Federico Mayor on the Alliance of Civilisations

This is an interesting video by the former Director General of UNESCO.

UNESCO and Knowledge Sharing

UNESCO has published a set of five short documents describing and assessing its own efforts in knowledge sharing:

• UNESCO and knowledge sharing; 2008

• UNESCO and knowledge sharing (2): the capacity-building function; 2008

• UNESCO and knowledge sharing (3): the clearing house function; 2008

• UNESCO and knowledge sharing (4): the laboratory of ideas function

• UNESCO and knowledge sharing (5): how can UNESCO become a better

"World Heritage List: Unesco Delegation To Arrive In Istanbul"

Source: TurkishPress.com, April 20, 2008.


Excerpts:

A delegation from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization`s (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee will pay a visit to Istanbul in the second week of May.

The delegation will observe all corners of Istanbul and hold talks with Turkish authorities. It will then prepare a report that would either keep Istanbul in the list of World Heritage sites or take it out......

The World Heritage Committee had discussed the situation in Istanbul at its meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania, two years ago. It had proposed certain measures to be taken by Istanbul city and granted a timeframe until 2008 to remedy all deficiencies.

Go to the Istanbul World Heritage website.

Annual Meeting of the U.S. National Commission For UNESCO

The U.S. National Commission for UNESCO will host its Annual Meeting on Monday, May 19 and Tuesday, May 20 at the Marriott Georgetown University Conference Hotel in Washington, DC (3800 Reservoir Road, NW).

The Commission will have a series of informational plenary sessions and subject-specific committee and thematic breakout sessions on Monday, May 19 and the morning of Tuesday, May 20. The Commission will meet in plenary session to discuss its final recommendations on Tuesday, May 20, 2007, from 1:00 p.m. until 2:30 p.m.

The meetings will be open to the public, and those who wish to attend should contact the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO (202-663-0026; DCUNESCO@state.gov) no later than Thursday, May 15 for further information about admission, as seating is limited.

New Edition of the UNESCO Courier Online

© UNESCO/Aleksandar Dzoni-Sopov

Information: a game of hide and seek

“As long as I live, I will continue to write and writing will keep me alive.” says Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro (45), laureate of this year’s UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize. Like many of her colleagues, she lives under constant threat, but has learned to master fear; she fights for freedom of expression and against the monopolization of the Medias. The exclusive interview she granted us introduces several of the subjects covered in this month’s issue. They range from retention of information to censorship by killing and include tactics aimed at breaching press freedom and the impunity of crimes perpetrated against journalists. (More)

Read Issue Number 4 for 2008!

An Impact of UNESCO's Influence

The International Institute for Sustainable Development has published a new report titled

How Information and Communications Technologies Can Support Education for Sustainable Development: Current uses and trends

IISD describes the report in the following way:

As part of IISD's involvement with Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth and the UNESCO Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, this paper presents a brief history, and identifies current uses and trends for deploying ICTs, primarily in the formal Kindergarten to Grade 12 education system, with a focus on the online environment. It considers three main questions: (1) Why do ICTs need to be considered as a critical tool in education for sustainable development (ESD)?; (2) What ICTs are currently being used by educators and learners?; and (3) What can we expect to see in the near future?

UNESCO has a program on ICT and Education, which combines its expertise in Education and that in Communications and Information. That program produces information from UNESCO headquarters in Paris, from its Bangkok regional office, from the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE)in Moscow, and from other decentralized UNESCO Centers and Institutes.

However, as the IICD report indicates, UNESCO influences other organizations to produce information complementary to that which it can produce internally. Indeed, the global community involved in ICT in education dwarfs that internal to UNESCO, or even those who can be involved directly in UNESCO meetings and publications. Many members of this larger global community are influenced by UNESCO, producing materials in support of UNESCO's programs and activities.

Australian Kids at e-learning,
Photo: Mario Borg, Copyright UNESCO

UCLA and USC Archaeologists Brokering Israeli Palestinian Accord

Lynn Swartz Dodd and Ran Boytner

UCLA Today Online has a story about Lynn Swartz Dodd from USC and Ran Boytner from UCLA who have worked for the last five years to negotiate an agreement between Israeli and Palestinian archaeologists as to the disposition of ancient artifacts from excavations in the region when a future Palestinian state is established.

The two scholars "enlisted six of the region's most prominent working archaeologists and ultimately involved 10 institutions from around the world. To bankroll their activities, the team raised more than $150,000 in funds from a range of public and private donors, including USC, UCLA and the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent, nonpartisan institution established and funded by the U.S. Congress."

"The negotiating team presented their case to 200 Israeli archaeologists on April 8 at a four-hour conference at the Van Leer Institute, a Jerusalem nonprofit dedicated to enhancing and deepening Israeli democracy." Included in the proposed solution is

More than tripling of the footprint of that part of Jerusalem that would qualify for special protections as a UNESCO World Heritage Site to include the city's boundaries during the 10th century, or roughly the era of the Crusades. Currently, such status extends to a one-third-square-mile area that includes the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and the walls of Jerusalem's more than 2,000-year-old Old City.

"Palestinian archaeologists have already expressed support for the document's provisions, which are now on file with the Israeli and Palestinian governments, the U.S. Department of State and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is now the official envoy of the Middle East diplomatic "quartet" — the four outside entities (the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia) involved in mediating the peace process for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."