World Philosophy Day 2008

World Philosophy Day, an annual celebration of philosophy initiated by UNESCO in 2005, continues to extend its scope. This year, the event will be held in Palermo (Italy) on November 20 and 21, while umerous other initiatives will take place at UNESCO Headquarters and in over 80 countries around the world.

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Reaching the unreached through nomadic schools

With a resurgence in indigenous cultures in Siberia, UNESCO's Moscow office has stepped up to meet the challenge of providing schools for these nomadic communities. Originally popular in the '20s and '30s, with the help of UNESCO, nomadic schools are being modernized.

Nomadic schools come in a variety of forms, but most all include a small group of pupils, a single teacher covering multiple topics, and texts in the mother tongue. Often the teacher is a member of the local community. UNESCO is helping to implement information and communication technologies (ICTs) and distance education, as well as increased quality in teacher training.   

According to Sargyiana Zhirkova nomadic schools provide "education while adapting traditional culture to the 21st century." She believes, however, that more trained and qualified teachers are needed to make the program successful. 

To see a photo gallery, click here.

Tell the Obama Transition Team About UNESCO

The Office of Barack Obama as President Elect has created a website, Change.gov, with news, information on the Transition Team, and information on the transition process. It also provides a site for anyone to share a vision of America.

UNESCO was created to build the defenses of peace in the minds of men by improving the global dissemination of education, promoting social and natural science, promoting cultural understanding, and helping to assure an adequate communication. For six decades it has sought to do so with considerable success. Since the Bush administration led the United States to rejoin the organization, our representatives in Paris have done much to reestablish American prestige and influence with respect to UNESCO.

Many have suggested that we will not win the "war on terror" if we fail to "win the war of ideas". They have suggested that the United States must improve its soft diplomacy and its public diplomacy. If you agree that UNESCO should play an active role as a venue for soft and public diplomacy, and that the new administration should facilitate greater involvement of the U.S. educational, scientific and cultural communities in UNESCO and its global networks, let the transition team know your ideas.

Editorial: The Obama administration should embrace UNESCO in its public diplomacy

Applying this successful Cold War “war of ideas” model to the present national security challenge in the Middle East could effectively drive out extremist ideology that may give rise to terrorist behavior while strengthening the United States’ stature in the international community.

The U.S. Marine Corps Small Wars manual, which details tactics and strategies for operations combining military force and diplomatic pressure, and on which the “Global War on Terror” is based, famously notes that such “wars are battles of ideas and battles for the perceptions and attitudes of target populations."

Winning the war of ideas and creating better relations with the Muslim world require more than tired tactics, immobility, and budgetary pocket change (the current $50-million cost is less than 1/10,000th of our Iraq-related expenditures). The next president should designate this effort as a matter of the highest national security importance. The campaign as a whole should be self-critical, regularly evaluating its own performance and ready and willing to change in response to evaluation results.

Simply put, there is a glaring need for the United States to undertake a proactive strategy aimed at restoring long-term security through the presentation of our principles as part of U.S. foreign policy. The tools of public diplomacy and strategic communications are the most valuable weapons in America’s arsenal. It is not too late to wield them.

Hady Amr and Peter W. Singer
"Engaging the Muslim World: How to Win the War of Idea"
American Constitution Society for Law and Policy

The quotations shown above are from a paper provided for the Obama administration as it takes office, published by a think tank with close ties to the Democratic party. The authors make a number of very good points and the paper is worth reading by anyone interested in public diplomacy. They stress the need to complement our military actions with a far more effective program of public diplomacy. They emphasize that the effort must be sincere, and that we must work to better implement our ideals at home and abroad if our representations are to be believed.

The new administration should realize that UNESCO is an important venue in which the United States can wage "the war of ideas", and that UNESCO has considerable influence in Muslim countries. The Bush administration has helped reestablish U.S. prestige in the halls of UNESCO, and the new administration can build on that start.

