"Putting culture first: commonwealth perspectives on culture and development"

This report discusses, among other things, the role of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression "in providing a framework for countries, particularly those with limited government capacity, to implement successful cultural policy designed to support creative production and enhance cultural diversity."

Putting Culture First is the product of extensive consultation with representatives from government, civil society, and the culture and development sectors across the Commonwealth, carried out between February and October 2008.

UNESCO's 48th International Conference on Education

While Americans have been eating turkey and celebrating gratitude, over 100 Education ministers and other stakeholders from all over the world have been meeting in Geneva, Switzerland at the 48th session of the International Conference on Education (ICE). The session began November 25 and ended yesterday, the 28th. The conference is sponsored by UNESCO's International Bureau of Education (IBE). The purpose of the IBE is to assist Member States in achieving quality Education for All through innovative curriculum development and implementation. 

This year's theme is inclusive education, reaching out to marginalized groups such as: HIV/AIDS orphans, those with disabilities, migrants, street children, etc. As these groups are generally excluded from the mainstream school system "Inclusive Education: the Way of the Future" looks to inform the global community on ways to become more open to diversity and effectively reduce drop-out rates.  

The conference 

will include a discussion of more than 70 National Reports on the education systems of different countries as well as comments on inclusion from 143 Ministers. It will also include a screening of the film "The Class" (Entre Les Murs) which documents the difficulties of a Paris teacher in instructing a cross-cultural group of teenage students in order to raise awareness.  

The Keynote was given by Navanethem Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights detailing his history in working with inclusion as well as affirming that "education is both a human right in itself, as well as an indispensable instrument for achieving many other rights, whether civil, cultural, economic, political, or social."

Education for All includes even those that are hard to reach, out of the main stream, and often forgotten. Education for All means education for all. Thank you UNESCO!

2009 Education for All Monitoring Report

If current conditions do not change, things look bleak for achieving Education for All by 2015 per a report issued by UNESCO yesterday.

Governments' failures to address rampant inequalities is cited as the main culprit. These inequalities stem from many sources such as weak domestic policies, the stagnation of financial assistance from donors, and a culture of political indifference. Continuing to neglect these culprits will undoubtedly lead to missing UNESCO's goals for 2015 that were set in Darfur in 2000. Yet much more critically, these inequalities will continue to perpetuate what UNESCO reports as a "vast gulf" between rich and poor and will sorely misserve much of the world's population. Avoiding these issues will certainly have lasting global consequences.

The report is quick to note, however, the substantial progress that has been made in implementing practical policies especially in early childhood development and in implementing good quality education in some of the poorest countries. Parts of Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as South and West Asia were particularly cited as having made great gains in increasing net enrollment rates and in implementing programs to promote educational equality. Yet more governmental attention needs to be directed toward educational initiatives to enact consistent, effective change.

This attention, though, could be difficult to attract given the current financial situation. Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura noted this in indicating that failure of educational initiatives often receive much less attention in comparison to other crises. “When financial systems fail, the consequences are highly visible and governments act,” he stated. “When education systems fail the consequences are less visible, but no less real... That is why governments must act with a greater sense of urgency.” Voicing concerns to all levels of government over promoting quality education for all, then, must certainly be a growing priority.

Places of Wonder and Discovery

Buffalo at Yellowstone National Park, David Muench

Places of Wonder and Discovery is a “coffee table book” that provides magisterial images of World Heritage sites. My wife describes it as "National Geographic on steroids", as the book combines great photography with a broad geographic educational content. Ten photographers made the images. David Muench, my favorite living American nature photographer, made those of Yellowstone and Mesa Verde, as well as those of Uluru in Australia.

The World Heritage list currently includes 878 sites of cultural and/or natural importance. Each has been nominated by the government of the country in which it is situated, provided with a detailed management and conservation plan by that country, and subjected to extensive review before being authorized for inclusion on the list by the oversight committee of UNESCO’s World Heritage Center. They represent a heritage for all mankind.

