Promote The Big Read to Help a Big Cause

In less than two weeks on April 20 through the 26, the Global Campaign for Education will have its Global Action Week highlighting one of the most neglected Education for All goals: literacy. Now is the time to plan big and small ways to support this extremely worthy endeavor!



UNESCO, as the chief coordinator of EFA and of the United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012) , fully supports this cause and will have events worldwide related to the Big Read. Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura, for example, will host an event at UNESCO headquarters on April 23 to commemorate the week. Listings of more events and other information can be found here.

As UNESCO and others strive to realize the EFA goal of cutting literacy in half, it is essential for all to promote literacy in every way possible. For more information on the campaign for literacy, see

UNESCO's The Global Literacy Challenge

and information on

The Big Read Campaign

The New Issue of the UNESCO Courier is Out

Laanecoorie reservoir, Bendigo (Australia)
© Rodney Dekker

The UNESCO Courier: 2009 - Number 3: Troubled water

Increased demand, waste and insufficient investment: water shortage may come sooner than we think. Although water covers three-quarters of the world’s surface, only 0.0075% of this immense volume is available for humanity’s use. Some countries have already reached the limits of their resources.

We must act now, warns the just-launched United Nations World Water Development Report, “Water in a changing world”, which assesses the global water situation. The UNESCO Courier examines some strategies for better management.

Read the editorial

Contents:

• The water we eat

• Blue Scorpions against water corruption

• The Yangtze or a journey through time

• Australia’s water revolution

• Water in a Changing World

Go to the issue!

"After the G20: UN chiefs point the way to recovery"

Meeting at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on the weekend of 4 and 5 April, the Chief Executives of 28 UN bodies issued a joint communiqué on the economic crisis.

The social effects of the crisis are already disturbing and could worsen. If action is not taken urgently, it can be devastating for the most vulnerable and voiceless, with growing social insecurity and displacement of people. The achievement of the MDGs is at stake. Progress in reducing poverty and hunger in developing countries is being set back. The 850 million people already suffering from chronic hunger in 2006 will increase to around one billion in 2009. The middle class in many countries is being weakened. The vulnerable groups, children, women, youth, elderly, migrants and people with disabilities, are hit the strongest.

Even before the onset of the current financial crisis, significant challenges existed in terms of food, education, health, water and sanitation, housing and minimum welfare for the most needy. Poverty and deprivation define the lives of too many.

The communiqué defined a set of joint initiatives:

1. Additional financing for the most vulnerable: advocating and devising a joint World Bank - UN system mechanism for the common articulation and implementation of additional financing, including through the World Bank proposed Vulnerability Fund.
2. Food Security: strengthening programmes to feed the hungry and expanding support to farmers in developing countries.
3. Trade: fighting protectionism, including through the conclusion of the Doha round and strengthening aid for trade initiatives and finance for trade.
4. A Green Economy Initiative: promoting investment in long-term environmental sustainability and put the world on the climate-friendly path.
5. A Global Jobs Pact: boosting employment, production, investment and aggregate demand, and promoting decent work for all.
6. A Social Protection Floor: ensuring access to basic social services, shelter, and empowerment and protection of the poor and vulnerable.
7. Humanitarian, Security and Social Stability: Emergency action to protect lives and livelihoods, meeting hunger and humanitarian needs, protecting displaced people and shoring up security and social stability.
8. Technology and Innovation: developing technological infrastructure to facilitate the promotion and access to innovation.
9. Monitoring and Analysis:
• strengthening macroeconomic and financial surveillance and implementing an effective economic early warning system;
• Urgently establish a UN system-wide vulnerability monitoring and alert mechanism to track developments, and report on the political, economic, social and environmental dimensions of the crisis.

The UNESCO WSIS Publication Series

On the occasion of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), UNESCO publishes a series of titles summarizing some of the most essential issues related to the development of the information society. Titles in the series are:

Status of Research on the Information Society

	UNESCO's Basic Texts on the Information Society

	Science in the Information Society

	Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in the Information Society

	Media development in the Information Society

Measuring Linguistic Diversity on the Internet

Measuring & monitoring information & knowledge societies

	Education in the Information Society

	Social Transformations in the Information Society

	Memory of the Information Society

Gender in the Information Society: Towards Equity?

Job: DIRECTOR, UNRWA/UNESCO Department of Education

Level: D2
Location: Amman, Jordan
Closing Date: 2 June 2009
For More Information click here.
To Apply click here.

Director-General expresses deep concern about girls’ education in Pakistan’s Swat Valley: “The future of an entire country is taken hostage”

Pupil of a primary school
class in slum areas of Karachi
© UNESCO/Akhtar Soomro

The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, today expressed his concern about continuing threats to girls’ education in the Swat Valley in Pakistan.

“The situation of education in the Swat Valley is particularly worrying. For months, attacks have struck educational institutions, teaching staff and students. Girls’ schools have especially been targeted, and the two camps have set up military posts in school buildings. Even if the ceasefire announced in February seems to be good news, fear still reigns. Many teachers and thousands of families have deserted the region. Parents still refuse to send their daughters to school. Only an agreement clearly reflecting the commitment of the Pakistani government to the goals of Education for All, including facilitating girls’ access to education, can reassure them. A strong signal must be sent, so that everyone can once more benefit from education, which is a determining factor for their future and for the future of the country”, declared the Director-General.

Read more!

Our Man for UNESCO

The United States maintains a Permanent Delegation at UNESCO. Until a new Ambassador is in place, Stephen Engelken, the Chargé d'Affaires runs the U.S. Mission to UNESCO and leads in our relations with the Organization.

Engelken is a veteran of more than 30 years in the U.S. Foreign Service. He began his career with service as a vice consul at the U.S. Consulate in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and subsequently served at U.S. Embassies in Jordan, Lebanon, Italy, France, and Australia. Immediately before joining the staff of the U.S. Mission to UNESCO in June 2007, Mr. Engelken served in Washington as director of the Office of Pakistan and Bangladesh Affairs in the State Department’s South and Central Asia Bureau.

Permanent Delegation of the United States of America to UNESCO
18, avenue Gabriel
75382 PARIS Cédex 08

Mr Stephen Engelken
Deputy Permanent Delegate,
Chargé d'Affaires a.i.

Mr Michael T. Peay
Legal Adviser

Ms Jennifer Larson
Second Secretary (Public Affairs)

Mr. John Hoff
Health Attaché

Ms Sally Lovejoy
Attaché (Education)

Mr David Ostroff
Political Assistant

Mr Geoffrey Prentice
Science Attaché