Sunday, December 9, 2007

Two Foreign Policy Experts Recommend Smart Power

Reference: "Stop Getting Mad, America. Get Smart." By Richard L. Armitage and Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Washington Post Sunday Outlook, December 9, 2007.

Richard L. Armitage was deputy secretary of state from 2001 to 2005. Joseph S. Nye Jr., a former assistant secretary of defense, teaches political science at Harvard. They co-chaired the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Commission on Smart Power.

They write:
The world is dissatisfied with American leadership. Shocked and frightened after 9/11, we put forward an angry face to the globe, not one that reflected the more traditional American values of hope and optimism, tolerance and opportunity. This fearful approach has hurt the United States' ability to bring allies to its cause, but it is not too late to change. The nation should embrace a smarter strategy that blends our "hard" and "soft" power -- our ability to attract and persuade, as well as our ability to use economic and military might......the United States needs a broader, more balanced approach (than it has been employing).....

when our words do not match our actions, we demean our character and moral standing. We cannot lecture others about democracy while we back dictators. We cannot denounce torture and waterboarding in other countries and condone it at home. We cannot allow Cuba's Guantanamo Bay or Iraq's Abu Ghraib to become the symbols of American power.......

In a changing world, the United States should become a smarter power by once again investing in the global good -- by providing things that people and governments want but cannot attain without U.S. leadership. By complementing U.S. military and economic strength with greater investments in soft power, Washington can build the framework to tackle tough global challenges. We call this smart power.

Smart power is not about getting the world to like us. It is about developing a strategy that balances our hard (coercive) power with our soft (attractive) power. During the Cold War, the United States deterred Soviet aggression through investments in hard power. But as Gates noted late last month, U.S. leaders also realized that "the nature of the conflict required us to develop key capabilities and institutions -- many of them non-military." So the United States used its soft power to rebuild Europe and Japan and to establish the norms and institutions that became the core of the international order for the past half-century. The Cold War ended under a barrage of hammers on the Berlin Wall rather than a barrage of artillery across the Fulda Gap precisely because of this integrated approach.

Specifically, the United States should renew its focus on five critical areas:
  • We should reinvigorate the alliances, partnerships and institutions that allow us to address numerous hazards at once without having to build a consensus from scratch to respond to every new challenge.
  • We should create a Cabinet-level voice for global development to help Washington develop a more unified and integrated aid program that aligns U.S. interests with the aspirations of people worldwide, starting with global health.
  • We should reinvest in public diplomacy within the government and establish a nonprofit institution outside of it to build people-to-people ties, including doubling the annual appropriation to the Fulbright program.
  • We should sustain our engagement with the global economy by negotiating a "free trade core" of countries in the World Trade Organization willing to move directly to free trade on a global basis, and expand the benefits of free trade to include those left behind at home and abroad.
  • We should take the lead in addressing climate change and energy insecurity by investing more in technology and innovation.
Editorial Comment. This is a very important recommendation. If the next administration decides to adopt a "smart power" policy, UNESCO should be a key instrument of that policy. No organization is better placed on which to build a consortium of like minded nations, and to practice public diplomacy that listens as well as lectures! JAD

Education Report -- Progress has been made, but much more needs to be done!

The Education for All Global Monitoring Report for 2008 has just been released by UNESCO. Progress in this decade has been better than in the last, but many countries are still lagging in achieving the EFA goals; more needs to be done.

The number of children starting primary school has increased sharply since 2000, there are more girls in school than ever before and spending on education and aid has risen. That’s the good news. But on the down side, poor quality, the high cost of schooling and persisting high levels of adult illiteracy are undermining the chances of achieving education for all* by 2015.

Especially hopeful are the findings that primary school enrollment increased by 36% in sub-Saharan Africa and 22% in South and West Asia between 1999 and 2005. Governments in 14 countries abolished primary school tuition fees, a measure that has favoured access for the most disadvantaged. Worldwide, the number of out-of-school children dropped sharply from 96 million in 1999 to 72 million in 2005.

High Level Meeting on Education for All



Seventh Meeting of the High-Level Group on Education for All
Dakar, Senegal
11-13 December 2007


In the year 2000, the International Community gave itself 15 years to achieve the EFA and UN development goals. This year, the High-Level Group on EFA (HLG) will meet at the midpoint along that time-line.

