What can save UNESCO? 9783732997947, 9783732902163

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POLITIKWISSENSCHAFT

What can save UNESCO? Klaus Hüfner

Frank & Timme Verlag für wissenschaftliche Literatur

Klaus Hüfner What can save UNESCO?

Politikwissenschaft, Band 9

Klaus Hüfner

What can save UNESCO?

Verlag für wissenschaftliche Literatur

ISBN 978-3-7329-0216-3 ISSN 1862-6130 © Frank & Timme GmbH Verlag für wissenschaftliche Literatur Berlin 2016. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Das Werk einschließlich aller Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlags unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Herstellung durch Frank & Timme GmbH, Wittelsbacherstraße 27a, 10707 Berlin. Printed in Germany. Gedruckt auf säurefreiem, alterungsbeständigem Papier. www.frank-timme.de

Table of Contents Foreword............................................................................................................. 7  Chapter 1 Introduction .................................................................................. 9  Chapter 2 UNESCO – An Overview ........................................................... 15  2.1  Origins........................................................................................................... 15  2.2  Membership ................................................................................................. 18  2.3  Purposes and Functions.............................................................................. 21  2.4  Organizational Structure ............................................................................ 25  2.5  Present Working Priorities......................................................................... 43  2.6  NGOs and National Commissions for UNESCO ................................... 53  2.7  Development and Perspectives .................................................................. 57  Chapter 3 The Present Financial Crisis .......................................................... 61  Chapter 4 Reform Proposals and Policies ...................................................... 81  Chapter 5 What can save UNESCO? ............................................................... 93  5.1  Selected problem areas ................................................................................ 93  5.2  Problems of Programming in the Planning Process............................. 117  5.3   An Agenda for Change ............................................................................. 126  Literature ........................................................................................................ 133 Index .............................................................................................................. 141 

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List of Documents Document 1

Development of UNESCO Membership, 1946–2014

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Document 2

UNESCO: Medium-Term Strategy 2014-2021 (37 C/4)

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Document 3

Organizational Structure of UNESCO, 2014-2015

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Document 4

UNESCO: Article V of the UNESCO-Constitution before the changes adopted by the 26th session of the General Conference on 24 October 1991

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Document 5

UNESCO: Article V of the UNESCO-Constitution after the changes adopted by the 26th session of the General Conference on 24 October 1991

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Document 6

UNESCO: Staff Development, 1970-2016/2017

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Document 7

UNESCO: Adopted Regular Budgets and Working Capital Funds, 1965-1966 – 2016-2017 (in million US dollars)

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Document 8

UNESCO: Voluntary Contributions for Extra-Budgetary Activities, 1971-2014 (in million US dollars)

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Document 9

WFUNA Plenary 2012: UNA-Germany/Resolution (final version adopted)

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Document 10 UNESCO is in Danger – Causes, Consequences and Solutions (An open letter)

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Document 11 Multilateral Educational Financing as reflected in the EFA Global Monitoring Reports, 2002-2015

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Document 12 Multilateral Educational Assistance in Comparison, 1971-2011 (in million US dollars)

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Document 13 Multilateral Educational Assistance, 1971-2013 (in million US dollars)

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Document 14 Development of the Number of UNESCO Member States and of the Number of Ratifications of the Convention against the Discrimination in Education, 1961– 2014

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Document 15 Procedure which should be followed in the Examination of Cases and Questions which might be submitted to UNESCO Concerning the Exercise of Human Rights (Resolution 104 EX/Decision 3.3 of the Executive Board, 26 April 1978)

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Document 16 Summary of the Results of the Application of the Procedure laid down by 104 EX/Decision 3.3, 1999–2013

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Document 17 Changes in the Global Architecture between 1946 and 2010 – Implications for the UNESCO Programme

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Foreword

The abrupt financial crisis of UNESCO which started in November 2011 led to the publication of a German version of this book in July 2013. The United States declared that her obligatory contribution can no longer be paid because of the membership of Palestine. The author has subsequently made a number of proposals to resolve the financial crisis, but without any concrete feedback (see chapter 3). With the question “What can save UNESCO?”, the author indirectly assumes the necessity for survival of the Organization. In other words, if UNESCO didn’t exist it would have to be created. But it would have to be set up in a different way. Even if the current financial crisis is settled, the work of the Organization cannot continue as before. Because this financial crisis shows that another crisis which is a structural one must be overcome. Many readers will wonder since quite a number of reforms have been already proposed and even implemented over the past decades. Indeed, this has been the case but those reform proposals didn’t question at all the established structures (see UNESCO (1996), UNESCO (1997), and chapter 4). The question is not only whether UNESCO is able to provide constructive inputs as a catalyst within its areas of competence to addressing the many complex world problems, but also, and above all, how UNESCO must be re-organized and appropriately funded to carry out these tasks. It will be necessary to consider these issues in detail in the following chapters. If it is possible to overcome the current financial crisis and implement both significant organizational-structural reforms as well as a concentration on a few functions and fields of activity, then UNESCO could perform a leading, especially intellectual role within the United Nations system. Not only insight but also courage is needed for this purpose. Neither the one nor the other can be expected from the Member States and their diplomatic missions in Paris alone. Rather, it is important to mobilize civil society with its NGOs including Academia. Only if they are interested and fully engaged, the Organization has a

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promising future to serve as laboratory of ideas, as a think tank for the benefit of world society. When the former Assistant Director-General for Culture, Lourdes Arizpe, was interviewed about her work in UNESCO during the early 1990s she first noted that among the government representatives in Paris often a considerable degree of mistrust prevailed (“Oh, these bureaucrats in UNESCO are terrible. They don’t work. They don’t do anything. They are inefficient”). However, among her staff it has been said: “Well, the problem is that having the delegations in Paris, breathing down our necks, makes it impossible to work well”. Her conclusion was therefore: “My analysis indicated that the inefficiency of the bureaucracy was inherent structure to a governance structure in which political interests were paramount over quality, substance and fairness. I used to say that working in UNESCO was like working in a government in which all the political parties are in power at the same time” [Transcript of Interview of Lourdes Arizpe in: United Nations Intellectual History Project (2007): p. 31]. There is no doubt that this degree of politicization and increasing influence of the Member States (“governmentalization” of the Organization) caused her to return to her university in Mexico. Therefore, it must be clarified whether and how UNESCO can return to its origins as demanded by the provisions of its Constitution. The author wishes to thank the publisher Frank & Timme and its staff for the friendly service and cooperation. Of course, only the author is responsible for the content and related errors. Although being engaged in several activities in institutions of UNESCO, he expresses only his personal opinion and invites the public, especially the interested NGOs and the research community, for a discussion of his criticism as well of his proposals for a better future of UNESCO. Berlin, September 2015

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Klaus Hüfner

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Chapter 1 Introduction

The ever increasing critique directed against the UNESCO has become pervasive. We must consequently question whether or not this leveraged critique is justified, and, if it is, then what are the reasons for behind failings. Upon this, the last question we must ask is whether or not the Organization still has a right to exist. The actual yardstick with which we are measuring here is rather ambitiously long. If one looks to the Preamble to the UNESCO Constitution, its goals are phrased as such and still valid today:  since wars begin in the minds of men and women, it is in the minds of men and women that the defenses of peace must be constructed;  that the wide diffusion of culture, and the education of humanity for justice and liberty and peace are indispensable to the dignity of humankind;  that a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world and  that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of humankind. Who would dare to question such noble goals as these which are described in Article I of the UNESCO Constitution, namely “to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations”?

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The well-known American political scientist Thomas Weiss once posed the heretical question of whether or not the United Nations and the UNESCO could have any future at all. Weiss was quoting J.P. Singh who in his introduction wrote that the UNESCO, like many other UN institutions, represents “a functional tragedy of our own making, suffering from power politics, lack of resources, ineffectiveness, and managerial ineptitude” [see Singh (2010): p. 1]. These statements represent both extremes – on one side there is the exaggerated claim concerning goal-setting, and on the other hand there are the visible shortcomings in the various attempts to realize said goals. Without a doubt, the current financial crisis facing the Organization has led to a violent shock which can no longer be overcome through the normal, and in very general terms formulated suggestions for reform. Rather, and in full agreement with Thomas Weiss, the Organization needs to undertake a fundamental transformation. Our starting hypothesis purports that UNESCO has, both due to internal structural erroneous developments as well as due to fundamental changes in its environment, floundered into a structural crisis. To emerge from this crisis, the Organization cannot only concentrate on a select few, albeit new key aspects of content. Rather, a fundamental structural transformation must take place. The point here is to implement meaningful revisions both in the implementation of previous activities, as well as in the development of adequate structures for such operations. Hitherto existing suggestions for reform since the year 2000 have been made by only assuming the framework of the preexisting structures. In other words, no one ever questioned whether this historically inherited division of labour between the General Conference, the Executive Board, and the Secretariat, could remain capable of functioning in the face of increasing “governmentalization”. With already over 380 million US dollars in back fees having accumulated between 2011 and 2015, this “financial veto” of the United States presents a threatening situation to UNESCO. This situation is then compounded by the passive stance taken by EU Member States, such as France and Germany, who are not offering any constructive suggestions of how to bridge the present gap in the current financial dilemma. Much to the contrary, these States have merely silently noted the existence of alternative financial proposals which are

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then tacitly filed away. As a result of this unwillingness and/or inability to act, neither 2011’s 36th General Conference’s Working Programme and Budget for 2012–2013 nor 2013’s 37th General Conference’s Working Programme and Budget for 2014–2015 could be fully implemented (for details see chapter 3). The scope of UNESCO’s activities had to be significantly reduced as compared with the range of activities originally foreseen. Also, the same must be expected for the implementation of the forthcoming programme and budget for the biennium 2016–2017. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the origins, the membership, the structure, and the functioning principles of the UNESCO. The point of this is not merely to give a programmatic retelling of the various activity areas of the UNESCO; rather it aims to explain the structural “governmentalization” of the Executive Board and its subsidiary bodies that began with a constitutional reform during the early 1990’s. This reform – in addition to severely violating the “spirit” voiced in the Constitution – led to considerable imbalances in the UNESCO’s decision-making structures, thereby playing into the hands of politics and disadvantaging academia as one of the most important NGO partners. One section deals with the present working priorities in the different sectors of the Organization which demonstrate the broad range of activities and the implicit difficulties of undertaking interdisciplinary work. Another section is dedicated to the relevance of civil society and the National Commissions for UNESCO, as well as how these commissions function as a link between UNESCO and the various national, governmental, and nongovernmental institutions. Finally, the chapter concludes with some remarks about the development of the Organization and offers some perspectives to be taken into account. Chapter 3 is dedicated to the current financial crisis facing the Organization. Indeed, it is often opined that the crisis will increase the pressure to start a “comprehensive structural reform”: a sentiment which is even shared by the present Director-General, Irina Bokova. But beyond the usual notions that are thrown about such as “efficiency and effectiveness”, the “reduction of bureaucracy”, a “focus on the programme activities”, no specifics have been men-

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tioned from the side of the Member States as to how these comprehensive reforms of UNESCO’s structure should actually look like. Furthermore, this chapter will explicate on the measures for overcoming the financial crisis as being implemented by the Director-General, as well as which consequences these will have for the implementation of the programmes. At the same time, a number of suggestions for solving the problems will be offered, suggestions which – despite the looming incapacity of the Organization – have not been openly discussed up to now. The enacted regular budget from the 36th session of the General Conference for 2012–2013 had to be reduced from 653 to 465 million US dollars and the adopted regular budget for 2014– 2015 had to be reduced from 653 to 507 million US dollars. This is UNESCO’s present reality: working with de jure nominal zero budgets which had to be considerably reduced to de facto expenditure plans. Even if the 38th session of the General Conference in November 2015 will adopt a regular budget for 2016–2017 of 667 million US dollars, the de facto expenditure plan will amount to 518 million US dollars – a modest increase by 11 million US dollars on the planned expenditure side. The United States’ continued refusal to pay her compulsory dues has caused the regular UNESCO budget for 2014–2015 (653 Million U.S. dollars with nominal zero growth) to be passed during the 37th session of the General Conference in 2013 under the condition of an expenditure plan being 22 percent below. With no end to the situation in sight, a special meeting of the Executive Council on 4 July 2013 settled upon a reduced upper level of 507 million US dollars alongside a corresponding reduction of activities [UNESCO/Executive Board (2013h)]. Previously, special sessions of a working group (which were open to all Member States) met in order to work out compromises through priority setting [UNESCO/Executive Board (2013g)]. The same procedure must happen in the case of the 2016–2017 regular budget. In chapter 4, some suggestions and measures for reform will be presented in which the Report of the Independent External Evaluation of the UNESCO takes the centre stage [UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b)]. In addition to this, the chapter also looks at various other reform suggestions that have come into discussion since 2000. Through this it should become clear that UNESCO’s history is not only one of financial crises, rather it can also be summed up as a

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history of reform attempts. Even though there has always been talk of a postulated “comprehensive structural reform” from time to time, there have rarely ever been reform approaches which target the pre-existing structural arrangements. The final chapter poses the central question as to what could save UNESCO in future. Chapter 5 consists of three sections. The first section presents a number of selected problems. These problem areas highlight the necessity of a radical transformation of thought, particularly in regard to the questions of focus areas and priority setting. The second section of chapter 5 is dedicated to the problems related to the use of programming techniques which are applied during the planning process. Even though one cannot discern an inner logic of aggregation among the priorities expressed by the individual Member States, this procedure remained universally accepted and has only been seriously questioned on isolated occasions. In the concluding third section, some concrete suggestions are made for an active participation of the Member States in UNESCO. These suggestions are not only directed at the various governments, but are also directed to call upon a much more active engagement from civil society and, above all, from academia. These suggestions stress the need for a comprehensive structural reform whilst acting as a motivation to earnestly question the hitherto procedures, topics, and work of the Organization.

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Chapter 2 UNESCO – An Overview 2.1

Origins

The founding of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) can be traced back to an initiative originating in the multiple meetings (from 16 November 1942 to 5 December 1945) of the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME) during the Second World War [for an overview see Intrator (2015)]. Representatives of a number of allied, often occupied, countries met to discuss educational issues in anticipation of the post-war period. At one of the CAME meetings in April 1944 the US delegation convinced the Conference to found an international organization, called United Nations Organization for Educational and Cultural Reconstruction. As found in the UN Charter which had been signed on 26 June 1945, the United Nations expressed its intentions to promote international cooperation in the areas of culture and education (Article 55). On 16 November 1945 the representatives from 37 states signed the draft Constitution of UNESCO, in which the states declared in the Preamble – still well under the impression of fascist crimes against humanity – “that since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”. This idealistic central idea (the deconstruction of demonizing concepts of enemies, as well as a positive notion of peace) expressed the hope that the upbringing and education to become an ‘ideal human’ is in fact the foundational precondition in securing world peace (“UNESCO Idea”). In this context, peace means more than the mere absence of overt hostilities – “a condition in which war is affirmatively prevented by the dynamic and purposeful creation of a decent and human relationship between the peoples of the world – a condition in which the incentives to war are neutralized by the social, spiritual, and economic advances created and achieved” [Archibald MacLeish at the first session of the General Conference of UNESCO; quoted in: Sewell (1975): p. 115].

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The founders of the UNESCO harkened back to numerous examples which came about in concrete suggestions around the year 1900 [see Renoliet (1999): p. 11-12]. On 4 January 1922, the Council of the League of Nations – two years after its founding – decided upon the formation of an International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (CICI) which would be comprised of twelve major scientists (which later became eighteen, and then nineteen) [for a more detailed breakdown, see Renoliet (1999): p. 184-185] It was felt that an organization which only dealt with political issues would not suffice to prevent another war. This “League of Minds” (Paul Valéry, one of the most eminent and active members of the CICI) would then serve as a consulting body which would nevertheless not possess any administrative authority. On 9 August 1925, and with the wishes of the Federal Assembly of the League of Nations, France decided to found a legally independent International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation (IICI), an Institute with its own Secretariat which was to be headquartered in Paris. In this case, the CICI carried on its function as a board of trustees for the newly founded Institute. Already in its founding moments, the UNESCO found itself embroiled in several conflicts: (1) Should UNESCO act as a governmental or as a non-governmental organization (NGO) after the CICI model, or rather use a combination of the two in the style of a tripartite structure as found in the International Labour Organization (ILO)? In the various discussions during CAME’s meetings, the French recommendation put forth the idea that the membership should be comprised of both, NGOs as well as governments [see at length Sewell (1975): p. 72–77]. The General Conference ought to have the right to grant voting in the plenary body to expert organizations which were active worldwide. Analogous to the previously mentioned national commissions for intellectual cooperation, every Member State would be required to found their own national commissions with representatives from the various expert fields, which then themselves would be UNESCO’s responsibility. Five of the eight delegates from each and every Member State respectively should come from the aforementioned national commissions. Even the expert-NGOs should likewise be well represented in the exclusive Executive Board: “The General Conference was exhorted to select for the Executive Board persons competent in the arts, the humanities, the sciences, education and the diffusion of ideas” [Sewell (1975): p. 67]. Similarly, much attention was dedi-

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cated to the organizational structure of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The ILO characterized itself through its tripartite system (made of two governmental delegates, one delegate representing employers, and one representing employees) both in the annual International Labour Conference as well as in the Governing Board. At the time even ILO representatives put forth similar suggestions, whereby the adoption and monitoring of international norms were supposed to be at the centre of UNESCO’s charge. (2) Should the UNESCO be active as an organization only for education and culture (“UNECO”)? Or should it inclusively act in other areas (such as science and communication)? Article 55 of the UN Charter merely mentioned an organization of “international cultural and educational cooperation”. (3) Should the Organisation act with a comprehensive and unitary doctrine in the sense of a worldwide scientific humanism, a “Vision of the World’s society as an organic ensemble” [Julian Huxley, who incidentally was elected to be the first Director-General of UNESCO; see Huxley (1947), Huxley (1965)]? Or should the organization act in a strictly functionalistic sense and limit itself to those practical functions as borne by the majority of its members? In this debate, Huxley’s notions of an organization which dedicated itself to a theory of human progress were not to prevail; rather the majority of the delegates at the Inaugural Assembly in November 1945 wished that UNESCO would preserve the diversity of identities and cultures [see here Vermeren (2011): p. 28–29]. The notion of a “New Humanism” was also put forward six years ago by the then newly-elected Director-General Irina Bokova [see Bokova (2010); Halimi (2013)]. For Bokova, the main intention above all was, with reference to the Preamble to the UNESCO Constitution, to couple the above concept with the prevailing dangers as confronting world society. At same time she wanted to pinpoint the extent to which the UNESCO was capable of contributing to the solving of these problems. UNESCO’s organizational structure (see Document 3) noticeably reflects the various compromises that have been made. The Constitution adopted in 1945 made UNESCO primarily an intergovernmental organization, with the limitation, later gradually removed, that the Executive Board should be composed of individuals representing the General Conference as a whole rather than indi-

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vidual governments. The crisis in the Organization did not only come to bear with the withdrawal of the United States and the United Kingdom in 1984 and 1985, rather, the crisis today is, and has always been an expression of the differing positions that were formulated during its foundation. In other words, the discussions concerning the strengths and weaknesses of UNESCO are as old as the Organization itself, and as such, they will continue to persist unless a conscious effort is made to recollect and concentrate upon specific goals in a corresponding structural-institutional environment.

2.2

Membership

According to Article II of the UNESCO Constitution, Members of the United Nations Organization (UN) also have the right to membership in the UNESCO. States which are not Members of the UN may be granted membership to UNESCO upon recommendation from the Executive Board and with a two-thirds majority vote of the General Conference. Document 1: Development of UNESCO Membership, 1946–2014

The number of Members in the UNESCO rose from 28 Members in 1946, to 80 members in 1956. The number in turn doubled to 161 by 1983 (see Document 1). Alone in the period from 1960 to 1962, 24 newly founded States

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joined the Organization as the decolonisation process in Africa was taking place. Through the emergence of numerous new States at the end of the Cold War as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia imploded, the Organization experienced further growth from 1991 to 1993, whereby the total membership increased from 160 to 180 States. At the end of 2014, the UNESCO was comprised of 195 Members (see Document 1) as well as 9 Associated Members (Anguilla, Aruba, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Curaçao, Faroe Islands, Macao (China), Sint Maarten, and Tokelau). In 1952 and 1953, the Eastern industrial States of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland temporarily resigned from their cooperation in UNESCO which was, in their opinion during this specific period of the Cold War, under the dominating influence of the United States and hence permeated by an anticommunist mind-set. In April 1954, the Soviet Union together with Byelorussia and Ukraine joined UNESCO which soon brought the re-engagement of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland. Early in 1955, South Africa announced her intention to withdraw from UNESCO at the end of 1956 citing the ongoing critique of its apartheid policy. After almost 40 years of her absence, South Africa returned to the Organization in early December 1994. In summer 1971, the then colonial power of Portugal (which had been a Member State since 1965) announced her withdrawal from the Organization to be carried out at the end of 1972; nonetheless the country returned in September 1974. Israel, a state which had been Member of UNESCO since September 1949, was never once excluded from the Organization; rather the country was refused admittance as Member of the Regional Group for Western Europe and North America with 48 votes against, 33 in favour, and 31 abstaining in the General Conference of 1974 [see Hüfner (1975)]. However, this decision was reversed soon thereafter in 1976. On 31 December 1983, the United States declared her withdrawal from the Organization for the end of the forthcoming year. Above all, the United States accused the Organization of having strongly politicised all the issues it dealt with (especially those issues pertaining to the communication sector), that it maintained a hostile stance vis-à-vis private institutions of free society, that it did not adhere to the no growth budget as demanded by the United States, and in general that the Organization exhibited poor internal man-

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agement [on this topic see Hüfner/Naumann (1996), as well as Coate (1988)]. Ghébali interpreted the withdrawal “in the light of the Reagan Administration’s multilateral diplomacy whose declared objectives are to: (a) reassert an aggressive American leadership in international organisations; (b) advocate an active role for the private sector in multilateral affairs; (c) increase American representation in international secretariats; (d) induce international organisations to implement a budgetary policy of zero growth in real terms; and (e) cut back the number of international conferences held annually under the auspices of the UN system. In the same perspective, it should be recalled that the American reaction was not a move directed exclusively against UNESCO or for reasons pertaining specifically to the latter only. The Reagan Administration also wanted to use America’s withdrawal from UNESCO – an organisation rightly considered as the weakest institutional element in the UN global system – to intimidate, by a clear warning, other problematic institutions if not the whole UN family” [Ghebali (1986 ): p. 118)]. The United Kingdom invoked similar arguments to those of the United States nearly one year later, and with that, announced her withdrawal for the end of 1985 (Singapore withdrew in a similar fashion from the Organization at this time period, albeit for different reasons). Other Western States, among which were the Federal Republic of Germany and France, did not accompany the United States and the United Kingdom in their leaving the UNESCO; rather these States took up the position that a constructive reform of UNESCO could only be successfully be brought about from the inside. Nearly 12 years later, on 1 July 1997, the United Kingdom returned to the Organization. The United States then re-joined on 1 October 2003: a full nineteen years after she had withdrawn. John R. Bolton who “would have stayed out of UNESCO entirely” expressed his anti-attitude vis-à-vis the UN system in the following way: “Make no mistake, the Bush Administration’s decision to re-join UNESCO in 2003 was largely motivated by international politics. The theory was that the signal of bending the American knee to multilateralism would win Bush and the country plaudits from its former critics, and ease concerns about the cowboy unilateralists running administration foreign policy” [Bolton (2011): Introduction to the Transaction Edition, p. 8].

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On 27 April 1989 the Palestine Authority, following its 1988 declaration of statehood, submitted for the first time a request to the Executive Board to be admitted as a Member State. Up to October 2011, the Executive Board as well as the General Conference deferred consideration of the application and referred the agenda item to the subsequent sessions. On 5 October 2011, the Executive Board decided by a vote of 40 in favour, four against and 14 abstentions to recommend that the General Conference admit Palestine as a new Member State. On 31 October 2011, the 36th session of the General Conference decided upon Palestine’s application for admission with 107 votes in favour, 14 dissenting votes, and with 53 abstaining from voting. This decision brought the Organization into a severe financial crisis (for more details see Chapter 3), as the United States legislatively prohibits the financing of affiliated organizations of the United Nations which accept PLO/Palestine Authority as a Member State. At the 37th session of the General Conference in November 2013, the Membership of the UNESCO saw itself confronted with the question as to whether or not the United States ought to be allowed to exercise its voting rights in the General Conference because, as it is envisaged in the UNESCO Constitution, “a Member State shall have no vote in the General Conference if the total amount of contributions due from it exceeds the total amount of contributions payable by it for the current year and the immediately preceding calendar year” [Article IV C. 8. (b)]. Since this has been the case, the United States lost her right to vote in the General Conference but continued to be a full Member State of the Executive Board, being elected until 2015 .

