Sunday, January 18, 2009

Departure of the NatCom Exec Director

Alex Zemek yesterday sent the following message to members of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO:
Today is my last day as the Executive Director of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. It has been my pleasure being a part of this office from the beginning. We have come very far since President Bush announced the U.S. intention to rejoin UNESCO on September 12, 2002. I joined this office after having come back from a year in Iraq, looking for an opportunity where I could continue to contribute to the U.S.’s foreign policy objectives. In these past four and a half years we have begun to make a difference at UNESCO and in the world. From important issue from literacy, potable water, countering youth radicalization, and upholding and advancing civil liberties like freedom of expression.

Thank you all for making this a rewarding experience. I know I will continue to interact with you all through the Commission’s Laura W. Bush Traveling Fellowship. The challenges at UNESCO will continue but with your help we can continue to build off of the great foundation that this Administration has laid on investing in people and helping others to govern justly and democratically.

I am excited about the new members who are joining the Commission. It is a great group that builds off of many of your recommendations from last year. I would have wanted to announce them all by this point and inform you of who has been selected as chairs and vice chairs of the subject committees, however, most information hopefully be released in the coming days by the next administration.

I will be starting a new opportunity next week at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA); I am excited to continue my serve to the defense of this great nation. Thank you all for the service that you provide.

UNESCO: Agenda for the 21st Century


Yesterday I wrote an entry for my blog, Thoughts About K4D, about the complementary ways one can understand UNESCO, based on something I prepared for a seminar on UNESCO. Dmitry Epstein, the Think Macro blogger, posted a comment asking for updates on the course. I share my first response to that request.

The title of the seminar is "UNESCO: Agenda for the 21st Century" and I have posted the Syllabus online. I am coordinating the course with a colleague, Frank Method, and many members of the Board of Directors of Americans for UNESCO are participating during the semester.

The seminar is intended to provide students with an understanding of UNESCO and the context in which it works as an intergovernmental organization focusing on education, science, culture and communications and information. Students lead about half the sessions, and are expected to do a project for the course. In the two previous semesters that the seminar was offered, projects have included:
  • The creation of a manual for students intending to start a UNESCO club in their university,
  • The design of a museum exhibit on natural World Heritage sites and their conservation,
  • A proposal for a multimedia self-learning course on the World Heritage sites in U.S. national parks, which has been accepted by the National Parks service, and
  • A paper on UNESCO's role in the students home country which was accepted as the basis of a paper for an international conference.
This is the third time the course has been offered at George Washington University. It is a graduate seminar in the International Education Program. However, the seminar is open to students in other parts of the university and for cross registration for students in other universities of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area. Indeed in previous semesters the class has been enriched by students of museum management and foreign affairs and by students from Georgetown university.

This semester there are ten students signed up. They are an impressive group. Most have lived abroad and have mastered more than one language, and almost all have some professional working experience. We have only had the orientation meeting so far, but I am looking forward to the semester.

John Daly

Friday, January 16, 2009

Thoughts on the Nomination of a New Ambassador to UNESCO

Louise Oliver, Ambassador to UNESCO as a Bush administration appointee, is leaving that office. The Obama administration is to appoint a replacement. Ambassador Oliver has faced important challenges at UNESCO, managing the reentry of the United States into the organization and representing this country in an era of its decreasing international reputation. Reliable observers tell me that she has been extraordinarily effective, representing her administration's policies consistently in a professional manner while gaining respect and making friends for America among the diplomatic community and the UNESCO Secretariat. The new appointee should build upon and extend her successes.

It is my hope that the new appointee will be given Ambassadorial rank by the administration. That rank has been established for Ambassador Oliver, and has been helpful in establishing her personal authority in Paris. It also symbolizes the importance of UNESCO to the United States.

The Obama administration has expressed its concern for improved international partnerships. President-elect Obama wrote in an article in Foreign Affairs magazine:
To renew American leadership in the world, I intend to rebuild the alliances, partnerships, and institutions necessary to confront common threats and enhance common security. Needed reform of these alliances and institutions will not come by bullying other countries to ratify changes we hatch in isolation. It will come when we convince other governments and peoples that they, too, have a stake in effective partnerships.......

