Good morning everyone. What a pleasure it is to be back with you all again. It is said that time passes quickly when you’re having fun, so I guess I must be having a lot of fun, since for me this past year has gone by at lightning speed. Before discussing the Mission’s work at UNESCO, I’d like to thank Susanna and her team for the great job they have done in organizing this meeting, and to join her in thanking Commissioner Jack di Gioia for hosting us once again here at the Georgetown University Conference Center. I’d like to express my appreciation as well to Commissioners Ron Bogle and Adair Margo for hosting us at the Blair House reception last night. And, congratulations, Susanna, on the Laura Bush Fellowship.

I’d also like to thank all those Commissioners that have helped my Mission and me during the past year. Given the non-stop challenges that we face at UNESCO, I can honestly say that we couldn’t survive without you.

This morning, instead of focusing on a few selected issues as I did last year, I am going to give you an overview of the past year, with brief comments on a number of different items. Then I hope you will ask questions during the panel discussion on the ones that you would like more details on. I know I will probably tell you more than you ever wanted to know about UNESCO, but since this will be my last opportunity to address this body as Ambassador, I would like to give you a good sense of what is currently going on in that organization, and what you might expect for the future. Let me apologize in advance for having to rely on a written text, but there is a great deal to say in a very limited period of time.

So let’s start with the 177th session of the Executive Board last September, which had the responsibility of drafting UNESCO’s 2008-2013 medium-term strategy (the C4), and its two-year 2008-2009 program and budget (the C5). I think the biggest problem we faced was that only a few delegations seemed to understand the fundamental difference between the C4, a relatively broad-based six-year strategic plan, and the C5, a more detailed two-year operational business plan with concrete, measurable results.

No doubt the reason for this is that the C5 has a dual role, as it serves both as a two-year business plan, and as the plan for the first two years of the six-year strategic plan, the C4, which makes it all very confusing, compounded of course by the in-house lingo. This resulted in lengthy debates about the degree of specificity that should be in the C5. There were also constant attempts by various delegations to slip new ideas and projects into the C5, since they did not understand, or tried to ignore, the fact that the plans of action and objectives of the C5 budgetary and operational plan had to be closely linked to the strategic framework established by the C4.

Fortunately the US was one of three countries representing Group 1, our geographic electoral group, on the eighteen-member drafting group, and was therefore able to exert a strong influence on the entire process. As a result, we ended up quite satisfied with what was eventually achieved, which was a “rolling” C4, a six-year strategic plan that could be modified in response to changing circumstances, and a C5 that was more results-oriented than any past UNESCO C5 has ever been.

In fact, what made the C5 discussions particularly difficult was that the members of the Executive Board took a long time to agree on a budget level for the C5. Though most countries wanted to increase UNESCO’s $610 million dollar biennium budget, four major countries, the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Japan, were unwilling to do so, despite the pleas of the Director-General.

Everyone was very relieved when the Executive Board finally agreed on a $631 million dollar budget ceiling. It is important to note, however, that the reason the U.S. ultimately joined the budget consensus was that the Director-General said that the additional funds would be primarily used to strengthen UNESCO’s infrastructure, establish an ethics program, fund a high-level management position at the World Heritage Center, and provide support to UNESCO’s educational initiatives, all of which are U.S. priorities.

UNESCO’s 34th General Conference began immediately after the end of the Executive Board meeting. Since both the draft C4 and the draft C5 with the new budget ceiling had to be approved by the General Conference, and since any UNESCO Member State could challenge the recommendations of the Executive Board, we were a bit apprehensive. Although there was some grumbling by various Member States that had not participated in the Executive Board negotiations, the delicate compromise held, and the new C4 and C5 were adopted by consensus. However, that process has led to an on-going discussion of the respective roles of the Executive Board and the General Conference, which is supposed to be the supreme governing and policy-making body of the Organization.

The General Conference went on to discuss document 34 C/3, the results of the last biennium, document 34 C/9, parts I and II, the report of the Executive Board, and more than fifty other “C” documents, but you can relax as I am not going to discuss most of those. Instead I will move right on to what was for us the most difficult part of the very intense three-week General Conference, which was getting the adoption of a resolution on Holocaust Remembrance, document 34 C/49. This resolution was sponsored by the U.S., Israel, Canada, Australia, and Russia, the same five countries that had sponsored an almost identical resolution in New York.

Because the UN General Assembly had adopted their Holocaust resolution by consensus, we hoped it would not become a major political problem at UNESCO. Unfortunately, Egypt decided to oppose the resolution, and encouraged other countries to do so as well, which was interesting since Palestine, not Egypt, was the Chairmen of Electoral Group V (b), the Arab Electoral Group.