2.3

Purposes and Functions

After its ratification by 20 signatory States, the UNESCO Constitution entered into force on 4 November 1946. In accordance with Articles 57 and 63 of the UN Charter, the agreement concerning the status of a specialised agency of the United Nations, as agreed upon by both the newly formed UNESCO and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the UN, was approved by the UN General Assembly on 14 December 1946. The intention of this agreement was

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to plan and foster the effectual cooperation and work between both organizations in the pursuit of their common goals. According to Article I paragraph 1 of the Constitution, the purpose of the UNESCO as a specialized agency of the United Nations is to “contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations”. In order to realize this purpose, the Organization will: (a) “Collaborate in the work of advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples, through all means of mass communication and to that end recommend such international agreements as may be necessary to promote the free flow of ideas by word and image; (b) Give fresh impulse to popular education and to the spread of culture: By collaborating with Members, at their request, in the development of educational activities; By instituting collaboration among the nations to advance the ideal of equality of educational opportunity without regard to race, sex or any distinctions, economic or social; By suggesting educational methods best suited to prepare the children of the world for the responsibilities of freedom; (c) Maintain, increase and diffuse knowledge: By assuring the conservation and protection of the world’s inheritance of books, works of art and monuments of history and science, and recommending to the nations concerned the necessary international conventions;

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By encouraging cooperation among the nations in all branches of intellectual activity, including the international exchange of persons active in the fields of education, science and culture and the exchange of publications, objects of artistic and scientific interest and other materials of information; By initiating methods of international cooperation calculated to give the people of all countries access to the printed and published materials produced by any of them” (Article I paragraph 2 of the UNESCO Constitution). The concrete realization of these objectives occurred through the implementation of three six-year Medium-Term Plans – or, alternatively, Medium-Term Strategies as they are called since 1995 (C/4 documents) – along with two-year working programmes and their respective budget plans (C/5 documents). The 28th session of the General Conference then enacted the 4th Medium-Term Strategy for the years of 1996 to 2001 in late autumn of 1995 (28 C/4). Facing great political upheavals in Europe during the early 1990s – all of which had had tremendous political, social, and economic repercussions also outside European borders – this Medium-Term Plan (28 C/4) was consciously designed to be more open and flexible. After a sobering look back at the last 50 years in the existence of UNESCO, the document likewise shifted its orientation towards the problems and challenges of the 21st century. Taking cue from two reports of the UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali – those being, Agenda for Peace (1992) and Agenda for Development (1994) – UNESCO aspired to make its contribution to the two overarching objectives of the UN system. They would achieve this by leveraging upon the activities in its set fields of competence. To that effect, the strategy document was broken down into two parts: (a) strategies for contributing to development and (b) strategies for contributing to peace-building. In late autumn 2001, the 31st session of the General Conference passed its fifth Medium-Term Strategy for the years of 2002 to 2007 (31 C/4); titled “Contributing to peace and human development in an era of globalization through education, the sciences, culture and communication”. This new strategy from UNESCO reflected the Action Plans for education, science, and culture as put

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forth at the Organization’s large World Conferences in the second half of the 1990s. Similarly, it oriented itself towards the international development goals as set till 2015 which themselves had been passed during the Millennium UN General Assembly in New York in September 2000. The Medium-Term Strategy connected the four main focus areas of the Organization – education, sciences, culture, and communication – by means of pushing a common objective whilst also defining twelve strategic objectives (with three objectives respectively for each program area). Building upon these twelve strategic goals, two cross-cutting themes were distilled and defined: 1. The eradication of poverty, especially extreme poverty, and 2. the contribution of information and communication technologies to the development of education, sciences and culture and the construction of a knowledge society. The sixth Medium-Term strategy for the period of 2008–2013 was passed by the General Conference in 2007 (34 C/4), and it declared its mission statement as follows: “As a specialized agency of the United Nations, UNESCO contributes to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information”. The strategy was meant to be implemented through five overarching objectives and a further 14 strategic programme objectives. As in past initiatives, the strategy was also interpreted as “rolling planning”, so that revisions could be added as needed. The fact that such measures were necessary at the end of the biennium 2012–2013 as a result of the “financial veto” from the United States came as a surprise (for details see chapter 3). In contrast to the previous Medium-Term Strategies before it, the seventh Medium-Term Strategy (37 C/4), as adopted by the General Conference in November 2013 (see Document 2), was no longer purposed for the upcoming six years. Rather, this Medium-Term Strategy is to cover the eight years till 2021 and contains as such nine new strategic objectives (for more information regarding the consultation process see section 2 of chapter 5). In light of the fact that the 70th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a Post-2015 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015, it will be necessary that the 38th session of the UNESCO General Conference, which will take place in November 2015, will then have to make programme revisions accordingly. This complicated process of synchronizing the then rather interdependent activities within the UN system are the result of

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UNESCO’s voluntary decision to become integral part of the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR) which serves as a policy instrument of the UN General Assembly to define the way how the UN development system operates. The QCPR deals with issues of funding operational activities for development and also the effectiveness of the work of the UN system for development. Document 2: UNESCO: Medium-Term Strategy 2014–2021 (37 C/4) Mission statement

“As a specialized agency of the United Nations, UNESCO – pursuant to its Constitution – contributes to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, and sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information.”

Overarching objectives

Peace

Equitable and sustainable development

Global priorities

Africa

Gender equality

Strategic objectives

SO 1: Supporting Member States to develop education systems to foster high-quality and inclusive lifelong learning for all

SO 2: Empowering learners to be creative and responsible global citizens

SO 3: Advancing Education for All (EFA) and shaping the future international agenda

SO 4: Strengthening science, technology and innovation systems and policies – nationally, regionally and globally

SO 5: Promoting international scientific cooperation on critical challenges to sustainable development

SO 6: Supporting inclusive social development, fostering intercultural dialogue for the rapprochement of cultures and promoting ethical principles

SO 7: Protecting, promoting and transmitting heritage

SO 8: Fostering creativity and diversity of cultural expressions

SO 9: Promoting freedom of expression, media development and access to information and knowledge

Source: UNESCO Executive Board: Medium-Term Strategy for 2014–2021. Paris: UNESCO, 3 March 2014, p. 11 (194 EX/18).

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2.4

Organizational Structure

The various organs of UNESCO are the General Conference, the Executive Board, and the Secretariat as headed by a Director-General (see Document 3). Document 3: Organizational Structure of UNESCO, 2014–2015

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General Conference The General Conference is the supreme body of UNESCO (see Article IV of the Constitution) and as such consists of the representatives from the Member States. Since 1954 the Organization has met every two years with the 38th session taking place in Paris in November 2015. Each Member State is granted one vote, irrespective of its geographical size, population, or contribution to the regular budget. This principle of “one state – one vote” is also applied in the plenary organs of most of the other UN specialized agencies, as well as in the General Assembly of the UN. Through this procedural mechanism the General Conference determines the policies and the main lines of work of the Organization, whereby its primary duty is to set up the work programmes and the budgets of UNESCO (C/5 documents). In addition to this, it also elects the Member States of the Executive Board and, upon the Board’s recommendation, is tasked with appointing the Director-General every four years. In the past, the General Conference approved every two years a Programme and Budget of the Organization (C/5 document) which defined the objectives, strategies, expected results, and financial allocations for each Major Programme and other Programme Sectors and Central Services. In 2013, the General Conference adopted for the first time a Programme and Budget (document 37C/5) for the period of four years (2014 – 2017). Decisions of the Conference are taken by a single majority vote of the Member States present and voting. In exceptional cases, such as the admission of new Member States which are not Members of the UN, the adoption of international conventions submitted for ratification by the Member States, or amendments to the Constitution (for further details see Rule 85 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Conference), a two-thirds majority is required.. Based upon an initiative of the then UNESCO Director-General Amadou Mahtar M’Bow at the 19th session of the General Conference in Nairobi, the Conference has since then decided to adopt decisions by consensus. On top of this, the Western industrialized countries also demanded that the consensus procedure be applied when adopting the regular budget – a wish which then became standard practice ever since the General Conference adopted the biennial budget for 1986–1987.

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Executive Board The General Conference is also responsible for electing the members of the Executive Board which currently consists of 58 Member States (which is equivalent to 29.74 percent of all Member States of the Organization – the second highest number of seats among the UN Specialized Agencies). These Executive Board members serve four-year terms, are eligible for immediate reelection, and half of them have to have their term renewed at each General Conference. The Board itself meets in regular sessions at least four times during a biennium. In addition to these regular meetings, the Board convenes during General Conference years after the main event concludes. The Board functions as a connecting link between the General Conference and the Secretariat and is responsible to ensure the overall management of the Organization. Acting under the authority of the Conference, the Board is responsible for the preparation of the agenda for the General Conference and the examination of the programme of work for the Organization on the one hand and for the effective and rational execution of the programme adopted by the Conference on the other. The Board has five other permanent subsidiary bodies (see Document 3): 1. Programme and External Relations Commission (PX); 2. Finance and Administrative Commission (FA); 3. Special Committee (SP); 4. Committee on Conventions and Recommendations (CR); and 5. Committee on NonGovernmental Partners (NGP). All Member States of the Board are automatically members of both commissions, the PX and FA, whereas the committees have a restricted membership. The Special Committee, which exists since 1956, has the task of supervising the implementation of the reforms introduced to improve the working mechanisms of UNESCO. In addition to the Committee, an Ad Hoc Preparatory Group was recently set up which meets before the sessions of the Executive Board. At present, the United States is one of the two representatives of Group I (Western European and North American States). At the outset, the Executive Board had 18 members being elected based upon their personal capacity. “UNESCO Executive Board provisions instructed official participants to elect from among Conference delegates eighteen individuals who

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were distinguished by their prowess in the organization’s substantive fields, qualified by their experience and capacity to fulfil the Board’s duties, and (as a group) balanced both geographically and culturally” ( Sewell (1975): p. 104). The basic idea behind this was that the General Conference was to elect intellectuals chosen for their outstanding abilities as well as for their independent outlook. They were not supposed to represent their respective governments. On the contrary, “they exercised collectively the powers delegated to them by the General Conference on behalf of the Conference as a whole” (UNESCO: Archive Group A65- Executive Board Documents). Since its inception until today there have been five constitutional amendments in addition to enlargements in membership. In 1952, the number of members of the Board was increased from 18 to 20 (33 EX/Decisions). Subsequently, in 1954 each member of the Board received the status of representative of the government of the Member State of which he or she was a national. Important to note, however, is that the members of the Board remained persons designated by individual name, and not by the name of the Member State. This period also saw an increase in membership from 20 to 22 persons (40 EX/Decisions). In 1955, the Executive Board introduced in its Rules of Procedure from Article V.12 of the Constitution: “Although the members of the Executive Board are representatives of their respective governments they shall exercise the powers delegated to them by the General Conference on behalf of the Conference as a whole” [Rule 9(2) in 41 EX/Decisions]. Ever growing, the membership of the Executive Board was further increased to 30 in December 1963 and by 1968, with its then 34 members, the Board underwent structural and procedural change. A number of changes where introduced: The General Conference mandated a non-renewable term of office of six years, a system of electoral groups was introduced in order to guarantee a more balanced distribution of seats, and lastly five groups of Member States were introduced. This change was expanded then in 1972, whereby the term of office was further reduced from six to four years and was likewise made to be nonrenewable. This coincided with the number of members rising to 40. In 1976, Article V.A.4 of the Constitution was changed. Along with the numerical increase of Board members from 40 to 45, the Article amendment addressed the

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issue of replacing Board members during their term of office. In exceptional circumstances, a represented State could ask for a replacement of her representative even if he or she did not tender his/her resignation. Rule 10 of the Rules of Procedure of the Board was accordingly changed and read: “10.(a) In the event of the death or resignation of a member of the Executive Board, his replacement for the remainder of his term shall be appointed by the Executive Board on the nomination of the government of the State the former member represented. 10.(c) When exceptional circumstances arise, which, in the considered opinion of the represented State, make it indispensable for its representative to be replaced, even if he does not tender his resignation, measures shall be taken in accordance with the provisions of subparagraph (a) above”. In October 1991, Article V of the Constitution was modified, changing the status of members from persons to Member States, coming in to effect starting with the 27th session of the General Conference in 1993. This revision of the Constitution was the result of an initiative undertaken by Japan with the aim of “to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the Organization”. The preamble of the decision made mention that the intended goal behind the revision was to strengthen the “intellectual role of UNESCO” whilst securing the full participation of the intellectual communities of all Member States in the work of the Organization remained wishful thinking when compared with the realities over the recent twenty-two years. Before introducing these changes to the Constitution as adopted by the 26th session of the General Conference in 1991 (all of which are still valid today), the previous provisions should briefly be covered (see Document 4): At first, the Executive Board was elected by the General Conference from the delegates appointed by the Member States. “In electing the members of the Executive Board the General Conference shall endeavour to include persons competent in the arts, the humanities, the sciences, education and the diffusion of ideas, and qualified by their experience and capacity to fulfil the administrative and executive duties of the Board” (former Article V.2. of the Constitution). The members were elected for a term of four years and were not immediately eligible for a second term.

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Document 4: UNESCO: Article V of the UNESCO-Constitution before the changes adopted by the 26th session of the General Conference on 24 October 1991

Article V. Executive Board A. Composition 1. The Executive Board shall be elected by the General Conference from among the delegates appointed by the Member States and shall consist of forty-five members each of whom shall represent the Government of the State of which he is a national. The President of the General Conference shall sit ex officio in an advisory capacity on the Executive Board. 2. In electing the members of the Executive Board the General Conference shall endeavour to include persons competent in the arts, the humanities, the sciences, education and the diffusion of ideas, and qualified by their experience and capacity to fulfil the administrative and executive duties of the Board. It shall also have regard to the diversity of cultures and a balanced geographical distribution. Not more than one national of any Member State shall serve on the Board at any one time, the President of the Conference excepted. 3. Members of the Board shall serve from the close of the session of the General Conference which elected them until the close of the second ordinary session of the General Conference following that election. They shall not be immediately eligible for a second term. The General Conference shall, at each of its ordinary sessions, elect the number of members required to fill vacancies occurring at the end of the session. 4. (a) In the event of the death or resignation of a member of the Executive Board, his replacement for the remainder of his term shall be appointed by the Executive Board on the nomination of the Government of the State the former member represented. (b) The Government making the nomination and the Executive Board shall have regard to the factors set forth in paragraph 2 of this Article. (c) When exceptional circumstances arise, which, in the considered opinion of the represented State, make it indispensable for its representative to be replaced, even if he does not tender his resignation, measures shall be taken in accordance with the provisions of sub-paragraph (a) above. B. Functions […]

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Document 5: UNESCO: Article V of the UNESCO-Constitution after the changes adopted by the 26th session of the General Conference on 24 October 1991

Article V. Executive Board A. Composition 1. a) The Executive Board shall be elected by the General Conference and it shall consist of fifty-eight Member States. The President of the General Conference shall sit ex officio in an advisory capacity on the Executive Board b) Elected States Members of the Executive Board are hereinafter referred to as “Members” of the Executive Board. 2. a) Each Member of the Executive Board shall appoint one representative. It may also appoint alternates. b) In selecting it representative on the Executive Board, the Member of the Executive Board shall endeavour to appoint a person qualified in one or more of the fields of competence of UNESCO and with the necessary experience and capacity to fulfil the administrative and executive duties of the Board. Bearing in mind the importance of continuity, each representative shall be appointed for the duration of the term of the Member of the Executive Board, unless exceptional circumstances warrant his replacement. The alternates appointed by each Member of the Executive Board shall act in the absence of its representative in all his functions. 3. In electing Members to the Executive Board, the General Conference shall have regard to the diversity of cultures and a balanced geographical distribution. 4. a) Members of the Executive Board shall serve from the close of the session of the General Conference which elected them until the close of the second ordinary session of the General Conference following their election. The General Conference shall, at each of its ordinary sessions, elect the number of Members of the Executive Board required to fill vacancies occurring at the end of the session. b) Members of the Executive Board are eligible for re-election. Re-elected Members of the Executive Board shall endeavour to change their representatives on the Board. 5. In the event of the withdrawal from the Organization of a Member of the Executive Board, its term of office shall be terminated on the date when the withdrawal becomes effective. B. Functions […]

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This stands in contrast to the revised Constitution of 1991, where the Executive Board no longer consists of individual highly-qualified members, but rather of 58 Member States simply referred to as “Members”. Those members of the Executive Board are asked “to appoint a person qualified in one or more of the fields of competence of UNESCO and with the necessary experience and capacity to fulfil the administrative and executive duties of the Board” (see Document 5) as well as serving for four years. From this wording, it is now assumed that each elected Member State nominates its representative for the duration of a term of those four years. New here is as well the provision that the Member States are eligible for immediate re-election; upon which, it is assumed that the Member States will change their representatives on the Board. Germany and France both had evidently mixed feelings regarding the changes to the constitutional provisions and as such initiated the adoption of resolution 15 titled “Intellectual cooperation in UNESCO and setting up of an ad hoc forum of reflection” at the 26th session of the General Conference on the 4 November 1991. This resolution indicated that the Member States themselves were to appoint qualified persons to the Executive Board in accordance with Article V of the Constitution. In addition, a number of other measures were suggested that would strengthen the intellectual cooperation within UNESCO. Finally, the General Conference called upon the Executive Board to accordingly set up a forum “which would be responsible for identifying and defining a number of vital issues representing new challenges coming within the Organization’s mandate”. At the outset of 1992, the Director-General presented the 139th Executive Board a series of suggestions for the proceeding course of action [see UNESCO/Executive Board (1992)]. In his suggestions, the Director-General hinted that UNESCO had apparently already decided to establish other fora: in the same vein, the 26th session of the General Conference in 1991 was marked by the establishment of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century (26C/Resolution 1.1) which then formally constituted itself under the direction of Jacques Delors in 1993 and subsequently produced the report “Learning: The treasure within” in 1995 [see Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century (1996)]. Moreover, the World Commission on Culture and Development was created (26 C/Resolution 3.4) which then likewise – with the former SecretaryGeneral of the UN Javier Pérez de Cuéllar serving as its chairperson – present-

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ed its report in 1995 [see Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development (1995)]. In order to avoid unnecessary redundancy, the Director-General put forth the suggestion that all Members in their first session of the newly founded UNESCO Forum ought to either:  express their opinion on UNESCO’s function in a rapidly changing world, or  suggest new methods of operation in the various fields of competence areas of the Organization in partnership with other high-ranking organizations, or they should  develop new approaches to galvanize international cooperation which would modernize the operational methods of the Organization regarding its preparation and implementation of the upcoming fourth Medium-Term Strategy. The UNESCO Ad hoc Forum organized two meetings in January and September of 1993. These consisted of 21 important persons who were determined to express their opinion on what UNESCO’s role should become in the 21st century. Their eventual recommendation stressed that the Organization should focus all of its energy first and for most in the area of education, particularly for the youth. With the motto “Learning without borders”, UNESCO Educational Networks would sprout up worldwide with the help of modern information and communication technologies, and likewise be made available to everyone. “The great challenge of the twenty-first century will be to satisfy the world’s educational needs: to reduce to a minimum the rate of adult illiteracy, to extend basic education to all by giving everyone access to the knowledge to be able to work, live in dignity and participate in the development of the community” [UNESCO/Executive Board (1993): paragraph 29]. The experts of the Ad hoc Forum confronted the Organization with the demand to cast a radical look at the status, role, and functioning of international organizations. “Democracy is on the agenda: but, at the international level, there is no concept of democracy which would enable the people to participate in decision-making. They are represented by governments, each one of which counts for one vote, regardless of the fact that they sometimes are very imperfectly representative of the will of the people. One may wonder if this type of representation and decision-making is the only one compatible with the sovereignty of States” [UNESCO/Executive Board (1993):

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paragraph 41]. With this, the Forum explicitly demanded that UNESCO include and investigate this question in the Organization’s intellectual mandate – a question which has consequences for each and every UN institution. Owing primarily to its ad hoc nature, the Ad hoc Forum of Reflection has since become dormant, and this has occurred in spite of it having been imagined as an intellectual counterweight to the Executive Board. As previously cited in the beginning of this book, Thomas Weiss levelled an exceptionally serious critique of the current state of the UN system as he delivered his speech in Bratislava to the representatives of the Europe and North America Region in autumn 2012 [see Weiss (2012)]. His recommendation was that UNESCO should make more financial resources available to intellectual initiatives in the upcoming Medium-Term Strategy with the goal of finding solutions to the fundamentally changed nature of the current problems facing the Organization. Similarly, he suggested that UNESCO should bridge the ever widening gap between modern scientific insights and political decisionmaking processes. UNESCO should temporarily bring intellectuals from universities and think tanks under its wing to conduct research; the Organization should create the unencumbered free space for truly independent research. His last recommendation touched upon the necessity for UNESCO to set up a research council: “UNESCO should excel at pulling together world-class intellectuals rather than trying to be all things to all men and women in a variety of technical cooperation activities” [Weiss (2012): p. 17]. Thomas Weiss’s views on this matter are by all means worthy of discussion. Though in spite of the fact that his biting and provoking commentary touched the core of that which has been known to all for quite some time, it still yielded no changes. Why is this so? Is it because of the pre-existing structures in the Executive Board and General Conference which don’t allow new ideas and practices? Is it due to the procedural intricacies of the UNESCO bureaucracy which stymie radical changes in thought? Or is it as a result of Member States representatives, in their understanding of their diplomatic function which merely permit the articulation of political self-interests? Indeed, it isn’t easy to devise solutions for this, but someone must dare to try. Hence, section 3 of chapter 5 has accordingly been filled with some starting suggestions. The centrepiece of which is a clear mandate for UNESCO and its

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Member States, namely the mandate to serve as a think tank and to make constructive contributions to the well-being for all of humanity. UNESCO’s current course runs the risk of a slow, but nonetheless assured collapse due to financial causes. It was already exceptionally problematic in 2013 to design a four-year plan for 2014–2017, let alone a medium-term strategy for 2014–2021 while using woefully unrealized and optimistic developments originally passed in 2011 as a base. So long as it is not guaranteed that all Member States will pay their required membership dues on time and in full, these documents should be furnished with the proviso that they are to be revised every two years. UNESCO should come to understand itself primarily as a think tank of the UN system. To have a research council with two central tasks – internally having interactions with the three main organs of the Organization, and externally having interactions with all research institutions within the UN system and all international specialist NGOs – would essentially signify a new beginning for the Organization. Academia would likewise be called upon to lend its combined weight to the effort. As evidenced by a simple comparison of Documents 4 and 5, provisions in Article V under (2) and (2.b) could remain untouched: namely those provisions which dictate how different persons, who generally are professional experts in many areas of UNESCO, are elected or appointed. In addition, said persons should already have the “necessary experience and capacity to fulfil the administrative and executive duties of the Board”. The difference in demanding appropriate expertise in UNESCO’s various domains is merely due to the fact that before the Constitution was changed, the responsibility of nomination was entirely left up to the General Conference, while after the Constitution’s revision, the responsibility fell onto the individual Member States as chosen in the Executive Board. A further point made in the provision to Article V must also be highlighted here as this nuance doesn’t find its due attention among the Member States of the Executive Board. Paragraph 2.b) advocates explicitly that every representative of a Member State is appointed for the entire term, i.e. for four years. Numerous examples set by Executive Board’s membership have conclusively shown that largely unfounded “exceptional circumstances” after 1995 have led to the spirit

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of UNESCO’s Constitution going unfollowed. In the period from 1995–1997, 16 Member States had already relieved and replaced their representatives in the Executive Board, and from those 16 two States did this twice, and a further two even ended up replacing their representatives three times. In 2009–2011, 26 Member States relieved and replaced their representatives, whereby five States did it twice and in doing so infringed on provisions of the UNESCO Constitution. In 2011–2013, twelve Member States replaced their representatives once, one Member State twice and another Member State even three times. In 2013– 2014, eleven Member States replaced their representatives once. Those changes in the composition of the Executive Board also implied corresponding changes in the whole subsidiary set-up of the Organization ranging from the Committee on Conventions and Recommendations which deals with human rights issues (for details see chapter 4) to the World Heritage Committee (see section 5 of chapter 2). In 2009, Mechtild Rössler interviewed former Director-General Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow who underscored the need for technical and professional expertise in the implementation for the World Heritage Convention stating clearly that Member States should be represented by professional experts rather than by their diplomats: “The great drama at UNESCO now in my view, allow me to go further, is the change to its constitution and countries being represented at the Executive Board by diplomats instead of by (…) In my time, it was professional people. We were elected in our personal name. It was not my country that sat at the Executive Board. I sat at the Executive Board as Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow, elected by the General Conference, to ensure that the secretariat carried out the resolutions voted by the General Conference (…) I think that professional representation, even if countries want to be represented, that countries should choose professionals and not diplomats. I have nothing against diplomats, but diplomats don’t have innate knowledge, they are not familiar with a certain number of problems. It is necessary to choose people who are knowledgeable and obviously know how to safeguard places. There, then, I am very clear and straightforward” [Cameron/Rössler (2011): p. 48]. Criticism against the Executive Board in particular is being articulated now more than ever before in recent times. A clear-cut example of such critique has come from the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom which determined in February 2011 that:

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 “UNESCO has a cumbersome governing body” (p.3).  “Historically the Executive Board has underperformed in terms of results management and prioritisation and it is not yet clear that there is sufficient recognition of the need to change” (p.5).