• UNESCO's education programs can help to build understanding among cultures;
• Its social science programs can help develop valid information on which such understanding can be built;
• Its natural science programs not only provide means to encourage cooperation among scientists in Islamic countries and the United States, but can help to defuse potential conflict over natural resources;
• Its cultural programs can promote a peaceful dialog among cultures, and help people to learn to respect cultures other than their own;
• Its information and communications programs can help to improve the quality of media in the Muslim world.

The United States should of course provide its assessed contributions to UNESCO in a timely fashion, and encourage our best professionals to seek positions in UNESCO. The government should seek opportunities to make voluntary contributions to UNESCO where they can promote projects that contribute to our public diplomacy. Importantly, the U.S. Government should revitalize the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, using it to empower our educational, scientific and cultural communities to work more actively and effectively with UNESCO.

John Daly
(The opinions expressed above are those of the author, and don't necessarily reflect those of Americans for UNESCO or other organizations.)

Geography Awareness Week

November 17-21 is Geography Awareness Week

To help celebrate this year’s Geography Awareness Week, test your geography knowledge using the Friends of World Heritage TravelPod “How Well Do You Know Your World” game. The game is a fun, informative, (and addictive) way to test your knowledge and brush up on those lesser-known World Heritage sites. Play now and find out your World Heritage IQ and challenge your friends to beat your score.

"Aren’t There Enough Trails?"

Image Source: Bison in winter at Old Faithful; Richard Lake, National Park Service

In response to a court ruling throwing out a plan allowing 540 snowmobiles a day into Yellowstone, the Department of the Interior now proposes a compromise: 318 machines a day. "The National Park Service’s own scientists — studying air pollution, noise pollution and the effect on the park’s animals — have consistently found that the best solution is low-emission, higher-capacity snow coaches. The new plan would allow 78 of those a day."

"This new plan is a bad and barely acceptable compromise. It is well past time for snowmobilers to confine themselves to the thousands of miles of trails on public lands outside Yellowstone."

The public has until Monday, November 17th to comment.

Read the whole editorial from The New York Times.


Read about the temporary plan.

Check out Yellowstone as a World Heritage Site.

Read the plan proposed for the next three years.

Submit a comment.

100 Countries Ratify UNESCO Anti-Doping Convention

In a move to help even the playing field in international sports, UNESCO celebrated the ratification of the International Convention against Doping in Sport
in Paris yesterday.

Paraguay added the 100th signature necessary for the Convention to take effect, making the Convention UNESCO’s most successful in terms of speed of implementation. In just three years, the Convention secured support from over half of UNESCO’s member states to help ensure fair play in athletics. The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, the Director-General of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), David Howman, and Jaime Lissavetzky, Spanish State Secretary for Sport, joined Ambassadors from most of the 100 countries that have ratified the Convention to mark the occasion.

The Convention calls on governments to apply the force of international law to anti-doping strategies, encourages greater cooperation between governments and sporting agencies, and establishes a funding mechanism to help governments meet their obligations. While the Convention helps formalize anti-doping policies and guidelines, government support is crucial. Signatory governments have committed to:

• Restrict the supply of performance enhancing substances and methods;
• Curtail trafficking of prohibited substances;
• Regulate dietary and nutritional supplements;
• Withhold financial support from athletes and supporting personnel who commit anti-doping violations or from sporting organizations that are not in compliance with the Code.

“Recent high profile doping cases and investigations have shown how decisive Government action can be,” observed Mr. Howman. “The Convention allows Governments to align their domestic policies with the World Anti-Doping Code, thus harmonizing the rules governing anti-doping in sport and public legislation. WADA is very grateful to UNESCO for its leading role in this process.”

With this Convention, UNESCO advances the spirit of fair and honest competition in international sporting events. UNESCO and WADA are now calling on the remaining 93 UNESCO Member States to ratify as well.

Photo: © UNESCO/D.Bijeljac