Three Heads of State, Ministers of Education from 15 countries, representatives of the main donor countries, multilateral organizations, representatives of civil society and the private sector are to meet from 11 to 13 December in Dakar (Senegal) to examine the different means of accelerating progress towards the Education for All (EFA) goals, which were set by 164 countries in Dakar in 2000.

The opening ceremony will be chaired by the Senegalese head of state Abdoulaye Wade, and Mali’s President Amadou Toumani Touré will address the conference at the opening.

The HLG is to place special focus on three areas – equity, quality and financing of education – as top policy priorities for the coming year. In addition, it will address the special concerns of countries facing conditions of fragility as well as relatively neglected EFA goals with a view to ensuring a holistic and balanced approach to the full EFA agenda.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

UNESCO's Internal Oversight Service


UNESCO's Internal Oversight Service (IOS), established in 2001, provides consolidated oversight covering internal audit, evaluation, investigation and other management support to strengthen the functioning of the Organization. The IOS website provides links to recent evaluations, as well as guidance for evaluations, and links to evaluation resources.

Some examples are:

UNESCO's 21st Century Talks


The 21st-Century Talks are forums for prospective reflection and future oriented debate that gather together leading figures from different regions of the world. Together with the UNESCO's World Reports they form UNESCO’s Foresight and Anticipation Program.

The Talks are used as the basis for books, articles in leading newspapers and academic journals of different regions of the world, and production of radio and television programs.

Over the period 1999-2005, 27 “21st Century Talks and Dialogs” were organised. There were 118 speeches by 95 different speakers in the series. The three “Dialogues” gathered more speakers (particularly in Seoul with 23 speakers) than the “Talks” with only three or four. “Talks” were organised at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, Barcelona, Durban and Seoul.

As a result of the program, three books – and a total of 21 translated versions - were published.
There is specific information on many of the talks available from the UNESCO website.

An evaluation of UNESCO's Foresight program was published in 2006.
The evaluation report notes:
The activities of the Foresight and Anticipation Program had major support from UNESCO Member States. The “21st Century Talks and Dialogs” are viewed as having dealt with crucial issues for the future which were debated by a highly competent and diverse set of specialists who contributed highly relevant analyses. Member State representatives appreciated the foresight effort made by UNESCO. There is general agreement that Foresight and Anticipation are major missions of UNESCO.

"Midway to the 2015 target date: meeting of the High Level Group on Education for All in Dakar"

Read the full article on the African Press Organization website.

'Three Heads of State, Ministers of Education from 15 countries, representatives of the main donor countries, multilateral organizations, representatives of civil society and the private sector will meet from 11 to 13 December in Dakar (Senegal) to examine the different means of accelerating progress towards the six goals of Education for All (EFA) set by 164 countries in Dakar in 2000.

"The president of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, and the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, will open the meeting chaired by Senegal’s Minister of Education, Moustafa Sourang. During the opening ceremony, the president of Mali, Amadou Toumani Touré, will also give a keynote speech.

"The seventh annual meeting of the High Level Group on Education for All is taking place at the halfway point to 2015, which is the target date 164 countries have set to achieve the six EFA goals. According to the 2008 edition of the Global Monitoring Report on Education for All, which has just been released, the number of children, especially girls, starting primary school has increased sharply, but the poor quality of education, the high cost of schooling and the high level of adult illiteracy are
undermining chances of achieving education for all by 2015."

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Eleanor Roosevelt on UNESCO


In 1961, in her newspaper column "My Day" wrote:

We should work very closely with the United Nations body called UNESCO in our efforts to gain not only the maximum understanding of our own educational needs but also the understanding of what the world needs. UNESCO has the duty to promote education about the U.N. and a mutual international understanding between peoples. Our own educational objectives must be formed with the idea of making us better able to understand other areas of the world and more able to help in their struggles for development.

For 10 years now UNESCO has published a magazine called "The UNESCO Courier." This magazine is devoted entirely to portraying the customs, the arts, the cultures and the peoples of the earth. It has some 300,000 subscribers throughout the world, but in the U.S. the magazine is hardly known. Circulation here is only 10,000, whereas even in Russia it has 25,000 subscribers.

No college or school in their country can really afford to be without "The UNESCO Courier," and I feel sure that once we have succeeded in having it in our libraries, schools and colleges that families all over the nation will feel the need to have it in their homes.
Comment: Today, through technological advances, you can read The UNESCO Courier online or subscribe via email for free. JAD



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