Secretariat The Secretariat is headed by the Director-General who, until 2001, was elected by the General Conference upon the recommendation of the Executive Board for a six-year term of office. Additionally and since 1999, the Director-General can only be up for re-elected to office one time. The 7th Director-General of the Organization, Amadou Mahtar M’Bow (Senegal) occupied the office from 1974 until 1987; his successor was to be Federico Mayor (Spain) from 1987 to 1999 who had already served once before as Deputy Director-General from 1978 to 1981. After his first term, Mayor was re-elected and served a second term from 1994 to 1999. Koїchiro Matsuura (Japan) was elected to a six-year term as the 9th Director-General on 15 November 1999. In spite of his being re-elected in 2005, his term merely lasted until 2009 due to the decision of the 31st session of the General Conference in fall of 2001 that limited both the first and second term of office to four years. On 15 November 2009 Irina Bokova (Bulgaria) became the first woman to occupy the position of the Director-General and was subsequently re-elected to serve a second four-year term from 2013 to 2017 during the 37th session of the General Conference in autumn 2013. The newly re-elected Director-General repeated her call for a new humanism in her introduction to the 37 C/4 and 37 C/5 draft versions when she decisively stressed that: “The human rights and dignity of every woman and man must be our starting point and the measure of our success. These times are calling for a new humanism that marries human development with the preservation of the planet and that provides equal access to all to the benefits of education, the sciences, culture, communication and information. This new humanism must build on renewed aspirations for equality and respect, for tolerance and mutual understanding, especially between peoples of different cultures. It must seek to craft more inclusive societies, guided by a profound concern for social justice and diversity”. The Director-General is furnished with considerable competencies in her position; she participates in a non-voting capacity in all sessions of the General Con-

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ference, of the Executive Board, and the various commissions; she regularly produces reports about the Organization’s activity (C/3 documents) which she imparts on the Member States and the Executive Board, and she designs the work plan and its corresponding budgetary suggestions for the Executive Board. Beyond this, the current financial crisis has led to the situation where the Director-General has been endowed with further powers for crisis management. Starting 4 years ago, richly illustrated UNESCO Annual Reports have begun to be published; and should apparently come to replace C/3 documents which are produced with a time lag of two years. This is evidenced by the last C/3 document having come out in 2015 which covered the period from 2012–2013. At the beginning of the 1980s the Secretariat employed approximately 3,400 staff members worldwide – a number which had remained roughly constant since 1974. In the years following 1985, there was a marked period of a considerable reduction of personnel. Today, this number corresponds to roughly 1,500 employees. This is a far cry from the initial 1,739 posts for the post-2014 period: a number which was specifically allotted due to the financial crisis in the draft 37 C/5 (see Document 6). Document 6: UNESCO: Staff Development, 1970–2016/2017 Year

Professionals (P)

General Service (GS)

Total

1970

1 671

1 597

3 268

1971

1 814

1 677

3 491

1972

1 889

1 704

3 593

1973

1 771

1 753

3 524

1974

1 731

1 756

3 487

1975

1 693

1 811

3 504

1976

1 442

1 730

3 172

1977

1 411

1 819

3 230

1978

1 443

1 858

3 301

1979

1 407

1 886

3 293

1980

1 501

1 960

3 461

1981

1 468

2 001

3 469

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Year

40

Professionals (P)

General Service (GS)

Total

1982

1 435

2 060

3 495

1983

1 382

2 066

3 448

1984

1 344

2 038

3 382

1985

1 234

1 937

3 171

1986

1 123

1 817

2 940

1987

1 077

1 784

2 861

1988

1 131

1 805

2 936

1989

1 045

1 682

2 727

1990

1 042

1 723

2 765

1991

1 027

1 744

2 771

1992

956

1 588

2 544

1993

941

1 460

2 401

1994

1 021

1 463

2 484

1995

1 012

1 426

2 438

1996

1 016

1 389

2 405

1997

1 021

1 320

2 341

1998

1 072

1 322

2 394

1999

1 126

1 359

2 485

2000

1 056

1 240

2 296

2001

1 041

1 236

2 277

2002

1 045

1 222

2 267

2003

1 065

1 128

2 293

2004

1 103

1 215

2 318

2005

1 080

1 170

2 250

2006

1 054

1 155

2 209

2007

1 055

1 138

2 192

2008

1 038

1 131

2 169

2009

1 038

1 095

2 133

2010

1 038

1 111

2 149

2011

1 044

1 069

2 114

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Year

Professionals (P)

General Service (GS)

Total

2012

988

1 002

1 990

2013

977

985

1 962

2014–15

665

780

1 445

2016–17

693

793

1 486

Sources: Yearbook of the United Nations, 1970–1999; UNESCO General Conference: Report by the Director-General on the human resources management strategy for 2011–2026. Paris: UNESCO, 23 August 2013, Appendix 2 (37 C/INF. 11); own calculations. For 2014–15 and 2016–17: UNESCO Executive Board: Report of the Director-General on ongoing and proposed reforms. Paris: UNESCO, 9 April 2015, p. 3 (196 EX/15.INF.2).

In 2014–2015, there were 665 professionals. In the case of the individual Member States, these senior positions are stratified and divvied according to a spread margin (maximum – minimum) which is determined by three factors (the ratios for which are: membership at 65 percent, financial contribution at 30 percent, and population size at 5 percent). This modified formula which introduced a population factor has been adopted at the 32nd session of the General Conference in October 2003. It resulted in a significant increase of the maximum quotas of highly populated countries, especially for China and India. As of June 2015, the United States (with the margin of 76–46) has only 29 persons engaged in higher positions and ends up being below the quota-margin. Noteworthy though is the case of France (with a margin of 22-13), which actually has 49 persons employed in the higher service and is therefore considerably overrepresented [UNESCO/Executive Board (2014a): Part V Annex I; see also 38 C/INF.4]. As found in the United Nations and in other UN specialized agencies, the recruiting of staff is dependent upon two criteria which are not completely consistent with each other. On one hand, the personnel has to have “the highest standards of integrity, efficiency and technical competence”, and on the other, the “appointment to the staff shall be on as wide a geographical basis as possible” (Article VI paragraph 4 of the UNESCO Constitution). The Secretariat is structurally organized into six sectors which cover the following working areas: education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, communication and information, external relations and public information.

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Given UNESCO’s diverse roster of activities, it is without a doubt clear that the activities in the various sectors lead to considerable coordination problems. The regular calls for a more focused concentration of the activities on one hand, and for the safeguarding of the interdisciplinary orientation on the other, especially as postulated by the current Director-General and her predecessors, has become the ever-present companion to conflict-laden programme discussions. Furthermore, these demands have often led to contradictory compromise strategies which, in light of the vastly differing interests of the Member States, are scarcely able to be realized. This is the reason why, for example, the Director-General’s suggestion to take the five pre-existing programme sectors and combine them into three failed to materialize in autumn 2012 although it was endorsed at the consultation of the Europe and North America region. It must be said, however, that it was rather unclear as to whether or not it was merely to be a pro forma “exchanging of plaques,” or whether it would have resulted in farther reaching structural changes. The Secretariat is headquartered in Paris and commands over a total of 68 branch offices (regional offices, national offices, and research establishments) in all areas of the world. In order to counteract the potential danger of a further fragmentation, the former Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura reduced the number of branch offices during his term. Those offices remaining were furnished with extra finances and personnel. In the time since this initiative was undertaken, we have steadily seen a renewed increase in the number of UNESCO offices and institutes. Nonetheless, the establishment of a UNESCO representation at the Headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels at the behest of Director-General Irina Bokova is a thoroughly welcomed development. In autumn 2014, Canada requested that the item “Consideration of the procedure to be followed for the nomination of the Director-General of the Organization” be included in the agenda of the 195th session of the Executive Board [UNESCO/Executive Board (2014): 195 EX/33]. Canada demanded an increase of transparency of the procedure and changes of the calendar. At the 196th session, the Executive Board decided in spring 2015 that the interviews of the candidates will take place during the spring session of 2017 “in private

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plenary session (extended to other Member States non-Member of the Executive Board)” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2015): 196 EX/Decisions, p.30]. As mentioned above, Irina Bokova will serve as Director-General of UNESCO until November 2017. After two election periods she cannot be re-elected. However, her government of Bulgaria nominated her on 18 June 2014 as a candidate for the Office of the UN Secretary-General which has to be finalized during the course of next year since the new term will start on 1 January 2017. For the time being, the Executive Board didn’t discuss related issues in private session. On the one hand, the question of who will run the Organization until November 2017 in case of her election as UN Secretary-General should be discussed, on the other hand the potential conflict of interest must be considered which may result from the fact that the five permanent members of the Security Council must reach a consensus on a candidate because the UN Secretary-General “shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council”(Article 97 of the UN Charter). Presently, all five permanent members of the Security Council are also members of the UNESCO Executive Board.

2.5

Present Working Priorities

Both in the fifth Medium-Term Strategy 2002–2007 (31 C/4) and in the sixth Medium-Term Strategy 2008–2013 (34 C/4) five functions were carried out by UNESCO to fulfil its tasks; they are still valid today, despite an ongoing debate about a reduction of activities which would imply a consensus about future priorities. Specifically, these are: (1) Laboratory of ideas (“think tank“): The Organization anticipates and defines, in the light of the ethical principles that it champions, the most important issues in its areas of competence and identify appropriate strategies and policies to address them. (2) Standard setting: The Organization sees itself as a central discussion forum for articulating the current ethical, normative and intellectual problems, fosters multidisciplinary exchange and mutual understanding, and is committed

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to the conclusion of international agreements (conventions, recommendations, declarations) on these issues and monitors its implementation periodically. (3) Clearing house: The Organization collects, analyses, disseminates and shares information, knowledge, and examples of best practice in its fields of competence; it identifies innovative solutions which are tested through pilot projects. (4) Capacity building in the Member States: The Organization helps to organize international cooperation to build human and institutional capacities in all its fields of competence. (5) Catalyst for international cooperation: The Organization acts as a technical multidisciplinary agency in its fields of competence as a catalyst for development cooperation and participates in other multilateral and bilateral programmes at national and regional level. In the Medium-Term Strategy 2008–2013 (34 C/4), UNESCO saw itself as a specialized agency of the United Nations that contributes to peace-building, poverty eradication, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information. This Medium-Term Strategy included five overarching goals:     

Reaching qualitative education for all and life-long learning; Mobilizing science, knowledge und policy for sustainable development; Dealing with emerging social and ethical challenges; Promoting cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and a culture of peace; Building inclusive knowledge societies through information and communication.

These overarching objectives have been translated into 14 strategic objectives that served as a basis for programme implementation. Given the financial crisis since 2011 and the necessary reductions of the programme content, a comprehensive evaluation of what has been achieved seems to be impossible.

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The Medium-Term Strategy 2014–2021 adopted by the 37th session of the General Conference in November 2013 contains nine strategic objectives of which the content resembles strongly with the five strategic objectives of the previous Medium-Term Strategy (see the consultation and planning process in section 2 of chapter 5 and an overview of the content in Document 2). In her introduction to the draft budget for 2016–2017 (38 C/5) the DirectorGeneral refers to 2015 as a turning point year related to the UN sustainable development agenda for the period 2016–2030. “This Programme and Budget is consistent with the Medium-term Strategy for 2014–2021 (37 C/4), and a direct continuation of the four-year programme defined for the period 2014–2017, to which minor adjustments to reflect evolving needs have been made” [UNESCO/General Conference (2015c): Introduction, p. ii] .

Education In the Education Sector the focus started with literacy and basic education. UNESCO acted as the lead organization for the implementation of the 10-year programme of action „Basic education for all” until the year 2000. In March 1990 UNESCO, the World Bank, UNDP, NGOs, and 155 Member States have signed the World Declaration on Education for All. In April 2000 an interim balance has been undertaken at the World Education Forum in Dakar/Senegal. A new action plan had to be adopted with the following targets: by 2015, the level of literacy will be increased by 50 percent and education for all will be fully implemented (Education for All; EFA). Since 2001 UNESCO started to publish the annual EFA Global Monitoring Report. It is an “independent publication … on behalf of the international community”. In 2015, the Report summarized the “Achievements and Challenges” for the period 2000–2015 (see also section 1 in chapter 5 on multilateral educational assistance). In her foreword, the Director-General clearly summarized what has not been reached: “And yet, for all this progress, 15 years of monitoring shows sobering results. – There are still 58 million children out of school globally and around 100 million children who do not complete primary education. Inequality in education has increased, with the poorest and most disadvantaged shouldering the heaviest burden … What is more, education remains underfinanced. Many governments increased spending, but few have prioritized educa-

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tion in national budgets, and most fall short of allocating the recommended 20 % needed to bridge funding gaps. The picture is similar with donors, who after an initial boost in aid budgets, have reduced aid to education since 2010 and not sufficiently prioritized those countries most in need”. Another priority is the – however, currently stagnating – international cooperation in the field of higher education despite the ignominious closure of the European Centre for Higher Education (UNESCO-CEPES) which took place in late 2011 allegedly for financial reasons [for details see Barrows (2011)]. One issue is the mutual recognition of higher education qualifications to be worked out in an international convention, another is the quality assurance of university degrees in the context of the GATS negotiations of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Important was the implementation of the UN World Decade 2005–2014 on Education for Sustainable Development. In 2009, the Education Sector of UNESCO organized three world conferences, on education for sustainable development in Bonn, on higher education in Paris, and on adult education (CONFINTEA VI) in Belém, Brazil. Special attention was given to the concept of inclusive education adopted at the 48th World Conference of Education Ministers in November 2008 in Geneva [see UNESCO/ICE (2008)]. At the 28th session of the General Conference in 1995 the report on education for the 21st century (“Delors Report”) was presented from which a clear impetus for the priority of education was expected. At least partially, issues were taken up in the discussion on quality education. A comprehensive educational programmatic has been developed with the concept of the four pillars of education: (1) learning to know; (2) learning to do; (3) learning to live together, learning to live with others; and (4) learning to be; unfortunately, most of the Member States didn’t care about its implementation. Although the four pillar model is often quoted in the context of a “new humanism”, only a few operational approaches are known. Today, a “renaissance” of this concept can be observed [see UNESCO (2015a), Elfert (2015a), Elfert (2015b)]. However, the question of how to implement all four pillars in the Member States remains to be answered. Of major importance for the education agenda 2030 are the outcomes of the World Education Forum 2015 which took place in Incheon, Republic of Ko-

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rea, in May 2015. The Forum discussed strategies to implement the post2015 education agenda (“Education 2030”). Based on a review of the Education for All process, over 1,600 participants adopted the Incheon Declaration which affirms the principles of education as a public good and a fundamental human right. The Declaration expresses a clear commitment to the proposed to the Sustainable Development Goal 4 “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all” and its 10 targets as included in the UN Post-2015 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Furthermore, collective commitments are postulated, inter alia, with regard to (a) the provision of twelve years of free, publicly funded, equitable quality primary and secondary education, of which at least nine years are compulsory; (b) the elimination of gender-based discrimination and violence in schools; and (c) the emphasis on education for sustainable development, global citizenship education and human rights education as integral components of quality education [for details see UNESCO/Executive Board (2015d) and http://en.unesco.org/world-education-forum-2015/ ]. No doubt, the World Education Forum formulated an ambitious global education agenda to be implemented until 2030 and to be led and coordinated by UNESCO. Two major questions must be answered in due time: (1) how to prioritize the commitments, and (2) how to close the global financial gap between available domestic resources and the total annual funding needs. It is obvious that fine sounding rhetoric can no longer replace a clear set of priorities in an age of limited resources. The Education Sector has a total of seven educational institutions. Among them, the International Institute for Educational Planning (UNESCO-IIEP) performed in a most successful way since 1963. It can be best characterized by both an excellent training programme and by innovative educational research activities. Furthermore, it is the only educational institution whose extraordinary funding exceeds by far its share of the UNESCO regular budget which will be only 7.5 million US dollars out of 25.5 million US dollars as foreseen for all seven education institutes during the biennium 2016–2017. Indeed, those institutes differ in many respects. Most recently, the external auditors referred to the internal auditors who have “stressed the risks of overlapping, wasteful competition and loss of performance created by the current lack

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of links between them” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2015e): paragraph 164]. In the light of the present financial situation, the external auditors offer solutions leading towards a “federated structure with a single governing body” since “they all come under strategic and operational supervision by the Education Sector” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2015e): paragraph 166]. Under these conditions, it will be extremely difficult to identify to what extent the institutes can exercise their “functional autonomy” (see also section 1 of chapter 5).

Natural Sciences Former Director-General, Amadou Mahtar M’Bow, has clearly described the triple task of UNESCO in the Science Sector in 1978 which should also apply to the activities: (1) to promote the advancement of knowledge through international cooperation, (2) to use the scientific activity as an opportunity to both a rapprochement between those who practice them and for a better understanding between the nations , and (3) to encourage that the achievements of science contribute to the improvement of the human condition and the material and spiritual progress [quoted from Vermeren (2011): p. 55]. UNESCO fosters – particularly in developing countries – the establishment and development of scientific research and training institutions as well as global networks of scientific and technical basic research. The Organization supports the research and protection of the living environment of human beings through numerous interdisciplinary research programmes. To be mentioned here is the long-term programme for international cooperation in environment research (Man and the Biosphere; MAB), initiated in 1970. The MAB programme which is governed by the Intergovernmental Coordinating Council of the Man and the Biosphere Programme (ICC-MAB), composed of 34 Member States elected by the General Conference, operationalizes its task through its most important instrument which are the UNESCO biosphere reserves conceptualized as model regions for sustainable development. This programme also supports research on especially important ecosystems, such as drylands, mountain areas and coastlines, with a view to curbing the loss of biological diversity. Worldwide, the network comprises 651 biosphere reserves in 120 States (as of June 2015). The fourth World Congress of Biosphere Reserves will be held in March 2016 in Lima, Peru.

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The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO was established in 1960 to act as the focal point within the UN system for the promotion and coordination of global marine science (including exchange of oceanographic data and information, tsunami early warning systems, protection of the marine environment). The IOC is a body with functional autonomy within UNESCO; the Commission works within its 147 Member States. The IOC Assembly adopted in 2013 the following vision for the period 2014–2021: “Strong scientific understanding and systematic observations of the changing world ocean climate and ecosystems shall underpin sustainable development and global governance for a healthy ocean, and global, regional and national management of risks and opportunities from the ocean”. In the report to 38th session of the General Conference on its activities during the last biennium the IOC mentioned that it has been strongly affected by the financial crisis, “not only through the reduction in its regular budget but also a loss of USA’s extensive voluntary contributions, which used to provide a solid funding base for its global programmes” (38 C/REP/9: paragraph 4). The International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) promotes, among others, projects on climate change and biodiversity in earth’s history. For instance, scientists undertake research to better understand “geohazards” which include earthquakes, volcanic activities, landslides, tsunamis, floods, meteorite impacts and the health hazards of geological materials. The International Hydrological Programme (IHP) is coordinating the study of the water cycle and the rational management of water resources with corresponding research projects of National Committees in more than 160 countries. Important to note is the creation of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) which derives from the report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability and specifically from recommendation 51 [United Nations/General Assembly (2012): p. 80]. The UN Secretary-General took the initiative and asked the Director-General of UNESCO to convene a small ad group of executive heads of UN institutions with a science-related mandate and of representatives of major scientific bodies. The ad hoc group concluded that the establishment of such a board would be an optimal solution. As a result, the UN Secretary-General requested the UNESCO Director-General to establish and chair a Scientific Advisory Board to advise him and other institu-

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tions of the UN system. Created in January 2014, the Board is composed of 26 eminent scientists representing all regions and many scientific disciplines. Hopefully, the Board will contribute to the strengthening of the linkage between science and policy and also serve as a model for re-organizing parts of UNESCO’s internal structure.

Social Sciences and Humanities The intergovernmental programme Management of Social Transformations (MOST) of UNESCO established in 1994 intends to promote interregional cross-linked and similar research activities in order to provide policy relevant results on problems of sustainable development. The present phase covers topics such as international migration, urban development, living together in cultural diversity, ageing and regional integration. The second phase focuses on questions of social sustainability of urbanization, of living together in cultural diversity, and the local feedbacks of global processes. Another priority takes into account the ethical dimension in the actual scientific and technological development. As early as 1993, UNESCO created the International Bioethics Committee (IBC). In 1999, this expert committee was supplemented by an Intergovernmental Committee for Bioethics. In 1998, the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST) was established which is currently dealing with ethical issues of sustainability, cyberspace and multi-media developments. Other issues are related to the areas of human rights, the fight against racism, and philosophy.

Culture UNESCO is the only organization in the United Nations system with this mandate. The Organization strives to preserve and promote world-wide cultural diversity and promote intercultural dialogue. As reflected in several resolutions of the UN General Assembly, the role of culture is generally recognized as a catalyst for sustainable, i.e. economic, social and environmental development. Unfortunately, this recognition is not explicitly integrated in the UN Post-2015 Agenda for sustainable Development. However, in his synthesis report of December 2014 the UN Secretary-General stressed the importance of culture in operational terms: “Finally, we must also mobilize the power of cul-

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ture in the transformative change we seek. Our world is a remarkable mosaic of diverse cultures, informing our evolving understanding of sustainable development. We still have much to learn from global cultures as we build the world we want. If we are to succeed, the new agenda cannot remain the exclusive domain of institutions and Governments. It must be embraced by people. Culture, in different aspects, will thus be an important force in supporting the new agenda” [United Nations/General Assembly (2014): paragraph 132]. One priority of UNESCO concerns the development and implementation of normative instruments in this area. These include the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (adopted in 2003; entered into force in 2006), the Convention on the Protection and the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (adopted in 2005; entered into force in 2007); the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (adopted in 2001; entered into force in 2009); the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (adopted in 1970; entered into force in 1972). Of special importance and most well-known as a flag-ship activity is the Convention for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage (adopted in 1972; entered into force in 1975). With 191 States Parties the Convention has almost achieved universality. It enjoys a tremendous popularity worldwide. UNESCO can be proud of this Convention – an excellent instrument created to honour and protect the cultural and natural heritage of the peoples of the world. It is difficult to understand why the staff at the World Heritage Centre had to be reduced from 42 to 24. As of July 2015, the world heritage list includes a total of 1,031 properties among which 802 are cultural, 197 natural and 32 mixed. The properties are located in 163 States Parties. In addition, the “Red List” should be mentioned; currently, 48 cultural and natural properties are included that are considered particularly at risk; for their maintenance extensive emergency measures are necessary. In 2012, the Director-General launched an initiative on “The World Heritage Convention: Thinking Ahead” which offers an opportunity to the advisory bodies and the States Parties to collectively review the main challenges facing the Convention. Several important issues are under discussion such as, for instance, a greater dialogue, transparency and cooperation in the nomination

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process; new nominations from States Parties that are members of the World Heritage Committee not to exam during their mandate; placing greater emphasis on conservation issues as compared to new nominations; the urgent need of increasing the availability of adequate financial and human resources (between November 2013 and January 2015, voluntary contributions to a subaccount of the World Heritage Fund amounted to only 42,097 US dollars); concerns expressed on the growing discrepancy between expert advice from ICOMOS and IUCN and decisions of the of the World Heritage Committee [WHC-15/39.COM/5C; see also Droste (2011): p. 38]. Five strategic objectives have been adopted by the World Heritage Committee which are the basis of its present work. The Committee intends to (1) strengthen the credibility of the World Heritage List; (2) ensure the effective conservation of the World Heritage properties; (3) promote the development of effective capacity-building in States Parties; (4) increase public awareness, involvement and support for World Heritage through communication; and (5) enhance the role of communities in the implementation of the World Heritage Convention (38 C/REP/19: paragraph 1). Given the recent intentional targeting and destruction of UNESCO world heritage sites the Director-General stated that UNESCO has a fulfil an important role in these circumstances to mitigate risks of destruction and pillaging through monitoring and capacity-building and to fight illicit trafficking of cultural artefacts from Syria and Iraq (see also UN Security Council resolution 2199 of 12 February 2015).