The purpose of the resolution was to encourage UNESCO to develop educational initiatives that could counter the efforts of those who cast doubt on the historical facts relating to the Holocaust. The Egyptians and their supporters, which included Iran and Venezuela as well as a number of other Arab states, wanted to broaden the resolution to include all crimes against humanity, thereby reducing the focus on the Holocaust and potentially adding other complicated and difficult issues. These changes would probably have made it impossible to get the resolution adopted by consensus.

Because the Mission had always worried about potential opposition to the resolution, including objectionable new language submitted from the floor in the course of debate, we had recruited 65 additional sponsors for the resolution, which enabled us to hold the line and eventually get the resolution adopted by consensus, with only two minor changes to the text.

During this process, a number of delegations mentioned the fact that this debate highlighted the significant change that had occurred in the U.S. presence at UNESCO since the October 2005 General Conference. At that time the U.S. had been completely isolated in its position on the Cultural Diversity Convention, and subsequently had been defeated in the vote on the Convention by 148 to 2, with 4 abstentions. Two years later, the U.S. was the organizer and leader of a coalition of 70 countries that enabled a very sensitive resolution on the Holocaust to withstand strong opposition and win General Conference approval by consensus.

Two other resolutions relating to Israel, document 34 C/15 on Jerusalem, and documents 34 C/16 and 34 C/16 Addendum concerning educational and cultural institutions in the occupied Arab territories, also passed by consensus. Thanks to efforts by the Mission, this was the eighteenth time in the past four years that these two resolutions, which are submitted in one form or another at every session of Executive Board and General Conference, were able to win adoption by consensus. Unlike at every other UN organization, Israel is welcomed at UNESCO, and plays an active and influential role in the organization, including serving as the current Chairman of Electoral Group 1.

When we presented our Holocaust Remembrance resolution, we wondered whether it would lead to resolutions from other countries asking UNESCO to remember other tragedies. Sure enough, the Ukrainians decided to submit a resolution, document 34 C/50, on the remembrance of victims of the Great Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine.

The U.S. decided to co-sponsor the Ukrainian resolution, which was strongly opposed by the Russians. At one point the Ukrainian resolution became so controversial that it looked as though we were headed for a vote, which worried us as we were afraid that a vote might have an adverse effect on our Holocaust resolution. Fortunately, as a result of the skillful work done by our Deputy Assistant Secretary, Gerry Anderson and the Mission’s lawyer, Mike Peay, the Holodomor resolution was also adopted by consensus.

Another difficult issue at the General Conference involved the development of a plan of action to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, document 34 C/59. The draft plan consisted of a very wide-range of activities and initiatives, including holding two major conferences and relabeling almost every program at UNESCO with a human rights label. The U.S. delegation, assisted by Commissioner Jim Kelly and supported by a number of other countries, successfully argued that although UNESCO has a valid role in human rights, it should be limited, and that a significantly scaled back plan should be sent to the April Executive Board for further discussion.

The follow-up of the recommendations of the Science Review Panel was another important issue discussed at the General Conference, document 34 C/13. The Deputy Director of the National Science Foundation, our colleague Dr. Kathie Olsen, who had served on the Science Review Panel and was a member of the U.S. delegation, argued forcefully for the continued involvement of the Panel in helping UNESCO implement the recommendations. This idea was challenged by a number of delegations that for various reasons do not support serious reform of the two science sectors. The debate ended when UNESCO’s Deputy Director General, Marcio Barbosa, who is in charge of the internal taskforce that is supposed to oversee the follow-up of the Panel’s report, said that he would continue to consult individual members of the Review Panel, even though the Panel itself would be disbanded.

Since the demand for literacy and basic education programs is steadily growing, the U.S. submitted a resolution requiring UNESCO to strengthen TTISSA, the Teacher Training Initiative for Sub-Saharan Africa, document 34 C/51. In addition to France and Afghanistan, twenty-three African countries co-sponsored the resolution with us, which was enthusiastically adopted by the General Conference. The U.S. will continue to work with other delegations to ensure that UNESCO’s programs in teacher training become more effective and results-oriented.

Because several new Category II Centers were approved, the issue arose as to what the criteria for these semi-autonomous Centers should be, how much independence they should have, and how much of an administrative burden they should pose for UNESCO. There are currently 28 Category II Centers, with three more in the pipeline. Additional centers are in the process of being created, including a Category II Center on Integrated Water Resources Management in the U.S. that is being developed by the Army Corps of Engineers and which will focus on training and technology transfer. The issue of Category II Centers and their role in UNESCO’s decentralization strategy will be examined in depth at the October session of the Executive Board.

