Document prepared by

Zabrina HOLMSTRÖM, Alexandre KOUZNETSOV and Fathi SALEH

The major challenge facing UNESCO at the dawn of the XXI century is to ensure a balance between the scope of its action and its limited financial resourses. While UNESCO’s Programme should be more focused on realistic and affordable set of priorities, available funds should be used in a more effective and efficient way. The Organization should concentrate on attracting other agencies and governments in funding solid and well prepared programmes.

Given the great disparity of Member States ‘ interests and specific needs, concentration is a complex and delicate issue. First of all, it has to be made clear what the concentration should not be.

• The greater focus on global approaches and universal strategies should stay in harmony with the Member States’ strive to preserve their national identities and cultural diversity.

• Concentration should not limit the Organization’s capacity to meet new challenges and explore new horizons within its core mandate.

To meet adequately Member States's expectations and needs, concentration should be addressed in a positive and constructive way. The Organization’s efforts to focus its activities could be guided by the following principles :

The unique feature and the specific mission of UNESCO within the UN family is building peace in the peoples’ minds through cooperation in education, science, culture and communications. Thus any action of cooperation in education, science, culture and communication does not automatically fall in line with the Organization’s mandate. Prorities in action have to be determined according to the extent to which they contribute to build peace in the minds of men .

However, a number of important precisions must be made.

a) UNESCO is a long-term intellectual and ethical investment in peace-building. The Organization strives for peace through advancement of shared values, such as democracy, human dignity, equality, justice, human rights and foundamental freedoms, as well as tolerance, mutual understanding and free exchange of ideas. All these values are factors of peace.

b) UNESCO should enhance its role and define modes of its participation in the joint efforts of the UN system in conflict prevention and post-conflict rehabilitationt, particularly, through education.

c) UNESCO’ action stems from the fact that peace is not just a mere absence of war. A holistic vision of peace, easential in a global multipolar world, necessarily involves sustainable development. However, UNESCO is neither a technical nor a funding agency. It has to deal primarily with human development, particularly, by ensuring equal access to education and by promoting the sharing of knowledge, especially for the benefit of the most deprived.

d) UNESCO should comply with its core mandate in an intelligent and creative way. As recent experiences have demonstrated, some projects with no immediate peace-building impact (World Heritage, Declaration on Human Genome etc.) proved to be efficient, while others, more directly peace-oriented like Culture of Peace, wre a matter to criticism on behalf of the Member States. Projects' efficiency is more essential than its label. In this aspect, UNESCO should have a yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of its programmes.

Concentration of programme activities calls for a more coherent Organization’s strategy which requires that :

a) long-term objectives are set out within each of UNESCO’s four main spheres of competence ;

b) concrete and result-oriented projects are selected in clear accordance with these objectives ;

c) transdisciplinary approach, though important and necessary, does not lead to increase of personnel and staff costs.

Education for all throughout life must remain at the heart of UNESCO’s activities, especially with the rapid evolution of the knowledge in our era, as an area where it should best reveal its unique profile within the UN system. UNESCO should undescore a holistic vision of education which trascends technical and professional skills and aims at the advancement of human personality and civilization, i.e. at sustainable human development. Special importance should be given to basic education and the fight against illiteracy. It is also through education that UNESCO should play a catalyst role in poverty erradication. Finally, it is through education that UNESCO should effectively contribute to the advancement of tolerance and respect for human rights.

In the area of science UNESCO should play a major role by setting ethical standards for scientific endeavor. As an international intellectual forum it should do its utmost to keep human conscience at the center of the application of scientific knowledge. Therefore a balance between natural and social and human sciences should be persued. In the same venue, the importance of sharing of knowledge (including science education) has to be further enhanced.

The quest for cultural diversity should further inspire and guide UNESCO’s efforts to preserve the world heritage and to promote creativity as one of the key components of any development strategy.

UNESCO’s information and communication strategy should be revised in accordance with its constitutional mandate to " collaborate in the work of advancing mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples, through all means of mass communication ". The absence of regulations in the area of info-ethics udescores UNESCO’s role in defining the ethical standards of the information highways. Access to communication technologies and information for all should also be a guiding principle of its action.

Finally, culture of peace should continue to be a conceptual framework for all UNESCO’s action, but not a separate activity. Special attention should be given to the support of national and regional pilot projects in the countries and areas which mostly need it.

In order to concentrate its activities the Organization should focus its attention more exclusively on a limited number of projects likely to produce a major and lasting impact. To that end UNESCO could take better advantage of its unique and specific functions to serve as:

1. Laboratory of ideas. UNESCO should act as a leader in the anticipation and formulation of the most important emerging problems in its spheres of competence.

2. Clearing-house. UNESCO has a role of gathering, transferring and disseminating available information, knowledge and best practices in its fields of competence.

3. Capacity-building. UNESCO should respond to requests for expert assistance formulated by Member States.

4. Standard-setting. The ethical role of the Organization is reflected through standard-setting actions by establishing guidelines and principes, especially in the new fields of civilization the importance of which will greately increase in the XXI century.

As the nature of UNESCO’s intellectual and ethical mission entails, its ideals are accomplished through a gradual alteration of attitudes in the minds of men and women. The Organization is not a relief agency for administration of quick remedies. However, the balance between reflection and action, words and deeds has to be redressed.

1. Concrete follow-up action is essential to ensure greater efficiency and lasting impact of the World Conferences and Reports, as well as of other traditional forms of action like conferences and seminars. Focus should remain on expert seminars.

2. Recent practices of establishing new World Commissions and Panels have to be reconsidered as to their effectiveness.

3. UNESCO through its Management of Social Transformation Programme (MOST) could take a leading role in preparing sound pilot projects aimed at combining intellectual investment with tangible outcome.

4. National projects under Participation Programme should be more in line with UNESCO’s global priorities and strategies.

In view of the Organization’s mandate a thorough re-consideration of its current programmes should be made to determine where UNESCO is duplicating activities performed by other international agencies. Activities for which other members of the UN family have comparative advantage should be ceased or ways should be found for UNESCO to cooperate with these agencies on joint projects. In particular :

1. In future any new UNESCO World Conference should be jointly prepared in partnership with other competent UN and (or) international organizations wherever appropriate.

2. UNESCO could give more attention to developing pilot projects which could be handed over for financing to crucial partners, such as the World Bank and the UNDP.

3. UNESCO has a constitutional obligation to work closely together with civil society, including NGO’s. The enhancement of such cooperation and interaction could greately contribute to the Organization’s effectiveness.

4. National Commissions could be entrusted to carry out part of UNESCO’s regional projects.