Communication and Information UNESCO is worldwide actively engaged for the right to information and press freedom and for the strengthening of the free exchange of ideas and universal access to information. These include the promotion of pluralism and cultural diversity in the media and global information networks and the building up of modern knowledge societies. The International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) which was created in 1980 is coordinated by an intergovernmental council; it supports the training of journalists, the creation of newspapers, radio stations and news agencies and the development of infrastructures in the developing and transition countries. Since 2010,

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UNESCO started at the initiative of IPDC activities within the UN system for the protection of journalists; an action plan for the safety of journalists was adopted in 2012. Also, safety-related areas such as countering hate speech, promoting conflict-sensitive reporting and the promotion of cross-cultural and cross-religious dialogue belong to IPDC’s priorities. UNESCO strives in an interdisciplinary approach to improve international exchange of information (statistics, databases, computer science, standardization of library systems, archives and copyright issues). With the adoption of the Recommendation on the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace and the Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage at the 32nd session of the General Conference in October 2003, important standards have been established that serve as a guide for policy and legislation in the international digital space and in the knowledge society. At the UN World Information Summit in December 2003 in Geneva which was continued in November 2005 in Tunis central controversial topics were discussed that are still on the UNESCO agenda, such as, inter alia, how to overcome the digital divide, and free access to knowledge produced by public funds (open access) to allow all people via internet worldwide access to information and knowledge. Since 1992, the UNESCO world register “Memory of the World” exists which is a global digital network with selected documents, valuable book collections, manuscripts, scores, video, audio and film documents. Currently, the register includes over 300 documents worldwide. Thus, UNESCO intends to preserve culturally and historically significant documents from oblivion and from destruction. Because with the inscription, countries of origin will ensure the conservation and availability of each heritage.

2.6

NGOs and National Commissions for UNESCO

According to Article XI paragraph 4 of the Constitution, UNESCO “may make suitable arrangements for consultation and co-operation with non-governmental international organizations concerned with matters within its competence, and may invite them to undertake specific tasks”. This cooperation may also include

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the active participation of international NGOs in the work of the advisory committees established by the General Conference. In fact, UNESCO has sought since its inception close working relations with international NGOs which developed so extensively that regulations (“directives”) were necessary. For the first time in 1966, then in 1995 directives were adopted. [see Martens (1999) und Martens (2000)]. The latest directives of 2011 which were adopted by the 36th session of the General Conference will be discussed below. The starting point was the independent external evaluation [see UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b)], in which a comprehensive strategy of partnership with civil society has been developed which considers the NGOs not only as “vehicles for programme delivery”, but also as partners in the fixing of targets of UNESCO [UNESCO/General Conference (2011c): paragraph 3]. It concerns a postulated culture of partnership in which the NGOs act as official partners of the Organization in both the formulation as well as the implementation of the UNESCO Programme. In future, only two categories of cooperation will exist. The closest form of cooperation is achieved through the associate status to be decided by the Executive Board. This status will be only available for international and regional NGOs which work together regularly and closely with the Organization. The partnership is limited to eight years but can be renewed. There is also the consultative status which allows the Director-General to cooperate with international, regional, national and local NGOs. The Organization should be able to enter into more flexible and dynamic partnerships with NGOs at all levels which are active in the fields of competence of UNESCO. The new directives describe in eleven sections in great detail possible cooperation patterns [see UNESCO/General Conference (2011c)]. It is also interesting to note that in the meantime the number of addressees from civil society has been enlarged; in addition to NGOs also media companies, the private sector and “other partners” are mentioned. In Article VII of the UNESCO Constitution which is entitled “National Cooperating Bodies” it is recommended that – a unique mechanism within the UN system – the Member States set up and finance National Commissions for

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UNESCO . They are supposed to fulfil two tasks in a bridging function: On the one hand they “shall act in an advisory capacity to their respective delegations to the General Conference, to the representatives and alternates of their countries on the Executive Board and to their Governments in matters relating to the Organization” (Article VII paragraph 2), on the other hand they shall function as “agencies of liaison” to maintain the many contacts with numerous NGOs in their countries and thus to act as a coordinating body for the implementation of the UNESCO Programme. Within the national commissions, whose tasks were specified in resolution 7/42 of the 20th session of the General Conference in 1978 (Charter of National Commissions for UNESCO), with the membership and participation of those NGOs which cover the scope of work of UNESCO it should be ensured that the expertise in the Member States is mobilized and that a broad range of the population will be interested. The tasks of the National Commissions for UNESCO as institutional partners of the UNESCO Secretariat extend to the drafting and implementation of the programme of the Organization. UNESCO draft programmes are to be discussed in advance through questionnaires addressed to governments and regional consultations with the National Commissions. The UNESCO Secretariat has to obtain the opinion of the National Commissions for all projects. The national commissions must be consulted prior to the conclusion of agreements of UNESCO with citizens of the countries concerned or other “national partners”. In fact, the practical work of the National Commissions covers the full range of UNESCO’s activities. They significantly influence the elaboration of UNESCO Programmes (discussion of strategies, proposals of new projects) and undertake to a large extent the preparation of Member States for the bi-annual General Conference (analysis and positioning); they organize meetings and implement projects in the Member States and participate in the implementation of recommendations and conventions of UNESCO. They provide experts for international conferences and projects as well as data for statistical surveys of UNESCO. They inform the public in their countries, distribute information material, and advise UNESCO Associated Schools, UNESCO Chairs, UNESCO Ambassadors of Good Will and UNESCO Clubs. They collaborate with the governmental administration, members of parliament, scientists, journalists, artists, with universities, associations and institutions and – last,

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not least – with NGOs. More recently, some national commissions started to initiate projects of public-private partnership. In order to revitalize and modernize the cooperation with National Commissions, the Executive Board decided in 2012 to establish a tripartite working group – made up of representatives of National Commissions, Permanent Delegations and the UNESCO Secretariat – which developed an action plan containing 14 concrete recommendations. This action plan defines general guidelines for the most appropriate legal framework and general structure to improve the work and interactions of National Commissions (“networking”). The variety of statutes and organizational structures of National Commissions is large. In general, three categories can be distinguished: (a) fully integrated governmental commissions whose secretariats are parts of ministries; (b) partially integrated governmental commissions which are not an integral part of ministries, but operate under the supervision of ministries in terms of finance and personnel; and (c) rather autonomous commissions which act as relatively independent institutions (as examples the study refers to the Federal States of Canada, Germany and Switzerland). In their analysis of 197 National Commissions the evaluators couldn’t place 42 commissions. Of the remaining 155 National Commissions the vast majority (121=61 percent) belonged to the first category, 24 (=12 percent) to the second and only 10 (=5 percent) to the third category [see UNESCO (2011)]. The number of members ranges from 15 (in Australia) to more than 200 (in France). In some cases, the chairperson shall be elected by the members of the National Commissions, but in most cases, the person will be appointed by the government. The staff of the secretariats of the National Commissions and their secretaries-general are almost exclusively civil servants or public employees. With regard to the institutional link to the government – in all their diversity – two models dominate: The majority of National Commissions is associated with national ministries of education, a lower number is linked with ministries of foreign affairs. For the cooperation with experts in their countries almost all National Commissions set up specialized committees in accordance with the fields of activity of UNESCO.

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However, whether a National Commission can actually be at the same time an active and respected partner of the government as well as of UNESCO and can represent the national scientific and cultural institutions depends not only upon the available financial and human resources and the representative composition of its plenary organ, but also upon the legal status, the degree of its actual capacity and willingness to act as well as its functional autonomy. If they are primarily tied to the provisions and decisions of their own democratically elected bodies, they can be in the position to act as institutions in a triple loyalty vis-à-vis the national organizations in the fields of education, science, culture and communication, vis-à-vis their governments and vis-à-vis UNESCO. It is under these conditions that they will be able to act as recognized mediators and to fulfil the three closely interrelated tasks, namely to advance the concerns of UNESCO in their own countries, to include the national concerns in the international work of UNESCO, and to accompany the work of UNESCO in a critical-constructive way. In other words, an optimal use of the expertise of a National Commissions for UNESCO requires that they receive an appropriate political framework of functional independence. Since 2014, as a follow-up action of the comprehensive review of UNESCO’s cooperation with National Commissions, an Annual Report of UNESCO National Commissions will be published by UNESCO in order to improve the networking among the Commissions [UNESCO (2014b)]. The first edition presented an overview of activities carried out in 2013; the second edition which appeared in 2015 contained the answers from 136 of the 199 existing National Commissions on the basis of “one National Commission – one page”.

2.7

Development and Perspectives

During the late 1950s numerous newly independent Third World countries joined the Organization; this also changed the general political climate. The universality of UNESCO shifted towards a world perspective which emphasized the North-South differences and eclipsed the East-West conflict until the end of the 1980s. With the change of membership of the Executive Board in 1995 UNESCO became a governmental organization in all its organs. At the sessions of the General Conferences, of course, UNESCO always dealt with general political issues. The defendant politicization of the United States and

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some of its Western allies was initially interpreted as a decreasing pro-Western political influence that resulted new majorities in the 1960s. This led UNESCO to a kind of development assistance organization (particularly in education) which participated since 1959 in a modest way with extra-budgetary means within the framework of UN multilateral technical assistance. The field of UNESCO’s activities is incomparable wide and extends from education via natural sciences, social sciences and humanities towards culture and communication including such areas as libraries and archives, sports and the international protection of human rights in the fields of the competencies of the Organization. Grown from the original 28 to 195 Member States of today, its fields of activity were and still are becoming more and more diverse. Today, UNESCO intends to cover the major world problems with a relatively small and moreover declining regular budget – by articulating the interdependencies of global problems and by presenting suggestions for their elimination and by strengthening international solidarity to secure the survival of humankind. The constitutionally guaranteed participation – partly via NGOs und UNESCO National Commissions, partly through direct agreements at the international level – as well as the already mentioned paradox concerning the “qualifications” of the to be elected Member States of the Executive Board result to a significant pluralism of interests given the diversity of tasks of the Organization. This manifests itself in centrifugal forces that can be held together, if at all, by the dominant role of the Director-General. In principle, UNESCO could and can, in view of the extremely small regular budget presently shortened by about a quarter, meet only modest functions. The Organization can offer an intellectual forum where ideas, opinions and experiences on current educational, cultural and scientific problems are exchanged at a global level (laboratory of ideas). UNESCO may also provide food for thought, develop concepts and pilot projects (function as a think tank, a catalyst and a multiplier for international cooperation). In addition, UNESCO fulfils a service function (clearing house): information processing and preparation in all fields of work (creation of globally comparable statistics, country studies, atlases, documentation for current problems as the threat of destruction of cultural monuments or of natural resources worldwide). Finally,

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UNESCO can promote international cooperation through conventions, recommendations and declarations. The future of UNESCO depends very much on whether the governments of the Member States are willing and able to articulate and shape as concretely and constructively as possible their substantive contributions as well as their political demands to the Organization with the help of their National Commissions and in close collaboration with non-governmental partners, including Academia. Confidence in the work of UNESCO and its success depend not least on the credibility of the cooperation of its Member States which is also reflected in their financial commitments (for details see chapter 3). Mere declarations of UNESCO ideals do not help; it is the tedious business to live with conflicts and differences of opinion in the face of the existing plurality in UNESCO, but at the same time looking for possible similarities in the implementation of goals and targets. If this were possible, UNESCO could provide as a think tank valuable services to other parts of the UN system. At the 37th session of the General Conference in November 2013 the Member States were faced with several problems at the same time: (1) adoption of a medium-term strategy that runs over eight years (37 C/4) (see Document 2); (2) adoption of a working programme for the next four years (37 C/5) and a budget for the next two years; (3) (re-)election of a Director-General for the period of four years. These activities were associated with considerable uncertainty as both the financial situation remained unclear due to the fact that the United States refused to pay her mandatory contributions; furthermore, the framework conditions remained unclear because of the at that time unknown contents of the UN Post2015 Agenda for Sustainable Development to be adopted in September 2015. In the following chapters, an attempt will be made to overcome the continuing crisis which refers to both the financial minimum security of the Organization and the necessary structural changes to agree upon a substantive priorityoriented programme for the future.

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Chapter 3 The Present Financial Crisis

Since the foundation of the Organization, budget negotiations have always been a subject of rather controversial debates. This has been shown already during the final phase of the negotiations within the Preparatory Commission. Julian Huxley, the first UNESCO Director-General, proposed about 10 million US dollars for the first budget year of 1947. The governmental representatives of the Commission simply reduced the amount to 7.5 million US dollars. Some representatives of Member States indicated that they received instructions to reduce this level again during the first session of the General Conference [Sewell (1975): p.126]. Also the second Director-General, Jaime Torres Bodet, has been confronted with a budget crisis. At the 5th session of the General Conference in 1950 he proposed a significant increase of the regular budget by drawing the attention to the military budgets of the Member States. At that time, he stated to an audience in the United States: “You cannot bring education, science, and culture to all the forgotten men and forgotten minds of a world with a budget which is less than eight million dollars a year” [quoted in: Sewell (1975): p. 144]. When he was confronted by rigorous budgetary constraints at the 7th session of the General Conference in 1952 he decided to resign from his post. Jaime Torres Bodet had proposed a budget of 20.7 million US dollars for the biennium 1953– 1954; the United Kingdom, the United States and other Member States suggested nominal zero-growth (“budget freeze of the 1952 level”) which implied a budget of 17.35 million US dollars. Finally, a compromise at the level of 18 million US dollars has been reached; nevertheless, the Director-General felt obliged to resign. These two cases of the first and the second Director-General of UNESCO indicate already quite clearly that the bargaining process about an appropriate budget level related to the tasks foreseen took always place between different groups of Member States and the Secretariat with the Director-General at its top.

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The 36th session of the General Conference adopted in autumn 2011 the budget for 2012–2013, prepared by the Director-General and recommended by the Executive Board together with the biennial programme. The General Conference decided to approve a budget ceiling of 653 million of US dollars for the financial period 2012–2013. Furthermore, the scale of assessments for Member States of UNESCO has been established on the basis of the UN scale, only taking into account the difference in membership between the two organizations (Article IX of the Constitution and Article 5.1 of the Financial Regulations).

Scale of assessments – Determination and percentage shares In 2012, the major five contributors to the regular budget of UNESCO were the United States (22.000 percent), Japan (12.531 percent), Germany (8.019 percent), United Kingdom (6.605 percent) and France (6.124 percent), followed by Italy (5.000 percent), Canada (3.208 percent), China (3.190 percent) and Spain (3.177 percent). 41 Member States had to pay the minimum of 0.001 percent, most of them belonging to the group of least developed countries. At this point the following comments should be made: (1) The assessment scale for the biennium 2012–2013 has been adopted by the 36th session of the General Conference in autumn 2011 on the basis of the UN assessment scale decided by the 64th UN General Assembly in December 2009. (2) However, at the end of December 2012 the 67th UN General Assembly adopted a new assessment scale for the years 2013–2015. Therefore, changes of the percentage shares among the major contributors had to be taken into account before the 37th session of the UNESCO General Conference started in November 2013. Within the new assessment scale of the UN the percentage shares of the following States decreased: Japan (10.833 percent), Germany (7.141 percent), France (5.593 percent), United Kingdom (5.148 percent), Italy (4.448 percent), Canada (2.984 percent) and Spain (2.973 percent). Whereas the percentage share of the United States remained the same (22.000 percent), the share of China increased visibly (5.148 percent). In principle, those percentage shares were also valid for the UNESCO assessment scale as from 1 January 2013.

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(3) Since the United States doesn’t pay her mandatory contributions since 2011 because of the UNESCO membership of Palestine, Japan and Germany are the two major “de facto” contributors to the regular budget of UNESCO.

The development of the regular budget of UNESCO Nominal zero growth has been the major demand postulated by the main contributors to the regular budget. During the six years between 1998–1999 and 2002–2003 the volume of the adopted biennial budget remained at the level of 544.4 million US dollars. This implied that the regular budget size actually sank in real terms, taking inflation into account (see Document 7). The same happened during the four years 2004–2005 until 2006–2007. During this period the budget ceiling remained at 610 million US dollars. Document 7: UNESCO: Adopted Regular Budgets and Working Capital Funds, 1965–1966 – 2016–2017 (in million US dollars) Year

Regular Budget

Working Capital Fund

Percentage

1965–1966

48.857

3.0

6.1

1967–1968

61.506

3.8

6.0

1969–1970

77.414

3.8

4.9

1971–1972

89.899

4.0

4.4

1973–1974

119.954

4.0

3.3

1975–1976

165.138

8.0

4.8

1977–1978

224.413

16.8

7.5

1979–1980

303.441

16.8

5.5

1981–1983

625.374

20.0

3.2

1984–1985

374.863

20.0

5.3

1986–1987

289.339

15.0

5.2

1988–1989

350.386

15.0

4.3

1990–1991

378.800

15.0

4.0

1992–1993

444.704

17.2

3.9

1994–1995

455.490

22.2

4.9

1996–1997

518.445

25.0

4.8

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Year

1

Regular Budget

Working Capital Fund

Percentage

1998–1999

544.368

25.0

4.6

2000–2001

544.368

25.0

4.6

2002–2003

544.368

25.0

4.5

2004–2005

612.000

28.0

4.1

2006–2007

610.000

28.0

4.6

2008–2009

631.000

29.0

4.6

.

2010–2011

653.000

30.0

4.6

2012–2013 1

653.000

30.0

4.6

2014–2015 2

653.000

30.0

4.6

2016–2017 3

667.000

30.0

4.5

During the biennium 2012–2013, actual expenses amounted to 520.500 million US dollars.

2 For the 2014–2015 programme budget the target under the expenditure plan is 507 million US dollars. 3

The regular budget for the biennium 2016–2017 will be adopted by the General Conference in

November 2015; the expenditure plan will be fixed at 518 million US dollars. The reduction of the regular budgets results from the non-payment of regular-programme contributions by the United States since 2011. Sources: UNESCO: Records of the General Conference. Paris: UNESCO. 1964ff.

Since the biennium 2010–2011, the financial situation is extremely difficult and questions the further existence of the Organization. Already during the second budget year 2011, the 22 percent of the United States were not received. Although 653 million US dollars have been foreseen for the three biennial budgets until 2015, the regular budget for 2012–2013 had to be reduced to 465 million US dollars due to the revenue deficit caused by the United States. The draft budget 2014–2015 included again the same budget ceiling of 653 million US dollars, but the 5th special session of the Executive Board on 4 July 2013 signalled already “in the event of a significant cash flow shortfall” that the financial crisis will lead to a crisis of existence. The Executive Board cautiously stressed the necessity of setting priorities “due to an impaired cash flow stemming from the non-payment of a significant sum of assessed contributions” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2013h): p. 1] and remind-

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ed the payment of mandatory membership fees. But the Director-General said much more explicitly: “Next year, to do tomorrow what we are doing today, we have only USD 653 M minus 22 %, which equals USD 507 M – from which we need to absorb inflation and statutory increases of USD 57 M. The result is a spending envelope of USD 450 M overall, which is equivalent to 30 % reduction” [UNESCO (2013d): p. 3]. As from the biennium 2014–2015 the General Conference adopted not only regular budgets but also expenditure plans which were about 22 percent lower (see Document 7). The same procedure can be expected for the biennium 2016–2017. Most probably, a regular budget of 667 million US dollars will be adopted, but the expenditure plan will be fixed at 518 million US dollars.

Extra-budgetary funding Besides the assessed contributions (“membership fees”) for the regular budget extra-budgetary funds can be acquired by the Organization which are primarily earmarked for operational activities in the field (“down-stream activities”) (see Document 8). These financial means come from a number of different sources, from other institutions of the UN system ( in the past, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNHCR and WFP were involved and will be reactivated through strategic partnerships), from Regional Development Banks and other regional institutions (especially from the European Commission). In addition, individual Member States offer voluntary contributions (e.g., funds-in-trust arrangements dealing with specific projects), but also increasingly from the private sector and even individuals. In most cases, the General Conference receives detailed information about the size and use of the funds afterwards; decisions are taken by the donor countries/institutions in agreement with the Secretariat.

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Document 8: UNESCO: Voluntary Contributions for Extra-Budgetary Activities, 1971–2014 (in million US dollars) Year

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UN Sources

Other Sources

Total

1971

39.9

3.7

43.6

1972

44.8

4.7

49.5

1973

40.8

9.1

49.9

1974

40.2

11.5

51.7

1975

52.7

12.2

64.9

1976

47.8

10.1

57.9

1977

38.3

17.0

55.3

1978

42.6

19.1

61.7

1979

56.4

20.0

76.4

1980

67.0

23.6

90.6

1981

66.0

30.7

96.7

1982

56.4

50.4

106.8

1983

54.8

36.0

90.8

1984

47.6

48.7

96.3

1985

46.4

33.9

80.3

1986

47.3

27.6

74.9

1987

40.4

29.4

69.8

1988

44.4

27.6

72.0

1989

45.5

31.9

77.4

1990

48.3

34.0

82.3

1991

48.2

39.0

87.2

1992

33.9

50.8

84.7

1993

30.8

51.7

82.5

1994

21.0

66.5

87.5

1995

25.5

62.3

87.8

1996

20.4

52.1

72.5

1997

24.0

64.7

88.7

1998

27.6

91.1

118.7

1999

31.7

134.0

165.7

2000

30.4

133.8

164.2

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2001

44.3

158.0

202.3

2002

70.6

182.2

252.8

2003

77.9

186.9

264.8

2004

24.2

217.0

241.2

2005

35.8

246.8

282.6

2006

24.6

266.4

291.0

2007

19.8

208.4

228.2

2008

21.4

187.4

208.8

2009

55.5

238.0

293.5

2010

45.9

237.0

282.9

2011

28.5

280.4

308.9

2012

42.5

289.9

332.4

2013

28.4

272.8

301.2

2014

25.0

288.7

313.7

Note: The numbers mentioned in documents 7 and 8 can be compared only as “proxies” because the adopted regular budgets are not identical with the actual expenditure incurred. Also the extraordinary total expenditure are not identical to the extraordinary total income that are not necessarily linked to the budget cycle. Sources: UNESCO / Executive Board: Reports of the Director-General. Paris: UNESCO, 1972 ff.; Communication with the UNESCO Secretariat; UNESCO document 187 EX/6 Part XII.

Between 1982–1983 and 1986–1987, these extra-budgetary contributions went down from 197.6 to 144.7 million US dollars, afterwards slight increases could be observed. Since 1998–1999 a clear increase of 284.4 million US dollars happened which led almost to a doubling of 517.6 million US dollars in 2002– 2003, a figure pretty close to the size of the regular budget. In 2006–2007, the extra-budgetary funds reached 519.2 million US dollars whereas the regular budget had an amount of 610 million US dollars (see Documents 7 and 8). Looking at the biennia of 2010–2011 and 2012–2013, significant voluntary contributions have been mobilized and reached about the same level as the regular budgets. However, the targets under the necessary expenditure plans were slightly above 500 million US dollars (see Document 7).