In addition to the discussions conducted in the various Commissions, two Ministerial Round Tables were held. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, who headed the U.S. delegation, participated in a Round Table on “Education and Economic Development.” Commissioners Jack Marburger, the Director of OSTP, and Arden Bement, Director of the National Science Foundation, participated in a Round Table on “Science and Technology for Sustainable Development.” Although both these Round Tables were very interesting, questions are being raised regarding the timing and purpose of future Ministerial Round Tables.

Another Commissioner, Dr. James Billington. the U.S. Librarian of Congress, along with a number of other individuals from the Library of Congress, joined us for the launch of the World Digital Library, which as you all know will be an online repository of significant primary cultural materials from around the world that can be easily accessed by researchers or other interested parties. In addition to hosting a great reception at the Hilton Hotel, the Library of Congress representatives set up two inter-active prototypes with material from Brazil, Egypt, and two Russian libraries, and conducted regular briefings for the press and interested delegations.

It was a tremendous success, and generated more publicity than any of the numerous ministers and heads of state that attended the General Conference. We expect that the World Digital Library will go “live” at a ceremony at UNESCO in April 2009. The Planet Earth Exhibit, which Susanna already mentioned, was also tremendously successful.

Elections for the Executive Board, as well as for UNESCO’s committees, were held during the General Conference, and as always, they added a great deal of stress to the meeting. The U.S. was reelected to the Executive Board as part of an agreed-upon slate for Group 1, but it should be noted that it got the least number of votes of the six Group 1 candidates. Equally interesting is that both Russia and Cuba got the highest number of votes in their respective geographic groups, with Russia receiving more votes than any other state, including France.

The U.S. also got elected to the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Country of Origin, or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, and re-elected to the Legal Committee, the Intergovernmental Bioethics Committee, and the International Program for the Development of Communication. As happened in 2005, the U.S. failed to get elected to the International Hydrological Commission.

Overlapping with the General Conference was the World Assembly of the World Heritage Convention. This was highly problematic, as there were a number of difficult issues that needed to be dealt with by the Member States of the World Heritage Convention, which prevented states with small delegations from continuing to participate fully in the General Conference during that period of time.

The most controversial issue that dominated the meeting related to the election of new members for the World Heritage Committee. After numerous rounds of voting, Group 1 countries lost a seat on the Committee, and Group II countries failed to get a single seat. However, five Arab countries were elected, which may significantly change the dynamics at the World Heritage Committee meeting in Quebec this summer.

Because there was a great deal of dissatisfaction with various aspects of the General Conference, including the late distribution of a number of documents, the new President of the General Conference, George Anastassopoulos, the Ambassador of Greece, decided to organize an informal working group that will examine issues relating to the recent General Conference, with a view to improving the next one. The U.S. is a member of that group and is participating actively.

Less than six months later we were fully engaged in yet another session of the Executive Board, this time led by its new Chairman, the Ambassador of Benin. Issues relating to climate change and sustainable development played a prominent role at the meeting. Fortunately, UNESCO’s climate change strategy is being led by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, which will help keep the focus of UNESCO’s efforts in this area on research and data, and on the effects of climate change on World Heritage sites. Moreover, as a result of being elected to the IOC’s Futures Council, the U.S. will be able to play an active role in helping to shape the IOC’s work in this and other areas.

However, we were not pleased by the attempt of some delegations to link issues relating to sustainable development to the Education For All initiative, as these delegations believe that EFA would become more visible if it were linked to another more high-profile and popular issue. This approach began at the EFA High-Level Group meeting in Dakar.

We think that this is a flawed and defeatist attitude, and that the best way to make EFA more visible is to give it the attention that it deserves, which includes having UNESCO take its EFA leadership role, which includes serving as the coordinator of the five UN agencies working on EFA, more seriously.

To his credit, the Director-General always refers to EFA as UNESCO’s top priority. However, even though most Member States say that they agree with this statement, they continue to ask the Director-General to develop new initiatives in a variety of other areas, including areas such as energy and migration that are already being dealt with by other UN bodies. Naturally this leads to a reallocation of resources away from EFA.

In general, however, we were very pleased with the results of the April 2008 Executive Board meeting. In addition to the rather weak support given to a Venezuelan proposal for a new convention on indigenous and endangered languages, an Egyptian attempt to force an Executive Board discussion of the highly controversial Mughrabi Gate issue in Jerusalem by placing it in a separate agenda item did not succeed. More importantly, a Cuban-Iranian initiative intended to polarize and politicize the Executive Board was unsuccessful.

