New on the Americans for UNESCO website

Laura Bush, UNESCO Honorary Ambassador for the Literacy Decade

A page about the UNESCO Celebrity Advocates has been added to the Americans for UNESCO website. Check it out! It provides links to the programs that allow educators, artists, scientists, athletes,and other distinguished people to lend their support to UNESCO.

The response by the U.S. State Department to UNESCO's questionnaire about its mid-term strategy and next biennial program and budget has also been added to the AU website. Check it out!

New on the Americans for UNESCO website

Laura Bush, UNESCO Honorary Ambassador for the Literacy Decade

A page about the UNESCO Celebrity Advocates has been added to the Americans for UNESCO website. Check it out! It provides links to the programs that allow educators, artists, scientists, athletes,and other distinguished people to lend their support to UNESCO.

The response by the U.S. State Department to UNESCO's questionnaire about its mid-term strategy and next biennial program and budget has also been added to the AU website. Check it out!

Special session of the UNESCO Middle East Task Force to discuss UNESCO’s response to the crisis in Lebanon

On 31 July, Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, convened a Special Session of the UNESCO Task Force on the Middle East to discuss the current crisis in Lebanon. The aim of the meeting was to co-ordinate UNESCO’s response to the current situation and to prepare the Organization’s contribution to future recovery and reconstruction efforts by the Lebanese authorities.

To read more about the meeting, click here.

Special session of the UNESCO Middle East Task Force to discuss UNESCO’s response to the crisis in Lebanon

On 31 July, Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, convened a Special Session of the UNESCO Task Force on the Middle East to discuss the current crisis in Lebanon. The aim of the meeting was to co-ordinate UNESCO’s response to the current situation and to prepare the Organization’s contribution to future recovery and reconstruction efforts by the Lebanese authorities.

To read more about the meeting, click here.

The Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity

UNESCO's Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity explores ways to turn creativity in developing countries into sustainable cultural industries. The Alliance aims to promote cultural diversity, support economic development and encourage job creation in a range of fields including music, publishing, cinema, crafts and the performing arts. According to its website, its "projects range from local level 'people to people' projects to the design of far-reaching public policy and regulatory frameworks." It is hoped that these projects will enable UNESCO and the alliance members to identify best practices and establish project models that can be reproduced in other regions of the world. Its projects are grouped into the following categories: Music, Cinema and Audiovisual, Publishing, Crafts and Design, Copyright, and Multisectoral. The Creative Cities program is also a part of the Alliance.

The Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity

UNESCO's Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity explores ways to turn creativity in developing countries into sustainable cultural industries. The Alliance aims to promote cultural diversity, support economic development and encourage job creation in a range of fields including music, publishing, cinema, crafts and the performing arts. According to its website, its "projects range from local level 'people to people' projects to the design of far-reaching public policy and regulatory frameworks." It is hoped that these projects will enable UNESCO and the alliance members to identify best practices and establish project models that can be reproduced in other regions of the world. Its projects are grouped into the following categories: Music, Cinema and Audiovisual, Publishing, Crafts and Design, Copyright, and Multisectoral. The Creative Cities program is also a part of the Alliance.

The Creative Cities Network

The Creative Cities Network connects creative cities so that they can share experiences, know-how, training in business skills and technology. Cities may apply to be endorsed by the Network and join the programme to ensure their continued role as centres of excellence and to support other cities, particularly those in developing countries, in nurturing their own creative economy.

The cities that have been appointed to the network are:

* Aswan, Egypt - UNESCO City of Folk Art
* Berlin, Germany - UNESCO City of Design
* Bologna, Italy - UNESCO City of Music
* Buenos Aires, Argentina - UNESCO City of Design
* Edinburgh, UK - UNESCO City of Literature
* Montreal, Canada - UNESCO City of Design
* Popayan, Colombia - UNESCO City of Gastronomy
* Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA - UNESCO City of Folk Art
* Seville, Spain - UNESCO City of Music

The Creative Cities Network

The Creative Cities Network connects creative cities so that they can share experiences, know-how, training in business skills and technology. Cities may apply to be endorsed by the Network and join the programme to ensure their continued role as centres of excellence and to support other cities, particularly those in developing countries, in nurturing their own creative economy.