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United States immediately cut off the funding to UNESCO When in late October 2011 Palestine has been elected as 195th Member State by the UNESCO General Conference, the United States was forced to immediately cut off funding to the Organization because in the early 1990s the US Congress passed two laws stating that any UN agency that grants full membership as a State to the PLO/Palestinian Authority would automatically lose US funding. In concrete terms this meant that the United States didn’t even pay a cent for the 2011 regular budget, since the United States paid the mandatory contributions only during the last quarter of the current calendar year. Many international NGOs asked President Barack Obama during his first term of office to synchronize the mandatory payments with the budget years of the UN, UNESCO and other UN specialized agencies as it happened to be the case before the Reagan Administration took over, but without success. As a result, the United States owed UNESCO at the end of January 2012 not only 75 million US dollars of “old dues” but also 76 million US dollars “new dues” leading to a total of 151 million US dollars. At the end of 2015 the “debt mountain” will have reached about 383 million US dollars. In addition, it should be added that the United States ceased all extrabudgetary to UNESCO as from 21 October 2011. This also includes the assessed voluntary contribution (= one percent of annual contribution to the regular budget) to the World Heritage Fund. This financial plight of UNESCO reminds us of the situation in the mid-1980s. The budget 1986–1987 meant at the time – due to the withdrawals of the United States, United Kingdom and Singapore – a reduction of assessed contributions by nearly thirty percent. In the following years the Organization was faced with stagnating or declining budgets in nominal and real terms. During the three biennial budgets 1998–1999 to 2002–2003 the Organization received 544.4 million US dollars each which meant zero nominal growth or minus growth in real terms. Only with the re-entry of the United States, the regular budget for the biennium 2004–2005 could be politically enforced with an increase by only 11 per-

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centage points up to 610.0 million US dollars. This nominal stagnating level also existed for the biennium 2006–2007 (see Document 7) It was clearly expressed by the Member States that the old state from 1984– 1985 which would have implied an increase by at least 22 percentage points should be in no case renewed – a clear signal of lack of appreciation by the Member States vis-à-vis the Organization. Similar concerns also appeared in late 2011. But a significant difference should be noted. Whereas the United States left UNESCO at the end of 1984 and didn’t return to the Organization until October 2003, this time the United States has not declared to leave UNESCO. On the contrary, the United States has been elected on 2 November 2011 by the 36th session of the General Conference as a member of the Executive Board for four years as well as a member of the Board’s Ad Hoc Preparatory Group and thus clearly expressed to stay in the Organization. This non-payment has already led to a loss of the right to vote at the General Conference in 2013 and could also lead to a loss of a seat on the Executive Board when the United States will stand as candidate for re-election in 2015.

What to do? The Director-General, Irina Bokova, immediately travelled – during the 36th session of the General Conference – to Washington, D.C., to clarify to representatives of both parties that this non-payment must necessarily lead to programme cuts which are not in the interest of the United States. Furthermore, she explained to the members of the Executive Board that the programme and budget targets as adopted by the 36th session of the General Conference in autumn 2011 can only be implemented if on the one hand efficiency increases in the process of programme implementation can be realized and on the other hand voluntary contributions of the Member States to a newly established “Multi-Donor Emergency Fund” can be collected in order to fill the financial gap caused by the United States. Shortly afterwards, on 2 November 2011, the Director-General of UNESCO took position vis-à-vis the policy of the United States. She stressed that the non-payment of mandatory and voluntary contributions will weaken the effectiveness of UNESCO and its activities to build free and open societies. She mentioned as examples the development and maintenance of competition-

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oriented media systems in Iraq, Tunisia and Egypt as well as literacy programmes in regions of conflict, such as in Afghanistan and in Iraq. She stressed that UNESCO is the only UN institution that promotes Holocaust education worldwide. Finally, she appealed to the US Government, the Congress and the American people to find a way to continue support of UNESCO. She referred to the position of the State Department: “U.S. engagement with UNESCO serves a wide range of our national interests on education, science, culture and communications issues … we will work with Congress to ensure that U.S. interests and influence are preserved”. At the end of the 36th session of the General Conference, on 10 November 2011, the Director-General announced to establish a “Multi-Donor Emergency Fund” to fill the gap left by the withholdings of the United States. The term “MultiDonor” meant that not only Member States, but also public institutions, foundations, NGOs, the private sector and individuals were called for donations. At that time, the Director-General had to undertake a second measure for the regular budget 2012–2013. She introduced savings of 30 percent of the planned budget, which led to a reduction from 653 to 465 million US dollars. Those measures didn’t concern increases in effectiveness, that is to achieve pre-determined programme targets with smaller financial inputs, but implied a significant lowering of the planned activity level since a reduction of the staff has not been possible in the short-term. Given the financial difficulties these announcements appeared extremely optimistic, almost unrealistic. In Resolution 1 of the 40th Plenary Assembly of the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA), which was introduced by the UNA-Germany and unanimously adopted on 10 November 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, paragraph 3 refers to the situation that the overall cuts of 30 percent have led to an alarming decline of activities, namely to 57 percent in education, to 76 percent in culture and to 65 percent in communication and information (see Document 9).

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Document 9: WFUNA Plenary 2012: UNA-Germany I Resolution (final version adopted)

1. RESOLUTION: FINANCING UNESCO The 40th Plenary Assembly of the World Federation of United Nations Associations. 1. Reaffirming that UNESCO must continue to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, to sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information: 2. Deeply shocked by the present financial crisis of UNESCO, which led to a reduction of the present bi-annual budget from US$ 653 to US$ 465 million; 3. Realizing that this reduction of almost 30 per cent led to an alarming decline of activities, e.g. in the case of education activities by 57 per cent, in the case of culture activities by 76 per cent and in the case of communication activities by 65 per cent; 4. Concerned about the worsening cash flow situation of the Organization; 5. Appreciating the attempt of the Director-General to bridge the existing financial gap by adopting immediate cost-saving measures and setting up a Special Emergency Fund; 6. Recalls that the prompt and full payment of annual contributions to the regular budget is an obligation incumbent on Member States under the Constitution and the Financial Regulations of the Organization: 7. Asks all Member States of UNESCO to fulfill their Obligations accordingly; 8. Also asks the Member States to set up, if necessary, a medium-term loan fund in order to bridge the increasing financial gap; 9. Calls upon all UNAs and National Commissions for UNESCO to cooperate more closely in every way they can do in order to urge their national governments to overcome the present financial crisis of UNESCO. 10. Expresses its hopes that the priorities and reform initiatives as approved by the General Conference in 2011 can be fully implemented. 11. Urges the Member States to start an independent in-depth evaluation together with all NGOs concerned of the functional and structural problems the Organization is presently confronted with.

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Setting up an Emergency Fund as an attempt to solve the financial crisis The Multi-Donor Emergency Fund received money from the following sources:  Indonesia announced already in November 2011 a total of 10.0 million US dollars of which 4 million US dollars were part of a trusteeship agreement;  Kazakhstan paid in two instalments a total of 0.425 million US dollars into the emergency fund;  Turkey contributed at the end of January 2012 5.0 million US dollars. In addition, the following Member States made contributions to the Fund as at 31 December 2012: Algeria 6.6 million; Benin 0.002 million; Belize 0.01 million; Chad 1.0 million; Congo 3.06 million; Gabon 2.0 million; Iceland 0.1 million; Mauritius 0.02 million; Monaco 0.035 million; Namibia 0.05 million; Oman 2.0 million; Qatar 20.0 million; Saudi Arabia 20.0 million; and Timor-Leste 1.5 million US dollars. But the money didn’t flow in hoped dimensions. While the EU Member States withheld themselves nobly, Arab states were showing the flag. At the end of 2012 the Emergency Fund contained a total of 67.8 million US dollars. Until 31 December 2014 the Fund reached 75.4 million US dollars – this amount corresponded to the deficit caused by the United States in 2011. It remained to be mentioned that the “Western world” engaged itself in the following way: Monaco with 0.035, Iceland with 0.1 million US dollars and a “Group of Donors”(Andorra, Cyprus, Luxemburg, Monaco, San Marino) with 0.016 million US dollars, which corresponded to a total of 151,000 US dollars. Since Iceland is not a member of the European Union, only 51,000 US dollars can be accounted to the EU. Of course, there were some exceptions of members from the European region paying increased voluntary contributions which were, however, earmarked and not foreseen for the Emergency Fund. Those were, how could it be otherwise, the Nordic countries: Norway paid 20 million US dollars, Finland 3.25 million US dollars for the years 2012–2013, and Sweden 7 million US dollars for 3–4 years.

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Furthermore, the Director-General called on the Member States: 1. To increase the Working Capital Fund for the years 2012–2013 from 30 to 65 million US dollars, which meant from 4.6 to 10 percent and would have been unusually high; 2. to pay the mandatory contributions fully and promptly as early as possible what many Member States indeed did; and 3. to postpone the use of the procedure according to which those Member States having paid the mandatory contributions fully and promptly would receive a discount. Furthermore, the Director-General informed the 36th session of the General Conference in its concluding session that she will immediately review all activities for the months of November and December 2011 and cease certain activities temporarily in order to be able of revising the cost plans. It should be mentioned that the Director-General also realized that the financial shock can be interpreted as an opportunity for renewal: “I am well aware that this situation is also an opportunity to accelerate reform”. And: “I am absolutely ready to completely revise our action, working methods and structures within the Secretariat”. Finally, she drew three conclusions as results of the 36th session of the General Conference:  “to assume greater leadership across its entire mandate;  to focus an innovation by tackling new issues in new ways with new partners; and  to keep up the pace of change and build on the first results of reform” (10 November 2011 – UNESCOPRESS). In view of this worsening financial crisis it has been proposed by the author that it would be useful to communicate to the public those Member States of UNESCO having paid their annual mandatory contributions promptly and fully until the end of January in accordance with the Financial Regulations of UNESCO. In addition, those States having paid later but also in full should also be mentioned in public. This idea is not new; it was introduced by the former UN Secretary-General,

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Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and is practiced until today (Honour Roll; see http://www.un.org/en/ga/contributions/honourroll.shtml). Fortunately, UNESCO also decided to apply a similar approach. On UNESCO’s website information about the status of contributions is now offered on a weekly basis. As at 10 September 2015, the United States total unpaid dues stood at 382,747,387 US dollars; the last payment has been made on 23 June 2011.

Further options In an open letter addressed to all representations of UNESCO Member States in Paris and to all National Commissions for UNESCO on 28 September 2012, the author has made further proposals to overcome the financial crisis (see Document 10). Document 10: UNESCO is in Danger – Causes, Consequences and Solutions

An open letter to the Member States of UNESCO, the National Commissions for UNESCO, and those who believe in UNESCO’s service to humanity. 28 September 2012 Dear All: After 40 years of active honorary engagement in UNESCO affairs in many different functions I am extremely distraught about the present financial and political situation of UNESCO. At the end of October 2011 one of the founding members of the Organization decided not to pay the dues for the given year despite the fact that according to Article 5.5 of the Financial Regulations, Member States are requested to pay their annual dues promptly, i.e. within the first month of the calendar year, and in full. At the same time, the Member State concerned decided to remain in the Organization and was elected as Member of the Executive Board until 2015. The same decision – not to pay its dues – was also made in 2012. The consequences of this decision are alarming and going beyond the problem of sudden budgetary constraints. As of 31 August 2012, the Member State concerned owes over US $150 million to the Organization, thereby preventing the Secretariat from implementing the Approved Programme and Budget 2012–2013 [36 C/5 Approved] as decided by the 36th session of the General Conference in 2011.

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It is worth to recall the principle which is so dear to all democratic states including the Member State concerned: “No taxation without representation” also means “no representation without taxation”. If there are any doubts about this international legal norm, I suggest that UNESCO asks the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion [Chapter IV: Advisory opinions of the Statute of the ICJ]. Remaining Member State of UNESCO means that the accumulated debts have to be paid by the Member State concerned sooner or later. Unclear are only the date(s) and the level of interest to be paid. In the light of forthcoming decisions concerning the adoption of a Medium-term Strategy for the years 2014–2021 the Organization is confronted with an extremely high level of financial uncertainty. From available information it looks that the Director-General and the Executive Board decided to apply a policy of “wait and see”. Because adopted immediate cost saving measures and the setting up a Special Emergency Fund can only be necessary short-term measures to solve certain cash-flow problems. The budget ceiling has been reduced from US $ 653 million to US $ 465 million which represents a reduction of almost 30 per cent implying severe cuts of the Approved Programme and Budget 2012– 2013. This looks like letting UNESCO “bleeding to death”. I strongly argue that this policy is leading into the wrong direction. And all parties concerned are obliged to ask themselves about the medium-term consequences if the policy of “wait and see” continues. It can be easily foreseen that during the 37th session of the General Conference in 2013 we will be confronted with a much smaller Organization in terms of activities and personnel. This is why I have entitled this message “UNESCO is in Danger”. And I know that this is not only my personal view. Based on my analytical work about financing the United Nations system, I consider that the highest priority is given to the question of how to bridge the present financial gap. Which financing mechanisms should be applied in order to assist UNESCO in fulfilling its tasks today? Two options are possible. In order to fill the present gap of 22 per cent of the regular budget, all other Member States should increase their assessed contributions by 22 per cent – an amount to be treated as a loan. This loan would then be repaid as soon as the Member State concerned is paying the bill. If no consensus can be reached, the host country could guaranty a loan of the missing 22 per cent offered by the Caisse des Dépots et Consignations. If an alternative financing mechanism does not bridge the present financial gap, all debates about the Organization`s next Medium-Term Strategy will be without an underlying serious and secure basis. Only afterwards, new issues of priorities, major structural changes, sunset rules, etc. can be and must be discussed

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in order to improve the functioning of UNESCO. It would be a great pity if only because of the arbitrary behaviour without legal foundation of one Member State the future of the only global organization for education, science and culture is in danger. What the founders of UNESCO have formulated as its mission over 60 years ago has not lost its meaning and relevance today. Please, don’t hesitate to enter a discussion about the future of UNESCO. Sincerely yours, Prof. Dr. Klaus Hüfner

As a first step, it was recommended that the Executive Board turns to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague and asks for an Advisory Opinion. Because it should be clarified whether it is permitted under international law that a State can continue to remain a Member of a governmental international organization without complying with its financial obligations. Even if the process to finalize such an Advisory Opinion would take a longer time, at least a strong political signal could have been set. Today, after four years a reaction would have been available. Finally, it was suggested that in order to realize the work programme for 2012– 2013 as agreed at the 36th session of the General Conference a loan fund should be set up as long as the United States fails to meet its mandatory financial contributions to the regular budget of the Organization. This proposal was based upon the idea that the United States as long as she is a Member State of UNESCO must pay – sooner or later – her obligatory fees. Therefore, this loan fund was intended to serve as a kind of bridging fund to ensure on the one hand a proper implementation of the work programme for 2012–2013 and the following biennia and to prevent on the other hand that a sudden payment of the United States of the accumulated debt would cause a total planning chaos for new programmes and projects – if the Member States should not ask for substantial reductions of their own mandatory contributions in order to continue to keep the budget volume of the Organization at a lower level. The loan fund should be filled by temporary deposits of the Member States corresponding to the assessed rates to the regular budget. Germany, for instance, would have to pay its assessed rate of 7.141 percent plus 22/78 = 28.2 percent of this

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rate as a loan (=2.0138 percent). In the case of Japan 3.0552 percent would be added to the assessed rate of 10.834 percent. The loan would be repaid by UNESCO when the United States has paid her accumulated debts. In case, Member States should reject this proposal it has been suggested that France as the host country endows this fund alone accordingly. The response rate to this letter has been extremely low. Only a few Permanent Missions and National Commissions responded by just confirming receipt of the letter. Substantive comments were not at all received. The situation looked different in the communication with former civil servants of the Organization; they entered into a dialogue and expressed great interest. For the author, it was particularly unfortunate that all the official institutions in Germany remained silent.

A first balance sheet In April 2013, the Director-General submitted to the Executive Board a report on the financial situation of the Organization [UNESCO / Executive Board (2013c)] which also informed about the accounting of the financing of the biennial plan for 2012–2013 (36 C/5):  By the end of 2011 cost savings of about 31 million US dollars were made;  The establishment of the Emergency Fund led to voluntary payments of nearly 75 million of US dollars (as of 28 June 2013);  The reduction of the budget for 36 C/5 from 635 to 465 million US dollars, on the one hand to close the gap that was caused by the nonpayment of 22 percent by the United States, and on the other hand to cover the deficit of 42 million US dollars in 2011.  This reduction of 653 to 465 million US dollars corresponded to a minus of 29 percent or 188 million US dollars, which were missing for intended activities of the Organization. In the report of the Ad hoc Preparatory Group of 11 April 2013, the delegates emphasized the positive results of the efforts of the Director-General concerning cost control and increased programme efficiency. They also welcomed her efforts to reduce bureaucracy and management costs (paragraph 9). Some delegates in turn felt that programmes “with a significant and positive outreach

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had been negatively affected by the crisis” (paragraph 10). But the Assistant Director-General for Strategic Planning, Hans d’Orville, stressed that the Director-General allocated the funds “strictly in line with the priorities formulated by the Member States at the General Conference” (paragraph 10). Due to the budget crisis the share of extra-budgetary resources together with the Emergency Fund increased significantly which necessarily resulted in shifts of the activity priorities as a whole since the extra-budgetary resources were for the most part earmarked (“non-core funds”). In contrast, the representatives of the Secretariat didn’t see any problems with the financial re-allocation. By the end of 2012, the voluntary contributions of 332 million US dollars were almost as high as the level of the assessed contributions to the regular budget which amounted to 353 million US dollars. The Executive Board asked at its 190th session in autumn 2012 the Director-General to set up a crisis management scenario which assumes that the United States continues not to pay her compulsory contributions. Therefore, the Secretariat had to work under the assumption that the “expected cash flow situation” will be at the level of 78 percent of the budget to be approved. The Director-General also hoped receiving from the Member States further voluntary contributions to the Emergency Fund “and through other means so as to compensate this shortfall to a certain extent”. In this context, she also suggested that Member States will voluntarily increase their assessed mandatory contributions. At the same time, Member States were invited to facilitate the work of the Organization, “such as through the early payment in full of assessed contributions or by providing additional resources to facilitate separation of staff”. [UNESCO (2013a): 37 C/5 Add.2-Implementation Plan: p. 1–2]. Apart from the deficit of about 72 million US dollars per annum caused by the United States policy, the difference between nominal and real zero growth was estimated by the Secretariat at 28.5 million US dollars so that the Organization was confronted with “savings” of around 100 million US dollar in a regular budget of 326.5 million US dollars for 2014. Since it was assumed by the Fifth Special Session of the Executive Board that the United States will not pay her assessed contributions, it was necessary to set up a programme of new priorities. This was implemented by an openended working group of the Executive Board at a two-day meeting and a compromise package tied together for the session to be held on 4 July 2013 (the National Day of the United States).

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The Director-General praised the result in highest terms and claimed that for the first time in the UN system one succeeded to define strategic priorities. This would reflect UNESCO’s ability to innovative behaviour [UNESCO (2013d): p. 1]. Leaving aside the fact that election campaign mood prevailed in UNESCO, it must be noted that this compromise was provided with a lot of if-then clauses [see UNESCO/Executive Board (2013h)], which left the Secretariat with a maximum of flexibility.

The financial crisis as a political issue Those details about the financial crisis indicated some very strange political results: 1. In the vote on the admission of Palestine as a Member State of UNESCO, the EU states have voted quite differently. Thus, among others, France and Belgium voted in favour and Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden against while Denmark, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom abstained from voting. In other words, the often postulated common EU foreign policy didn’t exist. 2. There was no criticism in the Executive Board when the DirectorGeneral decided to establish the Emergency Fund. On the contrary, her decision was unanimously welcomed. 3. However, the replenishment of this Emergency Fund demonstrated that the EU States’ policy can be characterized by an extreme abstinence: only 0.051 million US dollars have been paid. Since those payments didn’t involve official transfers it must be assumed that this time a consensus existed among the EU Member States, namely not to transfer any voluntary contributions at all to the Emergency Fund. 4. The voluntary contributions which were paid into the Emergency Fund came mainly from the Arab world and African countries. 5. The proposals to overcome the financial crisis, namely to request for an Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice and/or to establish a loan fund as a bridging fund were generally ignored.

A second balance sheet The financial crisis continues. “Rigorous cutbacks in staff and programs and the consequent reduced services to Member States have enabled UNESCO to survive to this point, but it cannot do so indefinitely” [Wanner (2015): p. 66]. Given the

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political situation in the United States, it is inconceivable that the situation will change in the very near future. However, alternative solutions of solving the problem are already in preparation. One proposal, put forward by Melinda Kimble, Senior Vice-President of the UN Foundation, implies a significant lowering of the amount that the United States has to pay according to the scale of assessments. It is a kind of creative compromise which has to be accepted by both sides, the governing bodies of UNESCO as well of the United States. According to Raymond Wanner the following conditions must be fulfilled [Wanner (2015): pp.65–66]: 1. The United States would immediately release 50 percent of the amount owed to the UNESCO regular budget. 2. The remaining 50 percent of the amount owed would go to a United States trust fund at UNESCO to support mutually agreed upon activities. 3. The United States would resume future dues payments on schedule, with 75 percent supporting the regular budget and 25 percent paid into the trust fund. 4. UNESCO would agree to the United States resuming full participation in the Organization with the budgetary slate wiped clean. 5. This agreement would prevail until an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is reached or a waiver is granted to the legislation. This proposal intends to compromise a situation which is no longer valid. This approach will cause resistance for several reasons. First of all, it should be noted that already in November 2012, the UN General Assembly upgraded Palestine from an “observer entity” to a “non-member observer state”. Furthermore, as of 30 October 2014 135 (=69.9 percent) of the 193 Member States of the UN have recognized the State of Palestine. The Obama Administration tried pay the dues but without success because the US Congress opposed successfully. Perhaps, the idea of reducing the ceiling of the assessment scale from 22 to 10 percent could motivate the US Congress to grant waiver to the politically outdated legislation as included in the Foreign Appropriation Acts of 1990 and 1994.

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Chapter 4 Reform Proposals and Policies

As any other international Organization within the UN system, UNESCO is confronted with the issue of appropriate reform measures. Since the conditions of the environment of the Organization are constantly changing, reform measures represent an ongoing task. Therefore, the reform concept involves a continuous adaptation to changing external conditions. Flexible solution mechanisms are necessary that go beyond the short-term treatment of partial problems of UNESCO as a system. Reform measures may relate to the contents or the structures of the Organization; often, combinations are necessary. They can be short-, medium- or longterm oriented measures. Short-term measures are those which can be undertaken by the Director-General under her/his own responsibility. Medium-term measures require the approval of the Executive Board and/or the General Conference. Long-term measures are those which require a revision of the Constitution of UNESCO. The process of creeping “governmentalization” of the composition of the Executive Board in the years 1954 and 1991(for details see section 4 of chapter 2) as well as the reductions of the term of office of the Director-General in the years 1989 and 2001 are examples of long-term reform measures. The working methods of the various organs of UNESCO and their interaction were a constant issue of debates that led to the establishment of reform committees at regular intervals. In 2003, the 32nd General Conference decided to re-establish an ad hoc working group chaired by the President of the General Conference to submit reform proposals concerning the relations between the three Organs of the Organization to be discussed at the 33rd session of General Conference in 2005. Today, the issue of “governance” is a topic of permanent debate [see, for instance, UNESCO/Executive Board (2015e)]. Most recently, the External Auditor recommended that the Secretariat provide the Executive Board with an official organization chart of the “UNESCO universe” and the 49 different governing bodies [UNESCO/Executive Board (2015f): Recommendation No. 1].

