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174th UNESCO Executive Board
April 4, 2006
Statement by Ambassador Louise V. Oliver
Permanent Delegate of the United States of America
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Thank you Mr. Chairman
Mr. Director-General: Excellencies: Friends and Colleagues:
The mark of an effective organization is its ability to adapt to changing circumstances, while staying true to its core mission. For UNESCO, that means responding to unexpected challenges like the tsunami, while continuing to focus on long-term strategies that will help the organization achieve its mission. The comprehensive report given by the Director-General this morning reminds us once again of how difficult this is to accomplish, especially in a complex intergovernmental organization.
Although noble goals and good intentions lie at the heart of UNESCO’s mission, a lack of focus and discipline has prevented UNESCO from making real progress towards these goals. Instead of concentrating our efforts on serious global challenges like literacy and water, we have numerous activities only marginally related to UNESCO’s priorities. Not only do many of these programs produce little of lasting value, they drain resources from UNESCO’s more important long-term initiatives.
Part of the responsibility for this lies with the Secretariat, which is much more eager to start new activities than to end them. However, we, UNESCO’s member states, are also responsible for UNESCO’s ever-expanding mission, as we have not given clear guidance to this organization. Although we criticize UNESCO for not focusing on its priorities, we support requests for new initiatives at every Executive Board meeting. The result is that UNESCO does not have the credibility and respect we would like it to have.
The United States believes that UNESCO’s areas of competence play critical roles in supporting economic development, the growth of democracy, and true inter-cultural dialogue, and that UNESCO could help provide the tools that give individuals an opportunity to live lives of dignity.
The question is can we deliver, or are we going to continue to be an organization with good intentions but disappointing results. Now is the time to decide whether we want UNESCO to do business as usual, or whether we are ready for something different. Are we ready to give up low-value activities to focus on priority programs that produce measurable results? If we want UNESCO to play a leadership role in the international community, the answer must be yes.
We all agree that UNESCO’s priority of priorities is education. That is why we appreciate the hard work done by the Education Sector in developing the draft Global Action Plan, but the plan is far from complete. The plan outlines UNESCO’s role as the coordinator of EFA (Education For All), and rightly emphasizes the importance of quality education, access to education, South-South cooperation, and capacity building. However, it does not include a description of the roles and responsibilities of the other four multilateral stakeholders.
We hope that the next draft of the plan will give us a better understanding of how the five organizations can work together to assist countries to achieve the goals of EFA. The United States is committed to supporting UNESCO as the critical leader in this international effort, and encourages the Education Sector to continue its efforts to develop an effective Global Action Plan.
We are also pleased that UNESCO is starting to implement its literacy plan, LIFE (Literacy Initiative for Empowerment). It is a good plan that emphasizes women and pre-school children, and sustainability, and is complemented by the LAMP (Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Program) initiative developed by UIS (UNESCO Institute for Statistics). By limiting its initial efforts to 11 countries, with 24 other countries being added to the program over the next few years, UNESCO avoided the temptation to start in all 35 countries at once, which would have guaranteed that nothing significant would have been accomplished.
Since political will plays a critical role in reducing illiteracy, we are pleased that UNESCO’s Honorary Ambassador for the Decade of Literacy, Mrs. Laura Bush, discussed this issue in her recent visits to Nigeria and Pakistan. We look forward to supporting the LIFE initiative, and encourage UNESCO to identify key benchmarks and outcomes by which we can judge our progress on this important program.
UNESCO also seems to be taking its responsibilities in HIV-AIDS prevention more seriously, as well as in teacher training, which is good news since it is impossible to increase access, particularly among girls, to quality education without an adequate number of well-trained teachers. Since we know that unintended consequences such as brain drain may occur by focusing exclusively
on primary education, we are glad that UNESCO is exploring ways to address higher education as well.
Like the Education Sector, the Natural Science and Social and Human Science Sectors may need to be reorganized to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, the United States strongly supports the review of those sectors that is currently underway. We hope that the review will identify the most appropriate niches for these sectors within the UN system, as well as suggest ways to strengthen their internal structures, which may involve recommendations for fundamental reform.
We firmly believe that UNESCO has an important role to play in science, including social science, engineering, and technology, but its work needs to be of high quality in order for it to be effective, and respected by the international community. UNESCO should also strengthen its commitment to the IOC (Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission) so that it can continue to play a leadership role in disaster mitigation.
Thanks to its rapid growth over the years, UNESCO’s best-known flagship program, the World Heritage Program, is now facing some serious challenges. As a member of the World Heritage committee, the United States will work with its fellow committee members to improve the quality of the work done by the World Heritage Center and its advisory bodies.
We will also support the CI (Communication and Information) Sector’s efforts to promote democracy by supporting civic participation, good governance, freedom of expression, and a pluralistic media in developing and post-conflict countries. An example of an effective program in this area is the IPDC (International Program for the Development of Communication), which has produced real results despite very limited resources.
Since UNESCO increasingly relies on its institutes, regional bureaus and field offices to implement its programs and activities, UNESCO’s ability to achieve good results from its programs is directly related to the strength of these offices.
Mr. Director-General: Although the United States has no objection to the concept of decentralization, we cannot support the continued transfer of funds and decision-making to the field without a strong commitment by the organization to accountability-something we have not seen thus far. Decentralization and accountability must be linked together. We need to know what UNESCO’s various offices are doing, and whether they are effective. When external and internal evaluations include recommendations for strengthening accountability, they should be implemented as soon as possible.
Headquarters should also be held responsible for its performance, as well as for publications, conferences, forums and other activities that use UNESCO’s name and/or logo in any way, and for UNESCO prizes that are supposed to promote its mission and goals. The misuse of UNESCO’s name, especially for political purposes, will hurt its reputation, undermine its collegial atmosphere and adversely affect its ability to serve as a neutral platform for initiatives in all parts of the world.
Despite the capacity building resolution unanimously passed by the Executive Board at its 171st session, progress towards more intersectoral activity has not gone as fast as we had hoped. In that regard we welcome the establishment of the TTIP (Task Team on Intersectoral Programs) headed by ADG Khan, as an example of a renewed commitment to a cross-sector approach for UNESCO’s programs.
Finally UNESCO needs to continue its reform process by ensuring that its next medium strategy emphasizes effective results-based management, financial and programmatic transparency, the allocation of resources to core priorities, increased oversight and evaluation, and a comprehensive staffing strategy. The recommendations of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Three Organs should also be looked at seriously. In order to attract broad-based support for the next medium term strategy, the process should include consultations with the permanent delegations and the Science Review Panel, as well as with the National Commissions.
During the next two years we will discover whether UNESCO’s Secretariat and member states can work together to make the tough decisions necessary to strengthen this organization. Certainly there has been some improvement in a number of areas at UNESCO, but we must keep the momentum going. That will require concentrating our efforts on those core priorities that unite us, not on issues that divide us. Mr. Director-General, the United States is convinced that this is a moment of opportunity for UNESCO. With your strong leadership, we hope that UNESCO can become a more effective, results-oriented organization that is capable of making real progress towards the goals that have inspired our work for the past sixty years.
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