The Cuban initiative, Item 48 as it soon became known to everyone, was intended to get UNESCO to give legitimacy to a declaration on cultural diversity and human rights that resulted from a September 2007 Non-Aligned meeting in Teheran. Cuba, as a member of the Executive Board and the Chairman of the NAM, the Non-Aligned Movement group at UNESCO, used UNESCO’s commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the rationale for this item.

In addition to the U.S., a number of European countries strongly opposed this initiative, particularly the French, because they feared that linking human rights to cultural diversity could lead to a denial of the universality of human rights, and potentially undermine or even destroy the value and effectiveness of the Cultural Diversity Convention. In fact, France, Belgium, and several other countries were instructed to demand a vote on this item if the draft resolution was not significantly revised, which was fine with the Cubans who also wanted a vote. However, other countries in the NAM understood the damage that would be done to the organization by a vote on this issue, and so after much negotiation, a vote was avoided and consensus achieved.

Moreover, as promised, a scaled-back plan of action for the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was presented. A major international conference with preparatory regional conferences had been dropped, in favor of more modest round tables, and several new ideas were adopted, including one from the U.S. which suggests translating the Declaration into 120 additional indigenous languages. Not only does this idea enable more individuals to become aware of the rights to which they are entitled by the Universal Declaration, it is sensitive to the great importance that UNESCO’s Member States give to languages.

We were particularly pleased by the way the Executive Board addressed various administrative and management issues. A U.S. resolution asking for another report on the progress being made with resolving the problems of UNESCO’s Brasilia office was adopted with virtually no discussion, in contrast to previous heated debates on this topic. A strong attempt to eliminate one of the Executive Board’s committees, the Group of Experts on Financial and Administrative Matters, failed.

A resolution to increase transparency on UNESCO consultants was successful, as was a tough resolution on the issue of UNESCO publications, which had been drafted before the recent Washington Post article on that subject. Attention was also paid to the renovations being done at UNESCO’s headquarters, with much concern being expressed over the 2.4 million Euro cost overruns for the project.

The collegiality and solidarity of most of the members of the Executive Board was quite striking, and would bode well for the future, except for the fact that many of the most knowledgeable and reliable Ambassadors will be rotating out of their positions at UNESCO this summer. Given the important role that personality plays at UNESCO, it remains to be seen whether their replacements continue in the same tradition.

Although we have five months before the next Executive Board, the U.S. Mission will continue to be extraordinarily busy. Among other things we are actively involved in helping UNESCO organize a meeting to be held in mid-June in Bahrain entitled Youth @ The Crossroads: A Future Without Violent Radicalization. This meeting will gather experts from around the world to exchange experiences and highlight best practices, including local community-based programs that might help keep youth from being exploited by terrorist or other extremist groups. On-going support for this initiative could help reduce violence among youth and help reduce the threat of instability in key countries around the world.

We are also working with the National Science Foundation on a conference to be held in Washington in late June that will bring together senior members of the U.S. science community to address future global challenges relating to water, and to strengthen our work with UNESCO in this area. Science diplomacy is a potentially important adjunct to traditional diplomacy, and one that should be strengthened, given the number of developing countries that place science and technology at the center of their development strategies.

U.S. strategic interests can also be advanced through UNESCO’s Culture Sector. In addition to being an active member of the twenty-one member World Heritage Committee, which is dealing with very complicated and difficult issues, we continue to be interested in the U.S. funded program on museums and endangered movable objects. You will hear about this program later on in your meeting.

We will also try to make sure that UNESCO’s various culture conventions, including the new conventions on intangible culture and cultural diversity, maintain their own specificity, which means that they must be implemented and governed by their own Intergovernmental Committees, and that efforts by UNESCO’s Culture Sector to create linkages between these conventions do not succeed.

Of course our interest in education continues to be as strong as ever, particularly in literacy. The fifth of the six regional literacy meetings was just held in Azerbaijan, and the final one will be in Mexico in mid-September. These have been very successful, and have succeeded in raising the profile of literacy worldwide. Certainly this would never have happened without the leadership and personal commitment of UNESCO’s Honorary Ambassador for the Decade of Literacy, Mrs. Laura Bush.

We will also continue to support UNESCO’s work in EFA, and its efforts to promote education at all levels, as well as to provide equal educational opportunities for girls, minorities, and disabled individuals. In this regard let me congratulate Benita Somerfield for being appointed to the Board of UNESCO’s Institute for Lifelong Learning. Another American, Mark Schneider, was also recently appointed to the Board of UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics.