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At the end of 1983 when the United States announced her withdrawal as of 31 December 1984, the need for reform was discussed in public and primarily related to significant administrative weaknesses (mismanagement). Because of several critical reports of the United States General Accounting Office (GAO) the newly elected Director-General Federico Mayor appointed an Independent Commission under the direction of Knut Hammarskjöld to advise him on how to improve the efficiency and management of human resources. This report was presented in 1989 [Hammarskjöld/Wilenski (1989)]. In early 1992, a consolidated report on the reform of the UNESCO Secretariat followed, thereby taking stock of what had been achieved. In 1996/1997, the Director-General published two documents to demonstrate his will to reform [see UNESCO (1996); UNESCO (1997)]. Despite visible progress, problems of management and administration in the Secretariat of UNESCO remained an “evergreen”, so that already in December 1999 the newly elected Director-General, Koïchiro Matsuura, asked the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) of the United Nations to take stock, among others, of issues of strategic planning, programming, budgeting, monitoring of programme implementation, human resources management, the internal and external oversight, and the decentralization of activities. In 2000, the JIU reported a total of 19 detailed recommendations that were to a large extent accepted and included in his announced reform of the programme and the administration [Joint Inspection Unit (2000)]. Koïchiro Matsuura tackled the need for reform from several fronts whereby he – at least in his first term – realized a high degree of transparency. His plea for a competition-oriented employment policy for all posts, including the Assistant Directors-General, through public advertisements happened for the first time in the history of UNESCO. To eliminate the tremendously bloated bureaucracy in the Secretariat by halving the number of 106 director-posts, he also reduced, among others, the number of departments and units by 50 percent and left all posts to tender. In this context, the age structure of the international civil servants at the professional level was helpful (34 percent had to retire by 2005). Another aspect of reform measures referred to a new decentralization policy. In 2000, there were 70 regional offices of which more than half of them were

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established in the 1990s at the request of Member States. More than 50 percent of these offices had less than five posts. Again, the Director-General intended to halve the number of offices, whereby the new regional offices (cluster offices) were better staffed and financed. Although the Member States were faced with additional reform costs, an innovative reform process has been set in motion [see UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b): Paragraph 15]. The reform measures were complemented through a substantive setting of priorities combined with adequate financial means. Already in his first biennial programme for 2002–2003 (31 C/5) under the Medium-Term Strategy 2002–2007 with three strategic objectives for each of the four domains of work six priorities were set (basic education, management of water resources, ethical problems of science and technology, cultural diversity, pluralism and intercultural dialogue, and broader access to information, particularly in the public sector) and the financial resources were increased by 50 percent (through internal reallocations and extra-budgetary means). Here, two classes of selection criteria were postulated:  Programmatic criteria (among others, strengthening of endogenous development capacities; multiplier effect; contribution to interdisciplinarity; strengthening of the integrated inter-sectorial approach to problem analysis and implementation; strengthening of the expertise of the Organization – criterion of excellence); and  management criteria (securing the relevance of the activities in comparative advantage, in order to avoid overlap and duplication; optimization of available resources through partnerships with other organizations; introduction of reliable mechanisms and tools for follow-up activities and evaluations). The approach of UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura has not been limited to purely organizational and administrative improvements; he also set programme priorities for tackling the tasks of the Organization under the conditions of zero nominal growth of the regular budgets through reallocations – a task that the Member States at least in principle supported despite many conflicts of interest.

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The history of UNESCO could be written not only in terms of financial troubles, but also as a history of reform attempts. Of course, one can agree with the former UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, when he stressed that the reform process is a continuous process of learning and revision to respond appropriately to changes of the environment. However, when necessary reform measures are only debated, but actually no major substantive and/or structural changes take place, the actual problems will remain unsolved. During the years after 2000, the reform challenge has been permanently debated in UNESCO. Many documents were produced which can be only mentioned here in a summarized way. It began in 2000 with a mandate to the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) which presented a “Review of Management and Administration in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)” [see Joint Inspection Unit (2000)]. Mid-2006, the Director-General presented a discussion paper entitled “Reflections on the Future Role of UNESCO: Some Key Issues, Trends and Challenges” which was subject of a thematic debate of the Executive Board about the role of UNESCO within a UN system to be reformed due to the global changes [UNESCO/Executive Board (2006)]. This debate continued. In spring 2008, the Director-General reported on the reform efforts of UNESCO and the United Nations, in particular with regard to the issue of system-wide coherence whereby “Delivering as One” was the strategic objective and still is until today [UNESCO/Executive Board (2008)]. In 2010, the “Report on the Independent External Evaluation of UNESCO” was published as the result of a resolution of the General Conference following a recommendation by the Executive Board. One year later, the report of the Joint Inspection Unit about “Management and Administration” appeared [Joint Inspection Unit (2011); JIU/REP/2011/8; 190 EX/22 dated 13 August 2012]; after the JIU Report of 2000 it was the second one of this kind. Finally, the “Senior Expert Group on Reforms”, appointed by the DirectorGeneral, must be mentioned which met, however, only once in March 2011.

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All these reports demand a careful in-depth analysis of the existing structure and functions of the Organization which cannot be done in this chapter. But especially the critical points are mentioned below which underline that reform measures are still necessary.

Report on the Independent External Evaluation of UNESCO In 2009, the 35th session of the General Conference had to elect a new Director-General. After two terms, a re-election of Koichiro Matsuura was no longer possible for constitutional reasons. It can be assumed that the question of an independent, external evaluation became an issue in the context of a new official leadership. Therefore, the 35th session of the General Conference approved an independent external evaluation of a comprehensive, strategic and forward-looking character. According to the terms of reference, the purpose of the evaluation “will be to provide actionable and timely recommendations to the Governing Bodies of the Organization and the Director-General for their review and action in order to position the Organization for meeting future needs and challenges. The evaluation will take into account the cumulative changes and reforms of the recent past, prospective issues and relevant trends. As a forwardlooking exercise, the evaluation should identify the key lessons learned that can be applied to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of the work of the Organization” (see UNESCO document 185 EX/18 Add., Annex: Paragraph 9). The exercise was undertaken by an 11-person cross-regional team between January and July 2010. On 30 August 2010, the “Report on the Independent External Evaluation of UNESCO” appeared as a synthesis report with the conclusions and recommendations [see UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b)]. The key issue was how UNESCO can position itself to respond best to the challenges of the 21st century. To answer this question, the Team developed a model that emanated from global challenges that had to be related to the possibilities and necessities of UNESCO (“Opportunity Space”) in order to set priorities and options for implementation. In order to better assess the current activities of UNESCO, the Team made the following very important positive remarks:

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 UNESCO’s mandate has been successfully reinterpreted over the years to tackle the respective global needs;  UNESCO continues to have strong intellectual roots and its programmes correspond to the contemporary state-of-the-art; and finally  UNESCO has developed a number of programmes of high reputation, such as, inter alia, the World Heritage Programme, biospheres programme, tsunami early warning systems, outstanding oceanographic and freshwater programmes, the promotion of press freedom and the Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report [UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b): Paragraph 8)]. But the Team also stressed that, despite these positive conclusions, significant weaknesses exist in the implementation of the Organization’s mandate:  UNESCO’s mandate is referred to as “permissive” because relevance claims can be made for almost any global problem or crisis;  although there were constant attempts to “concentrate” work in larger programmes, to promote “intersectorality” and to prioritize “objectives” in order to maximize synergies and impact, these efforts have been undermined by the continued autonomy of the Sectors, the weak incentives for cross-sectorial cooperation, sector-specific budgeting, too many priorities, and the lack of consensus in the governing bodies and the Secretariat. “Instances of successful synergies are often the triumph of informal efforts by committed individuals over institutional barriers to cooperation” [(UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b): Paragraph 8)]; and  although the Member States always emphasized the need for greater focus, they themselves contributed to the lack of coherence caused by funding decisions, by lobbying to sustain weak programmes, and by introducing incoherent activities . The significant weaknesses in the implementation of the mandate are mainly due to the openness of the mandate, which basically allows the Organization to regard itself as being responsible for all global problems. While the Team called for a stronger focus in the face of the present underfunding, it must not be forgotten that the problem of fragmentation is a problem of the Organization for a long time. The previous unsuccessful attempts of concentrating the work by comprehensive programmes also apply to the efforts of providing

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intersectorial and interdisciplinary work. The relapse into sectorial thinking and action, coupled with the claim of autonomy of the individual Sectors of the Secretariat on the one hand and poorly developed incentives for cooperation on the other, present only one side of the coin. Both the Secretariat, but especially the Executive Board and the General Conference lack the necessary consensus to undertake “less activities with more money”. Instead, as again and again stressed by the last three heads of the Secretariat, the objective was to achieve “more with less”. The Team was right when it accused the Member States of applying double standards as already mentioned above: “Member States, while emphasizing the need for ‘greater focus’, have themselves contributed to the current lack of coherence both by funding decisions (e.g. reducing regular budget contributions while increasing extrabudgetary resourcing) and by lobbying to sustain weak programmes or introduce incoherent activities” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b): Paragraph 8]. The global challenges, such as population growth and migration, environmental catastrophes, scarcity of resources, socio-economic inequalities, and political and cultural instabilities, are widely recognized. The Team expressed the opinion that these trends are clearly recognized in the official C/4 and C/5 documents of UNESCO. But the Team criticized that the Organization is not well positioned to use these trends as an object of their work within the context of a “global architecture”. The Team was right to point out that this finding was not new, but has been proven by many previous evaluations. Referring to Document 17 the Team therefore suggested that “in today’s competitive and decentralized world UNESCO needs to be less centralized, risk-averse and silolike; more outward-looking with stronger partnership capacities; more adaptable and flexible; and able to demonstrate a capacity to deliver as well as assert its mandate” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b): Paragraph 12]. The Team has also discussed the issue of decentralization or of regional activities. This is based on the idea that UNESCO can act in a decentralized world “more effective” if the Organization shows a corresponding presence there. “This priority has been highlighted by United Nations reform which confronts UNESCO with new pressures to strike a balance between Headquarters and the field. UNDAF[United Nations Development Assistance Framework] participation pulls UNESCO towards a conventional ‘development agency’ role that in order to meet IADGs[Internationally Agreed Development Goals] focuses on

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country needs and highlights the importance of field presence at country level. This is reinforced by new decentralized funding resources such as multi-donor trust funds and budget support. UNESCO’s field office network is already overextended, often under-resourced and poorly staffed. Reinforcing this network at country level so that UNESCO becomes an effective UNDAF partner risks weakening normative and peace-building roles at regional and global levels unless properly approached” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b): Paragraph 15]. The Team also expressed a critical-reluctant attitude when it suggested that the Regional Economic and Social Commissions of the United Nations might offer a more appropriate choice than the UNDAF model in the medium-term. In discussing the role of the Organization within the UN system it became clear that UN efforts such as “delivering as one” and system-wide coherence imply that UNESCO has to be understood as part of the competition with other UN institutions claiming “comparative advantages”. UNESCO’s weaknesses, caused, among other things, by excessive centralization and poor coordination within and between Headquarters in Paris and the field offices, can lead to deficiencies in the implementation process: “These weaknesses have left gaps that other agencies have filled; and led to missed opportunities for UNESCO” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b): Paragraph 24]. Finally, the Team stressed another weakness which refers to the role of UNESCO as a think tank – a function most welcomed by the Organization but so far only very partially realized: “There is also an ‘expertise gap’ in the United Nations that UNESCO is sometimes expected to fill, variously described as a ‘think tank’ role or as the ‘brains’ of the United Nations. UNESCO should consider in discussion with United Nations partners how to meet – or manage – such expectations” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b): Paragraph 25]. The Team also criticized the way UNESCO cooperates with civil society including scientific expertise and the private sector: “However, UNESCO’s progress in engaging with civil society does not match international best practice, even though there are good practices in some programmes, field offices and National Commissions” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b): Paragraph 27]. The Team regretted that the strong commitment of UNESCO at its foundation as an “intellectual” organization together with the National Commissions for UNESCO has already given way step-by-step since the 1950s in favour of a “governmentalization” in a traditional sense while cur-

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rent developments towards an inclusive political model require an opening to the world of experts, civil society and the private sector. In paragraph 29 some critical remarks are mentioned such as the following:  The Organization does not seem to feel very comfortable to enter into strategic partnerships with independent experts and NGO representatives unless there are sources of funding or support for the programme implementation.  Despite active relationships with experts and NGOs in some programmes and councils of institutes no systematic correspondence exists at the institutional level.  The General Conference has no access to adequate programmeindependent sources of expertise to seek advice in the process of setting priorities.  So far, the relations with the private sector have not been embedded in a strategy; open dialogues on common objectives involving actors of the private sector are rarely realized.  The relations with NGOs are often formalistic and mostly linked to the North.  UNESCO is perceived by civil society as highly bureaucratic with complex procedures and weak partnership capacities.  National Commissions vary considerably in their cooperation and networking with civil society. Despite the weaknesses of building partnerships, UNESCO has established an extensive network that is, however, currently undervalued and badly managed: “There is limited appreciation among Member States or the Secretariat of the potential of this broader UNESCO ‘community’, favouring instead an ‘institutional’ perspective that privileges the formal, top-down Headquarters-led UNESCO” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b): Paragraph 31]. Therefore, the Team proposed that UNESCO sees itself as an institutional centre (“hub”) which cooperates with a loosely coupled network that could operate much more efficiently. In 2015, the External Auditor critically remarked. “In total, five years on, barely one quarter of the recommendations have been fully implemented. During the

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self-assessment that took place in 2014, there were only a few rare mentions of IEE recommendations or their follow-up which may be an illustration of the limited appetite of the governing bodies for such exercises” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2015f): paragraph 18].

Senior Expert Group on Reforms On 17 March 2011, the UNESCO Director-General convened a first meeting of a Senior Expert Group on Reforms [see UNESCO/Executive Board (2011a)]. She expected advice on the implementation of the recommendations made by the Independent External Evaluation (IEE) as well as on other relevant strategic considerations in the context of the UN reform process. Specifically, the Expert Group should provide her with an independent view on the following issues:  How can UNESCO best position itself within the framework of the multilateral system? How can the Organization play its role as a specialized agency effectively? How can UNESCO deliver on the internationally agreed development goals as a leader in its areas of competence?  How can the Organization consolidate and concentrate its work on fewer, more strategic and interdisciplinary activities where it has a comparative advantage?  How can UNESCO bring to bear the strengths of its networks and its role as an “honest broker” in policy advice, capacity building, benchmarking, normative efforts and as a force of reconciliation between parties? And:  How are the working methods of the Organization used in an optimal way to address those challenges and expectations? In the present note on the UNESCO Website it is stated that, inter alia, the Expert Group made the following recommendations [see also UNESCO/Executive Board (2011a)]:  The Organization must focus its activities on areas where it has comparative advantages;  UNESCO should define itself as a forum for dialogue and put more emphasis on international cooperation for all Member States;  its uniqueness lies in the policy advisory and the normative role;

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 UNESCO should not understand itself as an organization that can do everything;  its intellectual watch function deserves to be strengthened again, including the ethical dimension of its mandate;  UNESCO should concentrate on a few “flagships per sector”; and  for many activities it is important to note that UNESCO should work with partners to achieve “more with less”.

Report of the Joint Inspection Unit The Joint Inspection Unit, which limits itself in its report of 2011 – as well as in the report of 2000 – to recommendations on management and administrative problems, presented a total of eight recommendations, two of which were addressed to the General Conference and the Executive Board and six to the Director-General. However, the JIU reacted upon the recommendations of the Team which dealt with the independent external evaluation of UNESCO. In more general terms, without any concrete proposals, the JIU stressed “that the governance arrangements hinder the effective performance of the institution and that they need further improvements” [Joint Inspection Unit (2011): p. 2]. The JIU recommended that the Member States and the UNESCO Secretariat continue to work on the “governance framework”, to simplify the “governance arrangements” and to improve the strategic positioning for programme activities.

Interim balance One can understand, of course, that representatives of the Secretariat regretted the appearance of so many reform reports. Therefore, the criticism concerning paragraph 11 of the resolution adopted by the 40th Plenary Assembly of the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA) can be understood in which the Member States of UNESCO were urged “to start an independent in-depth evaluation together with all NGOs concerned of the functional and structural problems the Organization is presently confronted with” (see Document 9). In this resolution, special reference has been made to functional and structural problems; furthermore, a communication and cooperation relationship between the governments of the Member States and the NGO world has been demanded. Therefore, in this respect another quality of reform

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debate has been recommended. It should be more comprehensive on the one hand, and on the other more transparent and thus having consequences. When it comes to the very different measures to tackle the diversity of tasks, then questions must be discussed, such as the reduction of the number of fields of activity, the reform towards a “less governmentalized” Executive Board without direct re-election of its members, or the creation of a new NGP Council, called Academia; new structures of the bodies that have to decide on the programme priorities not only within the context of the present financial crisis but in principle. Because the Achilles heel of all previous reform proposals is that they do not question the given structures on the one hand and therefore do not allow the demanded “comprehensive structural reforms”. On the other hand, they do not address the variety of substantial weaknesses which will be discussed – at least to some extent and exemplary – in section 1 of chapter 5.

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Chapter 5 What can save UNESCO? 5.1

Selected problem areas

In the following, a few examples will be mentioned which clarify that the gap between aspiration and reality became transparent in many cases. But it is unclear whether or how the representatives of the governments of the Member States have recognized it or could or would recognize it. This must be addressed later. Here, a few examples are given, intended to document some of the major weaknesses. Of course, due to the limited experience of the author, the chosen approach had to be highly selective.

Initiative of the UN Secretary-General: Global Education First Initiative On 13 July 2012, BBC reported that the former British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has been appointed by UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, as Global Education Envoy. This happened within the framework of a new initiative undertaken by the UN Secretary-General, called Global Education First Initiative (GEFI). He declared investment in education as a priority in order to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015. He mentioned three educational objectives: 1) putting every child in school, 2) improving the quality of learning, and 3) fostering global citizenship. In September 2012 he declared: “We want all children to attend primary school and to progress to secondary school and relevant higher education. We want them to succeed in life and live as engaged and productive global citizens”. A “High-Level Steering Committee” was established of 16 personalities, among them the administrative heads of six institutions of the UN system (UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN WOMEN, and the WORLD BANK). It is headed by the UN Secretary-General, while the UNESCO Director-General acts as ExecutiveSecretary. In addition, the UN Secretary-General invited a group of Member States to serve as “Champion Countries” consisting of ten, later 18 dedicated States.

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On 26 September 2012, a public meeting was held in the margins of the 67th session of the UN General Assembly where the UN Secretary-General announced that he has received already commitments of public and private funding in the amount of 1.5 billion of US dollars to implement his initiative. However, those are promises of “dozens of companies and private foundations” which have declared to use their financial means by themselves or with third parties. Insofar the public has been informed about financial transfers which were already earmarked and supposed to take place outside the UN system. Among them, Accenture Development Partnerships will support the Ministry of Education in Ethiopia with the use of information and communication technologies, The MasterCard Foundation will enable 15,000 talented but poor students, especially from Africa to complete their university education, Sumitomo Chemical will support the construction of schools and undertake measures to create jobs in African States, and Western Union will offer with up to 10,000 US dollars per day for NGO grants to fund schools (for details on these uncoordinated measures see: http://www.globaleducationfirst.org/commitments.html). In other words, the finances mentioned are not transferred to the UN or UNESCO to run the Initiative or disburse funds. The commitments from these companies are focusing on their own education-related programmes and projects. At the second meeting of the Committee Ban Ki-moon congratulated UNESCO for its contribution to the establishment of the GEFI Secretariat and emphasized three priorities: (1) increased efforts to achieve the 2015 targets; (2) to place education at a prominent position of the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda; and (3) to engage for increased resources for funding education – “both domestic and external”. This five-year educational initiative has been highly appreciated. However, it is surprising and deplorable that it is not institutionally integrated in and implemented by UNESCO. Although the UNESCO Director-General has been appointed as Executive Secretary of the Steering Committee, the leadership is clearly with the UN Secretariat. Each year, annual celebrations took place which didn’t offer accountable results. Nevertheless, GEFI will continue. On 26 September 2015 an event “that celebrates the achievements of GEFI and its partners in advancing the global

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education agenda” is foreseen at the UN Headquarters in New York during the High Level Summit for the adoption of the Post-2015 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Besides GEFI and SDG 4 of the Post-2015 Agenda, the Incheon Declaration will lead towards a final version which will be adopted at a special high-level meeting to be organized alongside the 38th session of the General Conference in November 2015. Furthermore, a new Commission on Financing of Global Education has been set up. Also, the Global Partnership for Education must be taken into account. It will be rather difficult to anticipate how these organizations will cooperate, if at all, in an optimal way under the leadership of UNESCO.

Strategy about the role of the educational institutions within the UNESCO set-up Meanwhile, the number of educational institutions (Category 1 Institutes) has risen to seven. Those are:  UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE), Geneva;  UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), Paris and Buenos Aires;  UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), Hamburg;  UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE), Moscow;  UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC), Caracas;  UNESCO International Institute for Capacity-Building in Africa (IICBA), Addis Ababa; and  UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP), New Delhi. No Sector of the Secretariat has such a high number of institutions as education. They are specialized to selected topics in the field of education and differ, among others, in terms of origin, mandate, personnel, and funding. In 2012, six of the seven institutions were subject to an evaluation (at that time, UNESCO-MGIEP didn’t start its work). In particular, the institutions with a

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global mandate (IIEP, IBE, and UIL) were praised for the contributions which they made to UNESCO’s education programme in the past. “However, in recent years it has become increasingly apparent that all institutes are facing challenges to varying degrees across a range of issues – from strategic focus and programme coordination to administration, staffing and financing – which undermine their performance” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2013e): Paragraph 1]. The title of the UNESCO document indicates that it is primarily about “measures to improve an effective management”. Specifically, 12 major challenges were listed. On the first place has been the demand to clearly define the concrete contributions to the UNESCO education programme. At the same time too many overlapping activities should be avoided, among others in the fields of curriculum development, educational planning, and in the application of information and communication technologies in education. It was clearly emphasized that the process has to be organized “top down”: “The strategic directions set out in the draft document 37 C/4, draft document 37 C/5 and the draft UNESCO Strategy for Education 2012 will provide a basis for institutes to define a limited number of clear programme objectives for which they should align their activities and resources” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2013e): Paragraph 4]. Although the notion of “functional autonomy” as an important feature of research institutions appeared in a single paragraph, it was interpreted in a rather technocratic way within the meaning of delegated autonomy. It was stressed that a common understanding of both the responsible Education Sector and the institutes was still lacking. [UNESCO/Executive Board (2013c): Paragraph 10]. In 2014, the External Auditor attempted to clarify the concept of functional autonomy and recommended that “the concept … be revitalized in order to eliminate ineffective control and sterile conflict…” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2014e): Recommendation No. 7] The term “intellectual autonomy” does not appear at all, even though the institutes should have such a status. Their existence should be primarily based upon the fact that they act as think tanks, that they produce new insights in close collaboration with national research institutes which are then – together with policy recommendations – transferred “upwards” (to the Education Sector, to the Executive Board, to the General Conference). If the survival of UNESCO institutes for education is on the agenda due to the lack of extra-ordinary funds, then one should discuss in the first place the

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innovative potential and the previous research production for the future contents of the educational strategy of the Organization, and to a less extent the present financial crisis linked with a high degree of dependence on extrabudgetary financial means (see also section 5 of chapter 2). Closely linked to it is the question of the size and the kind of composition of the supervisory boards of these institutes. Particularly daunting appeared the extremely large and highly one-sided composition of the Council of the International Bureau of Education (IBE) of UNESCO. Founded in 1925 as an NGO, successfully operating since 1929 as the first intergovernmental education organization under the leadership of Jean Piaget, the institute was integrated into UNESCO in 1969. The institute has 20 full-time employees of which 12 persons have fixed-term contracts, including six professional posts. This time, confronted with the financial crisis, a very clear criticism about the size and composition of the IBE Council has been voiced: “The IBE Council with its 28 members is perceived as too heavy to function as an efficient governing body for a small institute such as IBE” [UNESCO/Internal Oversight Service (2012): p. 28]. The IBE Council had 28 governmental members; recently, the membership has been reduced to 20 and will be reduced to 12 in the very near future. Those representatives of Member States are supposed to advise the Bureau on the substance of its strategic programme – an Institute which has only six professionals. It is obvious that only the present financial crisis allowed an open debate and following action of this issue. However, the question whether governmental members should be represented at all according to a regional distribution in those supervisory boards was not further problematized.