This is the first book published by Our Place, a New Zealand firm, and is the first in a series of ten books it is to produce in collaboration with the UNESCO World Heritage Center. The book includes 350 original photographs of 50 World Heritage sites in 35 countries.

Many of the sites included in the book were familiar to me and will be to almost all readers: the Acropolis, the Taj Mahal, the Egyptian pyramids, Petra, the Lagoon of Venice, and Yellowstone National Park are all included.

Other sites were previously unknown to me. The stone circles of Senegal and the Gambia include some 29,000 stone monoliths of ancient origin. Tongariro in New Zealand is truly a place of wondrous natural beauty.

The book is thoughtfully designed. A few pages are devoted to each site, combining text and images. The photos are varied in style and content, providing not only large scenic views of the sites but smaller images that stirred the artists interests and provide variety for the reader.

If I were to have a quibble with the book, it is that it lacks a list of image titles indexed by page number, making it hard to identify the large images that are found at the start and end of the book.

For the many fans of UNESCO’s World Heritage program, the book will be a great find. I recommend that libraries consider it and the remaining books of the series as they are published for their collections; certainly this first book in the series has both artistic and reference value. Indeed, I suspect that many people will want a copy of the book for their personal collection, and it may indeed influence their travel plans for years to come.

Tongariro National Park, Chris Morton

Places of Wonder and Discovery
320 pages
Publisher: Our Place Publishing (October 22, 2008)
ISBN-10: 186953669X
ISBN-13: 978-1869536695
Amazon.com lists the book as available new from two U.S. companies for about $70 including shipping and handling.

RecreationParks.Net: Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park is a World Heritage Site. The vast natural forest of Yellowstone National Park covers nearly 9,000 km²; 96% of the park lies in Wyoming, 3% in Montana and 1% in Idaho. Yellowstone contains half of all the world's known geothermal features, with more than 10,000 examples. It also has the world's largest concentration of geysers (more than 300 geyers, or two thirds of all those on the planet). Established in 1872, Yellowstone is equally known for its wildlife, such as grizzly bears, wolves, bison and wapitis.

RecreationParks.Net provides information on Yellowstone National Park. Josef Carlo B. Velina has requested that we make the website known to our readers. It is one of some 60,000 parks in the United States he has described on his website, using USGS data and other sources.

Bipartisan U.S. Foreign Policy Leaders Urge Obama Administration To Revitalize U.S.-UN Relationship

A bipartisan coalition of over three dozen senior foreign policy leaders in the United States issued a public statement today urging the incoming Obama Administration to help lead a new era of international cooperation by strengthening the U.S.-UN relationship. The signatories include four former Cabinet Secretaries, eight former Senators, four former UN Ambassadors, three former National Security Advisors and two former Governors. The statement was released by the United Nations Foundation and Partnership for a Secure America.

Read more!

Editor's note: I would suggest that the statement applies to decentralized agencies of the United Nations systems, such as UNESCO. JAD

Getting on Board: Promoting E-Government Via Bus

E-government has many wonderful benefits for citizens in promoting transparency of activities, troves of information, and new ways to participate as well as to express opinion. Citizens, however, must first be equipped with the access and skills to take advantage of e-government. And for that, UNESCO's Information for All Programme (IFAP) are urging people to get on the bus.

All this month, citizens in Quito may take chivas, popular Equadorian buses, from busy neighborhoods to public Internet access centers called cybernariums. These cybernariums will hold training workshops of 25 people each that will focus on explaining and promoting e-government services to spread the word about what is available for the community.

Radio and television spots will additionally promote awareness of the initiative; the population of focus will consist of secondary school students, leaders of organizations or neighborhoods, and housewives.

This initiative is part of UNESCO's IFAP "E-government Model for World Heritage Cities" project, which is sponsored by the Spanish government. The cities of focus are Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), Quito (Ecuador), and Cusco (Peru).

Projects like this and others regarding Latin American e-government promoted by the Spanish government and UNESCO certainly have tremendous potential for change on a global level. For more information, see UNESCO's e-government news as well as the World Bank's e-development publication.