(T)he United Nations requires far-reaching reform........Yet none of these problems will be solved unless America rededicates itself to the organization and its mission.
In her opening remarks in her hearing before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Secretary of State designate Clinton stated:
We should also use the United Nations and other international institutions whenever appropriate and possible. Both Democratic and Republican presidents have understood for decades that these institutions, when they work well, enhance our influence. And when they don’t work well – as in the cases of Darfur and the farce of Sudan’s election to the former UN Commission on Human Rights, for example – we should work with likeminded friends to make sure that these institutions reflect the values that motivated their creation in the first place.
In their various statements the spokepersons for the Obama administration have stressed objectives for U.S. foreign policy that are fully consistent with UNESCO's programs. UNESCO's emphasis on peace and human rights, its leadership in education, and its scientific programs providing the knowledge to deal with global resource and environmental problems are all prototypical of efforts that the Obama administration will seek to enhance.

Thus the new Ambassador will be charged with collaborating with partner nations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of UNESCO as it carries out its fundamental missions.

The next Ambassador should be:
  • An articulate and charismatic spokesperson for the United States;
  • Fully committed to the foreign policy goals of the United States as articulated by the Obama administration, especially those for the promotion of peace, the reduction of poverty, the sustainable development of nations, and the solution of global environmental problems;
  • Capable of leading an organization with 2,000 staff and a $500 million annual budget which is capable of catalyzing global action;
  • A distinguished professional in one of the fields of competence of UNESCO;
  • A capable diplomat, able to negotiate compromise among the disparate interests of UNESCO's member nations; and of course
  • A person of sterling personal and professional integrity; as well
  • As someone who can communicate effectively in French as well as other major languages used in UNESCO.
I would stress, however, that while the new Ambassador must be a capable diplomat, his/her function should not be simply to negotiate with other diplomats and international civil servants, but to conceptualize how UNESCO's programs can be integrated with those of other U.S. and international agencies to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives, advocating the needed changes in UNESCO to achieve those ends, and also advocating the needed changes in U.S. policies towards UNESCO.

The first U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO was Athelstan Spilhaus, who served on UNESCO's Executive Board from 1954 to 1958. Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus was listed in "American Men of Science" as a meteorologist and an oceanographer, and made contributions to cartography. He was the inventor of the bathythermograph, a device to measure water temperatures in the deep ocean. That device contributed substantially to the success of sonar in WW II, and thus to America's victory in the war. He also developed balloons for meteorological and remote sensing applications. He was best known to the public for his extraordinary success in communicating scientific knowledge to the public through his comic strip read by some 12 million people per week, and to the academic community as the father of the Sea Grant program of the U.S. government. He as seen both as a global intellectual leader and as an effective advocate of U.S. policies.

I would hope the new Ambassador will live up to and extend the record of excellence established by Louise Oliver and Athelstan Spilhaus.

John Daly
(The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not represent those of Americans for UNESCO.)

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Thoughts About Choosing a New Director General for UNESCO

UNESCO is the lead agency of the United Nations system for education, natural and social sciences, culture and communication and information. More fundamentally, it was created in the aftermath of World War II to build the defenses of peace in the minds of men.

A new Director General of UNESCO is to be elected in October. The term is four years, but Directors General often serve two terms. Thus the delegates of the member nations will soon select someone to act as a global spokesperson for peace, for education, for science, for culture and the protection of our cultural heritage, and for freedom of expression for most of the coming decade.

Member nations have until the end of May to nominate candidates for the position. The nominations will be considered by the Executive Board consisting of the representatives of 50 nations. The Executive Board's recommendation will be acted upon by the General Conference of all 193 nations in October.

UNESCO has a unique governance structure in that its Constitution calls for member states to create national commissions which provide their educational, scientific and cultural communities with the means to exercise leadership in UNESCO affairs in collaboration with their governments. In no other United Nations organization is there such empowerment of civil society.