Multilateral educational financing When discussing multilateral education financing, those institutions of the UN system should be identified which finance educational activities. Although the majority of institutions undertake expenditure of this kind, there is currently no organization that has attempted, by using appropriate methodological tools, to conduct comprehensive and comparative analyses on a regular basis. In the

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late 1980s/early 1990s, first serious attempts were made to collect time-series for selected international organizations [see, among others, UNESCO (1986) and UNESCO (1993)]. In the following analysis, UNESCO is our focus of interest which is ex officio the organization within the UN system which is responsible for education. But it is by no means at all the largest multilateral donor for educational purposes as shown in Documents 12 and 13. The Education for All report which appeared annually between 2002 and 2015 also took care of the mobilization of financial resources. In this case, problems concerning the statistical coverage and comparability appeared. The data are not specified in nominal prices, but always refer to different base years. Therefore, in order to compare the data over time a deflator is necessary for the conversion of the information published in each annual report. It remains a mystery why the authors did not publish the data in nominal terms and in real terms, related to one basis year. Unfortunately, a transparent and understandable analysis of the development over a longer period has been prevented [see also the analyses undertaken by Hüfner (2011): Tables 10-3 und 10-5: p. 207 und p. 209]. Apart from serious errors of the analysis of UNESCO’s finances in EFA Reports of 2002 and 2003/04 [for details see Hüfner (2011): p. 29], the arbitrary selection of institutions of the UN system must be mentioned as a second problem. In all twelve published reports data are given on a regular basis only for the International Development Association (IDA) and UNICEF. Information on UNESCO’s educational finances are only given in the first three EFA Reports; statistical information about the UN Development Programme (UNDP) is only available in the Reports 2006– 2007 and 2012–2015. Data about the educational activities carried out by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) were published in the three Reports 2003/04 to 2006 and then in the Reports 2012–2015. Information about the school meal activities of the World Food Programme (WFP) appeared only in the Reports 2012–2015. The author is happy to note that after his criticism expressed vis-à-vis the responsible editors of the EFA Report five institutions were finally covered in the statistical appendix (for details see Document 11). On the one hand, the new approach of the EFA Reports to enlarge the number of UN institutions to be considered had to be welcomed although no references in

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the text were made. On the other hand, the definition of statistical numbers to be taken into account remained unclear because the OECD decided during the middle of the 1990s to limit multilateral educational assistance to “core” contributions whereas voluntary, project- or programme-oriented transfers to multilateral organizations (formerly: “multi-bi”; today: “non-core”) are nowadays defined as “bilateral assistance”. While UNDP data were again taken into account in the EFA Reports as from 2012, the reported figures were extremely low. Although educational expenditure certainly occur in many UNDP projects, the corresponding figures are no longer recorded. Unfortunately, this happened because UNDP replaced sectorial statistics by problem-related ones. Educational expenditure of six UN institutions during the period 1971–2011, divided into decades, is reported in Document 12 (for detailed figures for the period 1971–2013, which differ from those in the EFA Reports, see Document 13). Those are concessional, i.e. non-commercial financial resources; this means that commercial educational loans from the World Bank are not included here. On the other hand, it is clear that the International Development Association (IDA) as a “daughter” of the World Bank occupies a leading position since the 1970s with the allocation of “soft loans” (loans with a high grant element). The ratio compared to UNESCO was 5:1 at the beginning. During the last decade it was 18:1. The old saying that UNESCO thinks in millions while IDA directs in in billions reflects quite well the real situation. For the last decade, the share of UNESCO’s educational finance related to the total volume was at about 2.6 percent. Document 11: Multilateral Educational Financing as reflected in the EFA Global Monitoring Reports, 2002–2015 EFA – UNESCO GMR 2002

IDA

World UNICEF Bank

UNDP

UNRWA

p. 173 p. 171 p. 171 p. 173 (1999 + 2000) (1990–2001) (1990– (1999 + 2000) p. 173 2001) (1999 + 2000)

2003/4 p. 244 p. 243–244 (1998–1999 + (1998–1999 + 2000–2001) 2000–2001)

p. 243–244 (1998–1999 + 2000–2001)

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WFP

EFA – GMR 2002

p. 243–244 (1998–1999 + 2000–2001)

2003/4

99

2005

p. 195 p. 195 (1999–2000 + (1999–2000 + 2001–2002) 2001–2002)

p. 194–195 (1999–2000 + 2001–2002)

p. 194–195 (1999–2000 + 2001–2002)

2006

p. 115 (average 1999–2003)

p. 115 (average 1999–2003)

2007

p. 342–343 (average 2003–2004 + 1999–2004)

p. 342–343 p. 342–343 (average (1999– 2003–2004 + 2004) 1999–2004)

2007

2008

p. 376 (average 1999–2000 + 2004–2005)

p. 376 (average 1999–2000 + 2004–2005)

2008

2009

p. 392 (average 1999–2000 + 2005–2006)

p. 392 (average 1999–2000 + 2005–2006)

2009

2010

p. 432 (average 1999–2000 + 2006–2007)

p. 432 (average 1999–2000 + 2006–2007)

2010

2011

p. 350–351 (average 2002–2003 + 2007–2008)

p. 350–351 (average 2002–2003 + 2007–2008)

2011

2012

p. 404–405 (average 2002–2003 + 2009–2010)

p. 404–405 p. 404–405 p. 404–405 (average (2009 and (2009 and 2002–2003 + 2010) 2010) 2009–2010)

p. 404– 2012 405 (2009 + 2010)

2013 – 2014

p. 396–397 (average 2002–2003 + 2010–2011

p. 396–397 p. 396–397 p. 396–397 (average (2010 and (2010 and 2002–2003 + 2011) 2011) 2010–2011

p. 396– 2013– 397 2014 (2010 + 2011)

2015

p. 400–401 (average 2002–2003 + 2011–2012)

p. 400–401 p. 400–401 p. 400–401 (average (2011 and (2011 and 2002–2003 + 2012) 2012) 2011–2012)

p. 400– 2015 401 (2011 and 2012)

Sources:

p. 115 p. 115 (average (average 1999–2003) 1999–2003)

2005

2006

Hüfner, Klaus: Multilaterale Bildungsfinanzierung durch das UNO-System. Berlin:

Frank & Timme, 2011, Tabelle 2-2 on p. 38–39; updates from: UNESCO: Education for All Global Monitoring Reports. Paris: UNESCO, 2012 ff.

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Source: Document 13

Document 12:

Multilateral Educational Assistance in Comparison, 1971–2011 (in million US dollars)

Document 13: Multilateral Educational Assistance, 1971–2013 (in million US dollars) Year

UNESCO

1971

10

1972 1973

IDA

UNICEF

UNDP

WFP

UNRWA

Total

40

13

38

74

22

197

10

47

11

38

23

24

153

14

111

12

34

67

28

266

1974

14

19

21

31

8

38

131

1975

19

97

25

41

73

51

306

1976

19

76

17

33

130

55

330

1977

22

79

23

28

67

65

284

1978

22

83

30

35

103

77

350

1979

28

251

34

44

105

83

545

1980

28

80

34

51

135

100

428

1981

35

372

32

45

65

105

654

1982

35

98

29

39

63

111

375

1983

35

249

40

40

53

126

543

1984

41

211

31

31

191

121

626

1985

41

422

32

27

113

117

752

1986

34

258

31

33

47

116

519

1987

34

284

36

31

186

102

673

1988

34

195

37

34

197

104

601

1989

34

473

37

31

101

104

780

1990

57

900

57

36

174

124

1 348

1991

57

692

48

35

101

126

1 059

1992

40

510

72

26

172

138

958

1993

41

987

72

22

92

136

1 350

1994

49

514

87

17

52

139

858

1995

49

797

85

19

94

139

1 183

1996

52

787

68

23

21

132

1 083

1997

52

316

81

134

37

153

773

1998

52

1 138

110

149

81

148

1 678

1999

52

629

155

138

74

155

1 203

2000

55

455

131

65

96

163

965

2001

55

578

174

72

228

164

1 271

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Year

UNESCO

2002

47

IDA 632

UNICEF 201

UNDP 70

WFP 166

UNRWA 176

Total 1 292

2003

47

1 023

233

63

220

185

1 771

2004

55

1 160

282

83

265

193

2 038

2005

55

885

433

106

325

259

2 063

2006

58

941

450

249

298

269

2 265

2007

58

1 221

512

240

347

267

2 645

2008

54

979

598

123

449

300

2 503

2009

54

1 538

629

-

445

312

2 978

2010

59

1 327

696

-

397

343

2 822

2011

59

1 381

708

-

482

349

2 979

2012

60

950

607

-

424

379

2 420

2013

60

573

713

-

346

228

1 920

Sources: Hüfner, Klaus (2011a): Multilaterale Bildungsfinanzierung durch das UNO-System. Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2011, Tables 4-1, 5-3, 5-1, 6-1, 7-1, 8-1 and 9-1 plus own updates as from 2009.

In this context, it must be noted that the educational contributions of some UN institutions [inter alia, the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA)] as well as the concessional contributions of the Regional Development Banks and of the European Commission were not included. Against this background it should be stressed that the role of UNESCO is less important in the context of financing operational activities for development and much more important as a think tank, as a laboratory of ideas to develop ideas and impulses for necessary educational reforms and to monitor its implementation (examples: Delors Report, inclusive education). It would also include the development of a comprehensive methodological approach for the accounting of (bi- and) multilateral educational financing and its annual monitoring in terms of volume, contents and priorities. Beginning 2016, the Education for All Global Monitoring Report will start monitoring the education goals and targets which are part of the Post-2015 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted in September 2015. The 2016 Report will establish a new framework of monitoring education and also ex-

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amine key financing challenges which are hopefully no longer based only on selected sector-specific ODA data from DAC/OECD.

UNESCO as a development organization? A problem that comes up again and again and which has led to all kinds of misunderstandings is the question whether UNESCO is a development organization or not. Looking into the report of the Director-General about UNESCO’s contribution to operational policies and activities for development cooperation within the UN system [UNESCO/Executive Board (2012a): pp. 60–62], details about the attendance rate at meetings at the inter-administrative level are mentioned, but only one comparison of figures, namely about the contribution of UNESCO to UNAIDS Unified Budget, Results and Accountability Framework which is expected to increase between 2010–2011 and 2012–2013 from 12.3 to 12.4 million US dollars. Since 2009 the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of OECD increased the share of UNESCO’s budget to be accounted as Official Development Assistance (ODA) to 60 percent. According to the German ambassador it clearly showed “that there is now greater recognition for this aspect of UNESCO’s work”. She was pleased that this offered the possibility for UNESCO to intensify its cooperation with development agencies and the EU. But then she made the following correct statement: “Nevertheless, UNESCO is not itself a development organization: only in exceptional cases can it implement projects on the ground. UNESCO is a think tank that provides policy-making input and advice”. It remains an open question why 60 percent of UNESCO’s expenditure are declared as ODA without being a development agency. One explanation could be that this increase is extremely useful for the main ODA contributors (“donors”) because it helps them in their efforts to reach – sooner or later, if at all – the promised ODA target of 0.7 percent of gross national product. In 2010/2011, the government of the United Kingdom asked the Department for International Development to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of multilateral organizations at the European and global level. The results offered a “very mixed picture”. UNESCO has been classified in terms of organizational

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strength and contribution to the development policy objectives of the UK as “poor” [see DFID (2011)]. This criticism did not remain unanswered. In a four-page response UNESCO regretted that the chosen reference does not allow an evaluation of large activities of the Organization because “UNESCO is not an aid organization. UNESCO is an intergovernmental organization whose work benefits not only developing countries, but the whole of humanity”. In her report about the independent external evaluation of UNESCO by the Senior Expert Group on Reforms, the Director-General summarized the report in early May 2011 without taking a clear position about the substance [UNESCO/Executive Board (2011a)]. This is surprising because already in paragraph 1 the dual role of UNESCO was mentioned stating that the Organization is both an agency for international cooperation and an agency for development and should take advantage of its dual role.

2- or 4-year programme planning and 6- or 8-year strategic planning In 2008, the 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations decided that the “comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development” of the UN system should be transferred from a three-year to a four-year cycle “in order to better provide policy guidance to the United Nations funds and programmes and the specialized agencies”. Thus, although only the UN funds and programmes had to adapt their programming cycles, also the specialized agencies, such as UNESCO, were asked to consider such a change. But the specialized agencies could decide if and when they intend to participate in such a new cycle; the focus is on operational activities for development of the UN system. For UNESCO, those activities make up a rather small part. If one looks at the entities with UN operational activities for development, UNESCO is at the bottom with regard to both, core as well as non-core resources. The Executive Board has invited the Director-General to examine the programmatic, financial and administrative implications of an extension of the C/4 cycle from six to eight years and the C/5 cycle from two to four years while maintaining at the same time the two-year budget cycle. Possible advantages and disadvantages were compared [see Annex III in UNESCO/Executive Board (2011b)].

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In this analysis, the potential benefits outweighed under the conditions that appropriate mechanisms are available in order to take into account new challenges in a most flexible way. Cost calculations were undertaken which assumed savings of all kinds, for example, if consultations with the National Commissions were only held every four years and the General Conferences, which take place between the four years to adopt C/4 plans, would be shortened. But these are rather hypothetical analyses which do not take into account that a “rolling planning process” with those extended intervals also demand thorough substantial preparations in the “intermediate conferences”. Given the present dramatic global changes especially in the areas of competence of UNESCO, those organizational changes should have been undertaken, if at all, on a trial and error basis.

Human Rights: The UNESCO procedures – Present state and possible improvements Under Article 1 paragraph 1 of its Constitution UNESCO’s purpose is “to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations”. During the 67 years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights UNESCO has undertaken a wide number of activities to achieve its full implementation. Besides a comprehensive program of teaching and of research and publications, the Organization’s standard-setting activities resulted in several conventions, declarations and recommendations. These instruments are linked directly or indirectly with those human rights which are within UNESCO’s fields of competence. Those instruments envisage the monitoring of their implementation. UNESCO’s Constitution provides that each Member State shall submit to the Organization reports on laws, regulations and statistics relating to its educational, scientific and cultural institutions and activities, and on the action upon recommendations and conventions (Article VI paragraph 4 and Article VIII). Sometimes, specific provisions are also included in the conventions. For instance, Article 7 of the 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education provides that the States

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Parties shall give information on the legislative and administrative provisions which they have adopted for the application of the Convention in their periodic reports to the General Conference of UNESCO. Article 6 of the Convention stipulates that the General Conference of UNESCO may adopt subsequent recommendations defining the measures to be taken against the different forms of discrimination in education and for the purpose of ensuring equality of opportunity and treatment. Not only the States Parties of the 1960 Convention, but also all Member States which did not ratify the Convention are asked to report in regular intervals on the basis of the 1960 Recommendation. First of all, a general overview about the two main functions of the responsible committee will be given. In addition, and for the purpose of improving its work, a number of possible changes will be outlined which are related to both tasks of the Committee on Conventions and Recommendations (CR Committee). UNESCO has set up the CR Committee as a subsidiary organ of its Executive Board which is responsible for examining the reports of Member States since 1965. In addition to the task of considering all questions relating to the implementation of UNESCO’s standard-setting instruments entrusted to it by the Executive Board, since 1978 the Committee is entrusted with a second main task: to examine communications relating to cases and questions concerning the exercise of human rights in UNESCO’s fields of competence. As a subsidiary organ of UNESCO’s Executive Board, which is composed of 58 Member States, the CR Committee consists of representatives from 30 Member States, five from each of the six electoral groups. In other words, they do not serve as experts in their personal capacity as it is the case of the members of the UN human rights treaty bodies. Task Number One: Examination of Reports from Member States Within the framework of its first task, the Committee monitors the implementation of two conventions, namely:  The 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education ratified by 100 Member States (=51.8 percent; last ratification in 2013);  the 1989 Convention on Technical and Vocational Education ratified by 17 Member States (=8.7 percent; last ratification in 2008).

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In addition, the Committee monitors 11 recommendations. In the case of conventions, the responsible Sector of the Secretariat will submit a summary of the national reports. The following debates in the CR Committee and the Executive Board will take place in public meetings. However, due to the generally unknown length of the private sessions concerning individual communications those public meetings in the CR Committee are only announced on short-term notice. This, in turn, results in a low attendance rate of NGOs. Also, no official record is available about the number and names of those NGOs attending the public meetings. In summary, it can be said that the CR Committee exams synoptic documents, drawn up by the Secretariat on the periodic reports, without scrutinizing carefully the national reports of the States Parties by mentioning explicitly major weaknesses or engaging in a dialogue with the countries concerned, as other UN treaty bodies do, such as, e. g., the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Due to the fact that the information of the individual States Reports is highly aggregated, the monitoring process necessarily leads to a tremendous loss of information and, as a consequence, does not allow any substantial debate in the CR Committee. This is a description of the present situation. In the past, during the 1960s and 1970s members of the CR Committee were actively involved in the evaluation of the national reports thereby describing the situation in individual countries in the case of the 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education. For instance, the documentation concerning the 3rd consultation in 1978 contained about 300 pages, consisting of the report of the (CRE) Committee (56 pages), the text versions of the Convention and the Recommendation, a summary of the national reports and the individual State reports (see UNESCO document 20 C/40+Add. of 1978). The Committee met for three days and mentioned explicitly (a) which States sent what kind of reports and (b) which questions remained without any answer by which States. Moreover, the members of the Committee complained about the low response rate and, therefore, did not dare to formulate conclusions of general validity. For this reason, the 20th General Conference decided in 1978 to ask those Member States who did not yet report to do so as soon as possible in order to be able to discuss the report of the Committee and the comments of the Executive Board at the 21st General Conference in 1980 (see UNESCO document 21 C/27 of 1980).

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For the time being, low response rates and an often extremely general nature of replies can be observed. There exists a far-reaching consensus that this first task must be strengthened. Low ratification rates as well as low response rates of the States Parties in the case of UNESCO conventions are a major challenge to the Organization and imply a rather negative “multiplier effect” which will be further discussed in the case of the 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education. As of 1 September 2015, only 100 of the 195 Member States are Parties to this Convention (for the development of ratifications in relation to increases in membership since 1961 see Document 14). Also, the percentage of ratifications within each electoral group differs considerably: it ranges from 25 percent (electoral group IV) to 88 percent (electoral group II)[UNESCO/Executive Board (2014d): p. 2]. Document 14: Development of the number of UNESCO Member States and of the number of ratifications of the Convention against the Discrimination in Education, 1961 – 2014

Compared with other UN human rights conventions, which also contain provisions related to the right of education, the ratification rate is extremely low as can be seen, for instance, of the following three examples: The 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: 161 ratifications; the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: 187 ratifications; the 1989 Convention of the Rights of the Child: 193 ratifications. In order to increase transparency and – hopefully – the number of national reports special attention should be given to the request to make the reports available online

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through the newly-established global database on the right to education which is now accessible [UNESCO/Executive Board (2014b): paragraph 8]. This database will also include information related to the right of education as mentioned in the concluding observations of the UN human rights treaty bodies. In the following, some suggestions will be made covering a range of alternative options which are to a certain extent of complementary nature: Option (1) relates to the procedures exercised by the human rights treaty bodies of the UN. If this option is accepted, it would have several implications. First of all, the composition of the CR Committee must be changed into an expert body. Secondly, the time-table must be radically changed because the debates about the reports of the States Parties should be in public session and demand at least one day per State report. If this option is not acceptable, option (2) would imply again an expert body which, in order to increase efficiency, could meet in two or three chambers dealing with reports of the States Parties the same way as mentioned in option (1). Option (3) would again restrict the number of reports presented by States Parties. In this case, it should be decided by drawing lots that one Member State from each electoral group will have to report before the CR Committee. Option (4) would delegate the monitoring process to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in the context of Articles 13 and 14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Instead, the UNESCO Secretariat would serve as a kind of “watch-dog” and not only include all the results of the concluding observations of the other UN human rights treaty bodies related to the exercise of the right to education in the newlyestablished global database but also prepare analytical reports to be discussed in the CR Committee, the Executive Board and the General Conference. Task Number Two: Individual Complaints Procedure Alongside the procedures laid down in UNESCO Conventions, in 1978 the Executive Board of UNESCO adopted a confidential procedure for the examination of individual communications (“complaints”) received by the Organiza-

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tion concerning alleged violations of human rights in its fields of competence, namely education, science, culture and information (for details of the procedure see Document 15). This procedure is set out in 104 EX/Decision 3.3 of the Executive Board. Between 1978 and 2013, due to this procedure out of 586 cases recognized admissible 372 minus 16 (released after completion of sentence) = 356 cases were settled (see Document 16). Document 15: Procedure which should be followed in the Examination of Cases and Questions which might be submitted to UNESCO Concerning the Exercise of Human Rights (Resolution 104 EX/Decision 3.3 of the Executive Board, 26 April 1978)

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Document 16: Summary of the Results of the Application of the Procedure laid down by 104 EX/Decision 3.3, 1999–2013 Oct. 1999

Oct. 2001

Sept. 2003

Sept. 2005

Sept. 2007

Sept. 2009

Sept. 2011

Sept. 2013

Total since 1978

478

488

508

529

545

551

566

586

Released before completion of sentence

164

174

186

194

200

206

211

221

6

6

9

11

11

12

14

16

Authorized to leave their country to go to study or teach

20

20

20

20

21

21

21

21

Authorized to return to their country

35

35

35

35

35

35

35

35

Able to resume their employment or activity falling within UNESCO’s fields of competence

29

29

29

29

29

29

29

29

Able to resume a banned publication or broadcast programme

14

14

14

14

14

14

14

14

Able to resume normal life following a cessation of threats

3

3

3

3

3

4

45

45

Able to benefit from changes in certain education laws which were discriminatory towards ethnic or religious minorities

7

7

7

10

10

10

10

10

Able to obtain passports and/or grants, or to receive diplomas

11

12

12

12

12

12

12

12

2

9

9

9

9

330

344

352

360

372

Released after completion of sentence

Able to resume studies Total Sources:

289

300

315

Hüfner, Klaus: UNESCO und Menschenrechte (UNESCO and Human Rights). Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2008, table 8, p. 55. For September 2007: 179 EX/CR/2 of 11 February 2008, pp. 13–14; for September 2009: 184 EX/CR/2 of 19 February 2010, p. 16; for September 2011: 189 EX/CR/2 of 18 January 2012, p. 17; for September 2013: 194 EX/CR/2 of 20 Febuary 2014, p. 15.

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Individuals, groups of individuals and NGOs may submit complaints to UNESCO concerning violations of human rights, whether the authors of these communications are themselves victims of such violations or whether they deem to have reliable knowledge of such violations. The rights falling under UNESCO’s competence are essentially the following Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the rights concerned also appear in the two UN Covenants of 16 December 1966): the right to education (Article 26); the right to benefit from scientific progress (Article 27); the right to participate freely in cultural life (Article 27); and the right to information, including freedom of opinion and expression (Article 19). The victims of human rights violations are normally teachers, students, researchers, artists, writers, journalists, in short intellectuals who, by virtue of their position, come under UNESCO’s fields of competence, or any other person on account of having exercised one or other of the rights set out above. The CR Committee examines communications in private session. In the first instance, it examines the admissibility of the communications. There are ten conditions governing admissibility which are set out in paragraph 14(a) of 104 EX/Decision 3.3; if one of them is not met, no further action is taken on the communication. Once the Committee is satisfied that the conditions of paragraph 14 (a) have been fully met, a communication is normally declared admissible and the merits are considered at the next session. The CR Committee then proceeds to examine the substance of the communications. For this purpose and in order to establish a dialogue, the representatives of the governments concerned are invited to provide information or answer questions asked by members of the CR Committee. Since the CR Committee is not an international tribunal, it endeavours to resolve the problem in a spirit of international co-operation and mutual understanding. In search for an amicable solution, the Committee works in strictest confidentiality, which is seen vital to the success of its action. Because the aim of the CR Committee’s work is not to condemn the government concerned, but to improve the situation of the alleged victim.

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Given the fact that the 104 procedure of UNESCO was not established pursuant to a specific convention, but is based rather on the inherent constitutional authority of UNESCO, this procedure, at the time of its adoption, had and still has several advantages vis-à-vis other UN procedures such as, for instance, the ability of NGOs or individuals to complain on behalf of victims; and the consideration of human rights violations of governments of UNESCO Member States that have ratified no or only a few UN human rights treaties. Several recommendations have been made to improve the individual complaints procedure, such as that  the Committee should be made less political and smaller in size in order to function as an expert body;  UNESCO should also consider to allow authors of cases to attend the meetings of the Committee offering them the opportunity to respond directly to replies of the Member States;  the Committee should consistently verify the replies of the Member States with authors before closing cases;  the Committee should develop a systematic information policy concerning the results of the UNESCO procedure. Since 1999, the Committee dealt with those and other related issues and decided to keep its individual complaints procedure unchanged. It can be assumed that this procedure is well-known to all Member States of UNESCO. Nevertheless, Member States concerned try to introduce all kinds of objections such as that the alleged victim didn’t exhaust domestic remedies, that the case is outside the competences of UNESCO, that – if at all – the case belongs to the human rights institutions based in Geneva. Therefore, debates in the CR Committee are based upon a high degree increasing politicization. Those debates are not new. Although the Executive Board has decided in 1999 not to modify the specific UNESCO procedure, repeated criticism over the last 15 years can be observed. Carefully prepared documentation of the Secretariat and comparative analyses of other UN human rights procedures could not contribute to an objective discussion. A typical feature of the increasing politicization is the fact that in many cases those Member States protest against the UNESCO procedure that have not ratified any international obligation which allow individual complaints by their citizens.