The cities that have been appointed to the network are:

* Aswan, Egypt - UNESCO City of Folk Art
* Berlin, Germany - UNESCO City of Design
* Bologna, Italy - UNESCO City of Music
* Buenos Aires, Argentina - UNESCO City of Design
* Edinburgh, UK - UNESCO City of Literature
* Montreal, Canada - UNESCO City of Design
* Popayan, Colombia - UNESCO City of Gastronomy
* Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA - UNESCO City of Folk Art
* Seville, Spain - UNESCO City of Music

Americans for UNESCO in Lien/Link

Read the full April-June 2006 issue of Lien/Link (the bulletin of the Association of Former Staff Members of UNESCO).

Andre Varchaver, President of Americans for UNESCO, publishes an update on AU's activities in the most recent issue of the newsletter of the Association of Former Staff Members of UNESCO. (Andre served on the UNESCO staff from 1959 to 1981.) Here is an excerpt from the article:

AU’s Advisory Council, co-chaired by Esther Coopersmith and Dick Arndt, is composed of a number of distinguished Americans in fields directly or indirectly related to those of Unesco. A particularly distinguished one, Dr Miller Upton, died a few weeks ago at the ripe age of 88, having devoted years of energy to education, internationalism in general and Unesco in particular. Over the years, while heading Beloit College in Wisconsin, he innovated the widely admired “Beloit Plan” that featured a continuous school year and a “World Affairs” program that revitalized the college, attracted national attention and inspired other colleges, such as renowned Dartmouth, to adopt his innovations. He was greatly admired by René Maheu, with whom I visited Beloit College, and Jack Fobes who much later succeeded him at the helm of the U.S. National Commission for Unesco. Upton headed it from 1971 to 1975 and led the U.S. delegation to the eighteenth session of the General Conference where he displayed exceptional qualities of leadership and an innate sense of diplomacy. He was an early supporter of Fobes’ creation of “Americans for the Universality of Unesco”, now AU, and we mourn the loss of this exceptional man.

In cooperation with AU, the Better World Campaign, a subsidiary of the United Nations Foundation (which actively supports a number of Unesco programs, notably the World Heritage), has resumed organizing meetings of representatives of civil society as well as of the government/National Commission and the Congress, related to or interested in Unesco. AU will continue and develop its cooperation with the National Commission and looks forward to working closely with Unesco’s New York Office and its newly appointed Director Hélène Gosselin.

Americans for UNESCO in Lien/Link

Read the full April-June 2006 issue of Lien/Link (the bulletin of the Association of Former Staff Members of UNESCO).

Andre Varchaver, President of Americans for UNESCO, publishes an update on AU's activities in the most recent issue of the newsletter of the Association of Former Staff Members of UNESCO. (Andre served on the UNESCO staff from 1959 to 1981.) Here is an excerpt from the article:

AU’s Advisory Council, co-chaired by Esther Coopersmith and Dick Arndt, is composed of a number of distinguished Americans in fields directly or indirectly related to those of Unesco. A particularly distinguished one, Dr Miller Upton, died a few weeks ago at the ripe age of 88, having devoted years of energy to education, internationalism in general and Unesco in particular. Over the years, while heading Beloit College in Wisconsin, he innovated the widely admired “Beloit Plan” that featured a continuous school year and a “World Affairs” program that revitalized the college, attracted national attention and inspired other colleges, such as renowned Dartmouth, to adopt his innovations. He was greatly admired by René Maheu, with whom I visited Beloit College, and Jack Fobes who much later succeeded him at the helm of the U.S. National Commission for Unesco. Upton headed it from 1971 to 1975 and led the U.S. delegation to the eighteenth session of the General Conference where he displayed exceptional qualities of leadership and an innate sense of diplomacy. He was an early supporter of Fobes’ creation of “Americans for the Universality of Unesco”, now AU, and we mourn the loss of this exceptional man.

In cooperation with AU, the Better World Campaign, a subsidiary of the United Nations Foundation (which actively supports a number of Unesco programs, notably the World Heritage), has resumed organizing meetings of representatives of civil society as well as of the government/National Commission and the Congress, related to or interested in Unesco. AU will continue and develop its cooperation with the National Commission and looks forward to working closely with Unesco’s New York Office and its newly appointed Director Hélène Gosselin.