We will also give continued strong support to issues involving freedom of expression, and in particular to the International Program for the Development of Communication. Thanks to the election of your former National Commission Executive Director, Marguerite Sullivan, to the Bureau of the IPDC, the U.S. was very influential at the recent IPDC meeting.

Upcoming challenges in this area will involve the safety of journalists and various issues relating to the World Summit of the Information Society, including topics relating to Internet governance like multilingualism and the ethics of access to information.

Other issues that may be very challenging for us in the future are the continuing pressures to use UNESCO as a way to turn social and economic goals into new “rights”, and the differing ideas of what a “right” actually means. One example of this is discussion about a so-called “right to the city”. Just as our efforts have led to a cessation thus far in the development of new conventions and declarations by UNESCO, we must make sure that we prevent what are described as “emerging rights” from being recognized by UNESCO.

We must also keep a close eye on issues involving bioethics, which is why we are pleased that the Director-General has named an American, Carter Snead, as an independent expert member of the International Bioethics Committee.

Although I have mentioned the names of Americans that have been appointed or elected to various UNESCO bodies, we are still very under-represented regarding Americans working in full-time positions at UNESCO. Please pay attention to UNESCO job openings, and do everything you can to encourage qualified Americans to apply for those jobs.

There is of course much more to say about our activities of the past year, particularly in the important area of cultural diplomacy. We organized a jazz night, the showing of the movie Amazing Grace on the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, and a Fusion Arts concert with the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs that featured eighteen young musicians from the U.S. and five other countries. UNESCO’s biggest room, Salle 1, was packed for all these events, with more than 900 people attending the Fusion Arts concert.

On June 6th we are going to take a busload of Ambassadors to Normandy to commemorate the 64th anniversary of D-Day, and at the next Executive Board in October we are going to bring the terrific exhibition organized by the National Endowment of Humanities, Picturing America, to UNESCO. Commissioner Bruce Cole, as well as Commissioners Ann Radice of the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Adair Margo of the President’s Council on the Arts and Humanities, will participate in the exhibit’s opening and closing events.

Since I am almost out of time, I’d like to end my remarks by mentioning the most important issue facing UNESCO and the U.S. in the immediate future, which is of course the election of a new Director-General at the General Conference in October 2009. This will be the first time in 27 years that the U.S. will be engaged in the election process.

The selection of a new Director-General is critical for the organization, not only because that individual gets to choose his or her cabinet and the senior staff, but also because approximately one-third of UNESCO’s staff will reach the mandatory retirement age in the next five years. Moreover, since the U.S. has no veto at UNESCO, it is of the utmost importance for us that a new Director-General who is supportive of active U.S. engagement at that organization be selected.

The Chairman of the Executive Board is supposed to send a letter to all the delegations in June outlining the D-G selection process that took place last time. The process will be discussed at the October Executive Board, after which the Executive Board will send out a formal letter inviting individuals to apply for the position.

What makes this election process a bit awkward is that several candidates have already been actively campaigning for months. It is also unfortunate that although the U.S. really needs to play a major role in this process, both the State Department and the Mission will be facing significant changes in personnel and leadership. We must make sure that despite the transition to a new Administration, the U.S. voice at UNESCO remains strong during this crucial time.

So on that note let me say that it has been a real honor and privilege to have served as the U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO for the past four and one-half years, and to have been able to work with so many of you to promote our goals at UNESCO.

Although I expect to be in Paris for another six months, the time will go quickly, and I will not have another opportunity to thank all of you one last time for your enthusiasm and support, and to pay public tribute to my extraordinary staff at the U.S. Mission who have worked so long and hard to advance the interests of our country at UNESCO: Steve Engelken, my excellent Deputy Chief of Mission, Mike, Caitlin, Sally, John, David, Geoff, Holly, Robin, Sophie, Olivier, Amelia, and many others who have served at the Mission at one time or another.

I also want to pay tribute to our Deputy Assistant Secretary, Gerry Anderson, who has had the UNESCO portfolio at IO. Gerry has had to spend hours on the phone patiently listening to me fuss about one UNESCO issue or another, and he has frequently given me invaluable advice. Thank you Gerry, wherever you are!

Thank you also Susanna, Kelly, Alex, Laura, Emily, Ross, and all the other dedicated individuals at IO who have helped support the U.S. Mission during the past few years. What a ride it has been! Certainly I hope that our collective efforts have set the stage for the next team to continue to be successful with the U.S. engagement at UNESCO, and that their efforts, combined with your support, will enable that organization to contribute even more effectively to the advancement of peace and security throughout the world.