24 New releases

Go to the issue!

The WSIS Forum 2010

The ITU, UNESCO, UNCTAD and UNDP are jointly sponsoring the WSIS Forum 2010 scheduled to be held from 10 to 14 of May 2010 at the ITU Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland. This event builds upon the tradition of annual WSIS May meetings, and its new format is the result of open consultations with all WSIS Stakeholders.

The Forum will offer participants a series of diverse interactions, including high-level debates addressing critical issues to the WSIS implementation and follow-up in multi-stakeholder set-ups, WSIS Action Line facilitation meetings, thematic workshops, kick-off meetings for new initiatives and projects, knowledge exchanges facilitating networking among the participants, and others. The forum will provide structured opportunities to network, learn and to participate in multi-stakeholder discussions and consultations on WSIS implementation.

Meeting U.S. National Committee for the IOC

The United States National Committee for the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission met on March 25th. Its recommendations will be passed to the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO for consideration and probable transmission to UNESCO. The meeting was informed by a number of recent reports from UNESCO and the IOC:

• IOC Strategic Plan
• Baker report regarding GOOS Planning and Implementation
• OceanObs '09 conference statement, September 2009
• Ocean Sciences Workplan as proposed to the 25th Assembly, June 2009
• OBIS Strategy and Workplan Meeting, November 2009
• IOC Establishes a Trust Fund for OBIS (IOC Circular 2333)
• Assessment of Assessments Report
• Refresh of the US Oceans Research Priorities Plan
• International Center for Integrated Water Resources Management (ICIWaRM)

Remarks of the U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO at the February meeting of the Executive Board

Ambassador Killion and

Director-General Bokova

Mr Killion (United States of America) congratulated the Director-General, indicating she was off to a tremendous start, and that her efforts to raise the visibility of the Organization were already bearing fruit. She has proven to be an effective communicator on the world stage. Having accompanied the Director-General for part of her visits in Washington DC, he could report that they had been incredibly successful, and had included the first meeting between a Director-General and a United States Secretary of State since his country re-entered UNESCO. The Secretary of State had expressed a strong desire to work with the Director-General on tackling the problem of education for girls.

The United States of America applauded and supported the Director-General’s efforts to put
UNESCO at the lead of the international effort to preserve Haiti’s patrimony. Mr Killion knew that the Director-General had written to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and others on the subject. The U.S. delegation, however, was concerned about reports recently received that the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) had not yet begun to address the issue of preserving Haiti’s cultural heritage. Ambassador Killion asked:

• What replies had been received to those letters?
• Was MINUSTAH now firmly committed to saving cultural property in Haiti, and what, specifically, was being done on the ground?

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.