Now is the time for the national commissions to search for suitable candidates and to encourage their governments to make suitable nominations. This summer will be the time for the national commissions to consider the nominations, to evaluate the qualifications of the candidates, and to encourage their governments to support the best candidate.

The next Director General should be:
  • An articulate and charismatic spokesperson for peace and international understanding;
  • Capable of leading an organization with 2,000 staff and a $500 million annual budget which is capable of catalyzing global action;
  • A world leader in one of the fields of competence of UNESCO;
  • A capable diplomat, able to negotiate compromise among the disparate interests of UNESCO's member nations; and of course
  • A person of sterling personal and professional integrity; as well
  • As someone who can communicate effectively in the major languages used in UNESCO.
UNESCO's first Director General was Julian Huxley, a world class scientist who was one of the leaders in the synthesis of genetics and Darwinian evolution, a former Director of the London Zoological Society, and an effective disseminator of scientific information to the general public. The first Director General from the United States was Luther Evans, who had been the Librarian of Congress (the world's largest library) and who had organized and headed the Historical Records Survey (bringing order to the disparate historical records held in the individual states of the United States for the first time). Both of these men were known worldwide in fields of central importance to UNESCO, and both had demonstrated records in successfully leading major organizations. The next Director General should be add further luster to the tradition that they began.

If the nominations and selection of a new Director General is left to diplomats we can expect a diplomat to be selected. While diplomatic skills are important in the Director General, there are few diplomats who are qualified to lead UNESCO in its global mission. It is time for the educational, scientific and cultural leaders to stand up and be sure that the best representatives of their communities are considered for the post. The national commissions must exercise their authority to assure that a truly outstanding leader will be chosen to lead UNESCO into the new decade.

John Daly
(The opinions expressed are those of the author alone, and do not necessarily represent those of Americans for UNESCO.)

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Undertaking a Human Rights Approach to Development

The Bangkok office of UNESCO has recently published three new reports encouraging a human rights approach:

Undertaking a Human Rights-Based Approach: Lessons for Policy, Planning and Programming – Documenting Lessons Learned for the Human Rights-Based Approach to Programming: An Asia-Pacific Perspective – Implications for Policy, Planning and Programming. by Gabrielle Berman
Bangkok: UNESCO Bangkok, 2008. 32 pp.


Undertaking a Human Rights-Based Approach: A Guide for Basic Programming – Documenting Lessons Learned for Human Rights-Based Programming: An Asia-Pacific Perspective – Implications for Policy, Planning and Programming. by Gabrielle Berman
Bangkok: UNESCO Bangkok, 2008. 40 pp.



The Human Rights-based Approach to Journalism: Training Manual, Viet Nam. Bangkok: UNESCO Bangkok, 2008. 41 p.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

UNESCO Director-General expressed grave concern over attacks against Gaza UNRWA schools

In a joint statement, UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura and UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, expressed grave concern over the recent attacks against UNRWA schools and associated facilities. These facilities had been set up by the UN as places of refuge for civilians fleeing the fighting in Gaza.

U.S. Participation in the International Conference on Education

U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO Louise V. Oliver led the U.S. delegation to the 48th session of the International Conference on Education, hosted by UNESCO's International Bureau of Education in Geneva, from November 25-28, 2008. The delegation included Tracy Justesen, Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, and Troy Justesen, Assistant Secretary for Vocational and Adult Education, from the U.S. Department of Education, Sally Lovejoy, Education Attaché to the U.S. Mission to UNESCO, Emily Spencer, Education Program Officer, Office of International Organizations/UNESCO, Kenneth Schagrin, Trade Attaché, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and Anna Mansfield, Deputy Legal Advisor, U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva.

Approximately 153 UNESCO member states, 20 intergovernmental organizations and 25 NGO's, foundations and other institutions of civil society attended the IBE Conference, which is held every four years, bringing together Ministers of Education, representatives from international organizations, and civil society representatives to discuss and exchange ideas related to a specific education-related theme. The theme for this year’s session was "Inclusive Education: The Way of the Future."

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