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

Awarding ICTs in Education

UNESCO announced Monday that its 2008 UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa Prize for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies will be awarded to Shanghai TV University as well as to Dr. Hoda Baraka of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology in Egypt. These laureates were selected by an international jury and will be recognized in a ceremony in Paris at UNESCO Headquarters on January 14, 2009. They will also receive a diploma and US $25,000 from Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura.

These laureates were selected from 67 projects focused on ICTs in education. One of the winners, China's Shanghai TV University, was recognized for its project Turning the Digital Divide into Digital Opportunity: The Project for Building the Digital Lifelong Learning System in Shanghai. The project seeks to spread educational resources such as teacher training and lifelong learning materials through extensive satellite and network systems. It reaches 230 community learning centers and over four million Shanghai residents as well as an equal number of area migrant workers.


The other recipient, Dr. Hoda Baraka of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology in Egypt, was rewarded for her superior leadership efforts in promoting many ICT initiatives across Egypt. She has steered ICT projects to promote quality, equitable education and to fight illiteracy. Baraka has greatly impacted thousands across the country with her efforts.

The King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa Prize for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies prize itself was created in 2005; its objective is to reward projects and activities for superior models, practices, or creativity in using ICTs to augment and promote education. The award is sponsored by the Kingdom of Bahrain and is awarded annually. Application information as well as information about previous winners can be found here.

Combating Racism with Sports

On November 6, 2008 a group of young individuals presented strategies to the European Parliament on how sports can be used to combat racism. Can racism be fought on athletic fields and in stadiums across the world? Is that enough to counter act the cultural divides and preconceived notions?

Well, these young adults believe it is possible. As representatives of the project “Youth Voices against Racism”, an initiative of UNESCO, FC Barcelona and the European Coalition of Cities against Racism (ECCAR), in partnership with the European Parliament, these impassions young adults visited the Parliament in Brussels and presented a document containing 10 recommendations to counteract racism in and through sports. These five young representatives of three European cities (Botkyrka, Erlangen, Nuremberg) sure believe that sports can combat racism as they presented a set of recommendations for preventing and responding to racist behavior in amateur and professional sports.

These representatives were speaking on behalf of young people between the ages of 15 and 18 who were consulted to help prepare the recommendations for parliament. Youth Voices against Racism is a project that was launched by UNESCO, Football Club Barcelona and ECCAR in partnership with the European Parliament. The project, directed by the young participants themselves, was launched only a little under a year ago in the spring of 2008. It was implemented by ECCAR and currently comprises 82 cities in 17 countries. To help formulate their recommendations the group worked with coalition cities to set up meetings with young people in schools, sports clubs and youth councils, as well as via local media and online forums, to elicit their ideas for ways to promote tolerance, mutual respect and solidarity through sport.

As Emine Bozkurt, the Dutch member of the European Parliament who initiated the influential European resolution to tackle racism in football noted, “Sport is a mirror of society, with all of its shortcomings. But let us not forget that, above all, sport offers great possibilities for social inclusion”.

Young people have a say in the struggle against racism and discrimination and Youth Voices against Racism is doing their part in providing youth an avenue for their voice, involvement, and effort to combat racism.

The New Issue of the UNESCO Courier

© UNESCO/Ariane Bailey
Memory, a key to human rights.

Human Rights : a thorny path

The UNESCO Courier, 2008 No. 9

Human rights, viewed through the prism of memory, constitute the theme of this issue marking the 60th anniversary of the 1948 declaration. Stéphane Hessel explains what makes it unique and why it must remain universal. Pierre Sané reviews the status of the dignity of the individual in the world today.

Read the UNESCO Courier

Adult Education: A Worthy and Rising Focus

Today marks the first day of The Power of Youth and Adult Learning for Africa's Development conference in Nairobi, Kenya. The conference will run November 5 to 7 and will combine reports from 49 African nations regarding youth and adult education in the region. All reports have particularly highlighted the prominent role adult education will play in discussion during the conference.

This focus on adult education has been an increasingly frequent one for UNESCO. The Nairobi conference, for example, is one of the five regional UNESCO conferences on the topic. This will prepare for the Sixth Annual Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VI) that will be held in Belem, Brazil, in May 2009. Information on past and future regional conferences can be found here.

UNESCO's global educational conferences throughout 2008 and 2009 stress the importance of inclusive education, and the Nairobi conference as well as these subsequent others will undoubtedly spark much intriguing debate.

UNESCO: Call for Papers

Prospects, UNESCO's review of comparative education, is calling for papers. They are publishing a special issue on 'Policies and Practices of Holocaust Education: International Perspectives'.

This issue of Prospects will explore the actual policies and practices of Holocaust education in countries and classrooms around the world.  Due to the fact that education about the subject of the Holocaust is mired in political controversy, sound data on the policies and influences regarding its education is almost non-existent.

Studying the Holocaust is often justified by the need to help secure the future against further violations of human rights whether based on ethnicity, religion, gender, or disability. Does it accomplish those ends? At such a time of instability as this, these searching questions become ever more important. 

The guest-editors invite contributors from all areas of expertise to submit research regarding any facet of Holocaust education. Does Holocaust education change attitudes toward minority groups? Does linking commemoration and class room study support or undermine its adoption? The questions are innumerable, yet the answers are few. 

Take this opportunity to increase the understanding of how schools around the world treat the Holocaust and how that affects their students by submitting your proposal to  the Prospects Editorial Office at: ibe.prospects@unesco.org, by 1 May 2009. Earlier submissions are encouraged. This special issue is scheduled to be published in March 2010. Manuscripts should be 7000-8000 words. 

For additional information on submissions, please visit www.springer.com/education/journal/11125. Questions may be referred to Simona Popa, Prospects Assistant Editor, at: ibe.prospects@unesco.org.

World Heritage Site in Danger

The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, expressed concern this week over violence in the North Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Mr. Matsuura supported the statement made earlier by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, calling on “all parties to immediately cease hostilities and pursue in good faith efforts to resolve peacefully the issues.” The Director-General declared, “The escalation of violence in recent weeks threatens the integrity of a DRC World Heritage site, Virunga National Park, which comprises outstanding biological diversity and provides the habitat for the last populations of mountain gorillas, a highly endangered species. According to the information I have received, the park rangers can no longer patrol and the gorillas’ habitat is threatened by the persistent shooting.”

The Director-General also urged the international community to uphold its obligation to ensure the protection of World Heritage List sites.

There are only 200 gorillas left in the park, which has been listed as a World Heritage Site in Danger since 1994. Only about 700 mountain gorillas remain total of the highly endangered species. This past Sunday, rebels seized the park headquarters, and many rangers fled and are missing. In the last decade, over 120 rangers have lost their lives protecting the park.

Africa’s oldest national park, Virunga National Park was founded in 1925. It holds the greatest range of habitats and vertebrate species diversity of any African park, yet, sadly, the conflict, humanitarian crises and economic collapse that have marked the last few decades in the DRC have severely damaged conservation efforts.