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Most recently, the Executive Board decided at its 192th session “to establish a working group comprised of all the members of the Committee and other Member States concerned, with a view to reviewing and improving the working methods and the procedures of the Committee, …” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2013j): paragraph 4]. The final results of the rather intensive debates led to a number of – primarily technical – recommendations such as 1) the need to rebalance the first task in relation to the second; 2) more attention to be paid to applying the admissibility criteria; 3) limiting the speaking time; and 4) increasing the visibility of the 104 procedure. The Executive Board decided that the chair of the CR Committee is requested to report on the implementation of these improvements in spring 2016 [UNESCO/Executive Board (2015g): item 20]. Decisions such as, for instance, about the size and expertise of the members of the CR Committee were not taken.

UNESCO World Reports In the 1980s and 1990s, the number of world reports in the UN system increased considerably. Those activities were caused by the annual World Development Report, published by the World Bank since 1978. UNESCO started to publish world reports in the late 1980s. Those were sector-specific activities, but no regular appearances could be observed. Between 1989 and 2000 a total of 15 “UNESCO World Reports” appeared, among them until 1998 five World Education Reports. In 1998 four UNESCO World Reports in the fields of communication, education, science, and culture appeared in a single year [see Hüfner/Reuther (Ed.) (2005): p. 27]. This accumulation of annually published UNESCO World Reports caused an external evaluation group to draw attention to the dangers of “inflation” of UNESCO World Reports. In addition, an increasing competition between the Sectors of the Secretariat would occur and would contradict the postulate of interdisciplinary cooperation. For this reason, the expert group recommended to publish in future only one UNESCO World Report every two years which would cover a theme of interest for all sectors. The interdisciplinary work should be actively encouraged [UNESCO/Executive Board (2000)]. The Direc-

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tor-General welcomed these proposals; however, he set intervals between 4 and 6 years. The first new UNESCO World Report appeared under the title “Building Knowledge Societies” dealing with infrastructures for information and communication technologies. Unfortunately, this report was published in 2004, one year after the UN World Information Summit took place in Geneva. Therefore, UNESCO couldn’t properly influence the debate. The second UNESCO World Report was published in 2010 under the title “Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue” by the end of the term of Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura. Again, a corresponding feedback to the Executive Board and the General Conference leading towards new priorities could not be undertaken. Under the new Director-General, Irina Bokova, nothing happened about the planning of further UNESCO World Reports that would have been designed across the Sectors of the Secretariat and thus demand interdisciplinary work. Meanwhile, the number of sector-specific UNESCO World Reports increased using the term “UNESCO Report” extensively, such as the United Nations World Water Development Report, which was originally published every three years and appears as from 2014 or the Education for All Global Monitoring Report, which appeared until 2015 on an annual basis as an independent publication but on behalf of UNESCO. In addition, the UNESCO Science Report appeared in 2005 and 2010. Also, in 2010 the World Social Science Report was published jointly by UNESCO and the International Social Science Council. In 2013, another World Social Science Report appeared. Also in 2013, the EURidUNESCO World Report on IDN Development 2012 has been launched. This development clearly indicates that the Sectors of the Secretariat return to the tradition of self- reports without realizing that a large number of annually published “UNESCO World Reports” may not be in the overall interest of the Organization, given its inflationary character. At the same time, it must be seen on the other hand that the traditional organizational structures of the Secretariat prevent an intersectoral and interdisciplinary oriented cooperation and rather reinforce competition among the Sectors.

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5.2

Problems of Programming in the Planning Process

Reform proposals can be made with regard to organizational-institutional and/or substantive issues. UNESCO has traditionally focused on content and produced short- and medium-term plans of two and six years (C/5 and C/4). Member States were asked to submit comments on drafts prepared by the Secretariat. The answers received from the Member States were taken into account when the Secretariat prepared a revised text. Member States were not directly involved in this process. In other words, which of the new interventions proposed by individual Member States were actually taken into account and to what extent by the Secretariat remained a guarded secret in good faith. The instrument of medium-term plans has been suggested by an expert group which has been established during the mid-1960s by the UN General Assembly. The 14th session of the General Conference of UNESCO accepted this proposal of institutionalizing a process of “medium- und long-term forward planning” in 1966 and adopted in 1970 for the years 1971–1975 (16 C/4) and in 1972 for the years 1973–1975 first drafts for medium-term planning. The 19th session of the General Conference adopted in 1976 the first Medium-Term Plan for the period 1977–1982 (19 C/4) which contained 44 “objectives”. A broad consultation process was linked to the production of the second Medium-Term Plan for the years 1984–1989; the governments of the Member States, the National Commissions for UNESCO and NGOs were involved and reacted upon a questionnaire in writing. The fourth Medium-Term Plan (1996–2001) was designed as a medium-term strategy in a much less detailed way and planned as a rolling planning process which offers revisions in two-year intervals. When Irina Bokova was elected in November 2009 as Director-General for the period of four years, the first two years of the sixth Medium-Term Strategy (34 C/4) expired already. Therefore, she could not exercise a direct influence on the goals and strategies adopted in 2007. Also, one has to take into account that during the years 2011 and 2012–2013 she was confronted with all kinds of emergency measures because of the financial crisis.

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In 2012, a new – quantitative and qualitative – programming procedure has been tested under her responsibility which, however, caused difficulties of implementation under the given time constraints. Only 16 days were available for the national consultations by the governments with their special committees of the National Commissions for UNESCO – a situation which caused Norway, for example, to write a critical accompanying letter. Finland went a step further and sent “additional observations” as a “non paper”, which contained detailed ideas on 13 pages related to the five functions and five major programmes, and especially linked to the Post-2015 MDGs/SDGs (Millennium Development Goals/Sustainable Development Goals). Also, Germany made critical remarks, especially related to the methodological approach. On 15 June 2012, the Deputy-Head of the Permanent Mission of Germany to UNESCO wrote in his accompanying letter that the questionnaire was more backward oriented, more focused on a review of existing UNESCO programmes and activities. “Although admitting that the new C/4 and C/5 have to be based on the experience with the existing programmes the questions and criteria could have been formulated in a way which should have signalled more openness thereby giving more space for innovative comments by Member States. This would have enabled us also to point to new directions and priorities.” He then expressed his hope that the answering of the questionnaire will only be the beginning of a discussion process about the C/4 and C/5 documents with the Member States and governments. He further hoped that the following regional consultations and the debates during the sessions of the Executive Board and the General Conference will possibly lead to innovative planning contents – of course, those extremely optimistic observations could not be put into concrete action. The programming phase of this planning process offered, in fact, several new features:  The terms were extended by two years each. This meant in concrete terms that the 37 C/4 document refers to the eight years from 2014 to 2021, while the previous Medium-Term Plans/Strategies covered only six years. The 37 C/5 document will be extended from two to four years whereby the associated planning of the budget will be done in

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two two-year intervals corresponding to the biennium cycle of the sessions of the General Conference.  The approach of the two questionnaires differed from the previously carried out surveys because they included more quantitative assessments. As a result, clearly fixed guidelines of target values were defined in the presented tables, whereby the themes listed in the main column had to be assessed according to priorities or points. Only the last line offered the possibility to mention other themes.  This more quantitative approach of expressing priorities was certainly appreciated by many governments as “easier”, which was reflected in the significantly higher response rate but – based on the total number of Member States – it had to be regarded as low. Taken together, only 113 of 195 Member States (=55.9 percent) participated; the regional quotas differed between 42.4 percent (Latin America and the Caribbean) and 66.0 percent (Europe and North America). For comparison: in the consultation on the Medium-Term Plan 1984– 1989 after all 105 of the then 161 Member States (=65.2 percent) were involved.  Seen from a purely methodological point of view, this type of aggregation remains as questionable as the summaries of responses previously made in the C/5 and C/4 documents. Most probably, the weighting was carried out in relation to “one state – one vote”. It should also be mentioned that this time not only the list of the participating Member States has been published but also their reports were posted on the Internet thus fulfilling the transparency axiom. Below, two questions of the 37 C/4 questionnaire are listed as examples showing the priorities of Germany, Norway, and the United States and the Member States taken together (underlining of figures) and their differences.

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Question 1: Among the key global challenges facing the world, which ones should UNESCO aim to address during the 2014–2021 period? Please rate each item listed below. Themes

Top priority

High Medium Low No priority priority priority priority

79

GER USA 23

1

0

4

GER 36

6

0

0

19

7

1

1.Promoting peace, intercultural dialogue, tolerance and mutual understanding 2. Accelerating progress on the internationally NOR agreed development goals, including the Mil- USA lennium Development Goals (MDGs) 65 3. Addressing inequalities, marginalization and exclusion 4. Responding to global environmental changes

27

GER USA 53

GER 33

51

NOR 18

USA 5

0

NOR 52

13

1

0

GER 34

NOR USA 47

18

4

1

37

GER NOR 41

16

USA 9

2

23

GER 51

NOR 20

USA 9

1

GER 34

USA 54

19

NOR 2

0

46

GER NOR 16

USA 13 NOR USA 9 1

5. Upholding human rights, including freedom of GER expression and freedom of the press, and proUSA moting universally agreed norms and standards 40 6. Achieving gender equality

7. Responding to the needs of Africa

8. Responding to conflict, post-conflict and post-disaster situations 9. Preparing future knowledge societies and addressing key technological development changes

NOR

10. Addressing population dynamics 5

23

11. Countering the spread of human diseases, including HIV/AIDS 12. Other (optional – please specify below)

120

19

36

24

GER 16

15

5

1

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Topics 1 and 2 received the highest priority, namely 79 and 65 votes, while the topics 3, 4, 5, 8, and 9 can be classified as “high priority” (in each case about 50 votes). In addition to the overall priorities Germany, Norway, and the United States have been listed in order to indicate to what extent deviations from the majorities occurred. Here, Norway didn’t show up in topic 1 because she was of the opinion that the promotion of peace is an overall topic and should not be listed separately: “The promotion of peace is at the core of UNESCO’s mandate and should permeate all UNESCO’s activities. Therefore, promotion of peace should not, in our opinion, be categorized in this scheme”. At this point, Germany should be mentioned with a special feature; she included as “further new challenges” the following additional largely overlapping topics: “1. promoting sustainable and green and inclusive societies; 2. addressing low levels of adult literacy and basic skills world-wide; 3. lifelong learning for all; 4. promoting quality of education at all levels and enhancing a concept of inclusive education”.

USA (2)

Germany (1)

Total points

Average (1+2+3)

Norway (3)

USA (2)

Areas

Germany (1)

Question 2: What are the areas where UNESCO has a comparative advantage and has – or should claim – a leadership role in the multilateral system for the 2014–2021 period? Please rate each of the areas below, distributing a total of 100 points amongst the items to indicate their relative priority. Allocate between 0 and 100 points to each item in multiples of 5 (0, 5, 10, 15, …, 100)

1. Culture of peace and intercultural dialogue

5

0

0

1.67 1,062

5

0

2. International leadership and coordination in education

5

20

40

21.67 1,340

5

20

15

0

0

5.00

999

15

0

5

0

0

1.67

852

5

0

10

10

10

10.00

648

10

10

3. Education for sustainable development 4. Science, technology and innovation 5. Oceans

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USA (2)

Germany (1)

Total points

Average (1+2+3)

Norway (3)

USA (2)

Germany (1)

Areas

6. Sustainable management of freshwater

10

10

0

6.67

780

10

10

7. Freedom of the media and freedom of expression, including the new media

10

30

20

20.00

950

10

30

5

0

0

1.67

674

5

0

9. Tangible and intangible cultural heritage

15

20

15

16.67 1,166

15

20

10. Culture and development

10

0

15

8.33

947

10

0

11. Building inclusive knowledge societies

5

0

0

1.67

734

5

0

12. Statistics in UNESCO’s fields of competence

5

10

0

5.00

739

5

10

8. Bioethics and ethics of science and technology

13. Other (optional – please specify)

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Here, Germany has undertaken a very detailed commentary. It has been critically noted that the question is worded in an equivocally way and that options for the ranking would partly overlap. Also, a consensus on the definition of “leadership” is lacking:”Does it e.g. also include shared leadership with other UN specialised agencies, i.e. that the UN family leads to a topic vis-à-vis e.g. private foundations?”. And related to topic 1: “The options also induce false dilemmas: Intercultural dialogue is connected with the areas in numbers 2, 9, 10 and 11”. Of question 2 the topic “7. Freedom of the media and freedom of expression, including the new media” has been separately evaluated for a number of Member States of the Europe and North America group. It must be noted that the added value of the awarded points within the range was not allowed to exceed 100.

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Member State

Range of awarded points on all topics

Area 7

Andorra

0–15

15

Belarus

5–15

5

Germany

5–15

10

Canada

0–20

10

Monaco

0–20

15

Netherlands

0–40

10

Norway

0–40

20

Austria

5–40

20

Poland

5–15

15

Romania

0–10

10

Sweden

0–40

40

Switzerland

5–15

5

United States

0–30

30

Interesting to note are the differences in the chosen range. From this selection of 13 Member States four countries limited themselves to a small range of 5–15 points; since in no case a zero was chosen, all topics deemed “valuable”. By contrast, there where Member States which showed very distinct priorities, namely – each with 40 out of 100 points – Norway on item 2, Sweden on item 7, the Netherlands on item 9 and Austria on item 11. Finally, a particular interesting question should be raised: In which context the role of UNESCO as an intellectual leader, as a think tank could be evaluated? As a surprise, such a question didn’t exist. Only the analysis of the comments under “Other issues” [see UNESCO (2012b)] included demands such as  maintain UNESCO as the intellectual cooperation institution ‘par excellence’ (p. 6);  a respondent suggested that as an intellectual cooperative organization of the United Nations, UNESCO should continue to advocate for poverty eradication, sustainable development and peacebuilding (p. 8);

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 other options proposed were: ….; creating a network of data and communication centres in all National Commissions to be sources of intellectual and scientific creativity for UNESCO an its fields of competence (p. 22) [author’s emphasis]. It must also be noted that in question 8 about the importance of the five functions that “laboratory of ideas” only occupies a third place (1,638 points) behind “capacity development, in particular institutional capacity-development” (1,868 points) and “standard setter” (1,770 points). Therefore, in summary it should be concluded that such questionnaires and its evaluation must be treated with the necessary methodological caution. On the one hand they are “easier” to be answered; on the other they can only be the starting-point of a substantive study of the all-determining issue of the future priorities of the Organization. The aggregation/counting of points should be interpreted as the first round of an interactive process of consultation. It also remains an open question whether and how the priorities-setting of the NGOs has been included in the overall assessment. The Medium-Term Strategy for 2014–2021 ranges well beyond the UN Millennium Goals of 2015. In March 2013, the Director-General submitted to the Executive Board a report about the preparations for the Post-2015 Development Agenda of the United Nations which contained many programmatic intentions as well as a listing of numerous dates but no major substantial references [see UNESCO/Executive Board (2013f)]. This appeared also rather difficult since the consultations at the UN level were underway at the same time. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon submitted his first report in September 2013 during the 68th session of the General Assembly. But precisely of this time-schedule it seemed highly questionable that the General Conference adopts a medium-term strategy until 2021 without direct, substantive references to the Post-2015 Development Agenda to be adopted in September 2015. It is true that the 37 C/4 document will be interpreted as a “rolling strategy” but the 38th session of the General Conference will take place in November 2015 which doesn’t allow a comprehensive revision of both UNESCO docu-

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ments [see UNESCO (2013b): paragraph 10]. In her introduction to the draft 37 C/4 und 37 C/5 documents the Director-General spoke about a common strategic version for the next eight years and beyond. Even more: “This is our opportunity to set a new course for a new UNESCO” [UNESCO (2013b): p. 5]. The relevance of intellectual cooperation is classified as “high” at all three levels, namely the international, regional and national level, while the laboratory of ideas is only highly valued at the international level [UNESCO (2013b): p. 15]. With regard to the strategic objective 6 [see Document 2] the following statement appears in connection with the establishment of a new Centre for Social Transformations and Intercultural Dialogue: “Partnerships with renowned research institutions, think-tanks and national research institutes and the global network of UNESCO Chairs are instrumental for building requisite capacities” [UNESCO (2013b): paragraph 107]. In conclusion, it must be stressed that the key concepts “intellectual cooperation”, “laboratory of ideas”, “think-tank” don’t appear very often in the Medium-Term Strategy 2014–2021. Under the given objectives and the structural framework conditions it will become more and more difficult for the Organization to be a global intellectual forum with academics from around the world that will allow a permanent dialogue and develop concepts that contain proposals to meet the challenges of globalization. At the 185th session of the Executive Board the Assistant Director-General for External Relations and Public Relations , Eric Faltin, stressed the importance of NGOs for the Organization: “He hoped that the NGO Committee would be a source of UNESCO renaissance, a high-level forum for reflexion and exchange that also included intellectuals” [UNESCO/Executive Board (2010d): paragraph 3]. Furthermore, he pleaded for a less centralized organization which is open to partners and networks of all kind and is moving towards a “more inclusive model of governance”. That is the message vis-à-vis the Committee on International Non-Governmental Organizations which belong in the future to the “Non-Governmental Partners”. However, reality looks currently rather different and difficult.

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5.3

An Agenda for Change

Document 17: Changes in the Global Architecture between 1946 and 2010 – Implications for the UNESCO Programme

Source: UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b): Annex – p. 2.

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In Document 17 presented by the Independent External Evaluation (IEE), the Team undertook a quite explicit attempt of demonstrating how the “global architecture” has been changed between 1946 and 2010. In the last column, the Team noted, among other things, that UNESCO is “perceived as centralized and bureaucratic”, “predominantly State-oriented, sceptical of other actors, e.g. civil society”, “driven by own priorities and strategies, inward-looking and riskaverse”. Indeed, UNESCO for tomorrow cannot be like UNESCO today. Before summarizing the criticism mentioned above, it should be stressed that the following proposals will be made to enable a public debate on the future of UNESCO. It is regrettable that such a discussion has not yet taken place although the 70th anniversary would have been a unique chance to do so. Perhaps, in governmental or semi-governmental institutions internal debates about the current financial and structural crisis took place. However, a societal transparency was not intended. In other words, what is missing is a publicdemocratic debate about how to rediscover the organization “UNESCO” and how to position it within the present UN system. One has to ask which structural changes should take place and which priorities need to be set because the rapidly changing conditions require a new thinking and action. This process requires a political will for innovative change and also the active participation of civil society. Recent contributions to the reform debate, in particular the IEE report [see UNESCO/Executive Board (2010b)], demand this very clearly. But between expectations and reality a significant gap exists which must be closed. Several basic decisions are necessary: 1) Should the 1991 decision of the Executive Board be revised to ensure that again personalities instead of Member States will be elected as members of the Executive Board? Or should next to the governmental Executive Board a second equivalent body be created with representatives of civil society and scientists (Research Council/Academia)? 2) Should UNESCO also continue to function as a development assistance organization and thus retain its dual character? 3) Should the Organization continue to cover all fields of activity related to education, sciences, culture and communication? If so, should clear priorities

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be fixed in terms of comparative advantage? If not, which fields of activity should be abandoned? In order to set a public debate in motion, the following proposals will be made:

Structural changes Several proposals exist which indicate the range of options when dealing with the future of UNESCO. In the following, only two positions should be taken into account. John R. Bolton, former ambassador of the Unites States to the UN, is in favour of a strict separation between international governmental organizations and NGOs including academia; he asked for the ‘value added’ that intellectuals were bringing to the UN system: “‘Safe zones’ for intellectuals by definition need to be outside government and the UN system, purely nongovernmental, including not being funded by governments or even by UNESCO, …” [Bolton (2011): p. 4]. For him, only the Science Sector of UNESCO is of value, but he then argued that those programmes could easily be undertaken without UNESCO. “Some could be transferred to other UN specialized agencies (such as the International Meteorological Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, or the International Maritime Organization) and others could be handled ad hoc among governments concerned with the relevant issues. There is and has for some time been too much overlap and duplication among the UN’s specialized agencies, and editing the ‘S’ out of UNESCO would be at least one step to solving that problem” [Bolton (2011): p.5]. Other authors indicated opposite positions. Joseph E. Schwartzberg, for instance, favoured in his attempt to consolidate the UN system an enlarged mandate of UNESCO when he asked: “Why not incorporate the UN World Tourism Organization within UNESCO, which is already charged with the task of certifying ‘World Cultural Heritage’ and ‘World Natural Heritage’ sites? The functions of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) might also best be carried out under a broadened UNESCO umbrella” [Schwartzberg (2013): p. 154]. Those two positions indicate the broad range of options between “killing” and enlarging the mandate of the Organization. The following proposal, however, is limited to the present situation of UNESCO and asks how intellectual cooperation might best be regained.

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A return to a “non-governmental” Executive Board as it existed until 1991, appears to be extremely difficult. Therefore, at least significant changes should be discussed, related to the size, the competencies of the members and the duration in office. Its size should be reduced to 30 (five from each electoral group) with no immediate re-election which would guarantee a better rotation and prevent a quasi-permanent membership as happened over the last 20 years with, for instance, China, France, India, Italy, and the Russian Federation. Elected Member States shall ensure compliance with the provisions of the UNESCO Constitution and appoint appropriate personalities for the whole term of four years (for details see section 4 of chapter 2). If the Member States intend to reinforce the role of the Executive Board as a forum for intellectual debates and exchanges, then those changes mentioned above will be necessary. At the same level as the existing governmental Executive Board, UNESCO should establish a second board composed of representatives from internationally recognized non-governmental partners (NGPs) of the global science system (Research Board). It should also consist of 30 members, elected for four years without immediate re-election. On behalf of the General Conference, both Boards should be responsible for the processes of programming and evaluation of the planning exercises. The process plan preparation (=programming) can only be carried out by consensus. Previous procedures in the programming phase, such as regional consultations, quantitative surveys, etc. may well continue to be part of the exercise. However, they should be carried out within the framework of an open dialogue with corresponding feedbacks; academic NGPs should be involved at all levels. In order to see how the relationship between governmental and nongovernmental institutions can be better institutionalized, it would be worthwhile to study not only the organizational set-up of the International Labour Organization (ILO), but also those of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The governance of the specialized institutes of UNESCO (category I institutes) should no longer be undertaken by representatives from Member States ac-

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cording a regional key, but only by recognized experts and of competent representatives of the secretariats of other international organizations working in the same field. The boards should be composed of no more than 8 members. “Functional autonomy” should mean that the specialized institutes act as “think-lighthouses” and provide impetus for innovative programme initiatives from bottom up. They are supposed to think and act as so-called centres of excellence “against the tide”. Their activities should be only evaluated under this focus and not under the premise of supplementary extra-budgetary funding.

The financial crisis Since five years, the United States doesn’t pay her dues of 22 percent for political reasons. This situation cannot last forever. Other Member States might start to act the same way. Actually, Israel joined the United States since 2011 and owes already 5.4 million US dollars. In chapter 3, two proposals have been made. In order to clarify whether a State can remain member of an international governmental organization without complying with her financial obligations UNESCO should ask the International Court of Justice for an Advisory Opinion. The second proposal is related to the establishment of a loan fund to serve as bridging mechanism until the United States will pay her accumulated debts. All other Member States are asked to pay a proportionate share to the assessed percentage as a loan to the Organization as long as the United States remains in the Organization without paying her dues. This would guarantee a minimum of financial security and prevent UNESCO from “bleeding to death”. In general, proposals for funding the Organization are to be considered from two aspects. On the one hand, UNESCO needs a basic funding that must be secured through assessed contributions. For the time being, UNESCO applies an adapted UN key, an assessment scale with a ceiling of 22 percent. In order to eliminate the financial dependence on one single State, a new ceiling of 10 percent should be introduced for the compulsory contributions to the regular budget of UNESCO. This implies a redistribution of 12.0 plus 0.8 percentage points because at present the United States and Japan are above the new ceiling. The Organization is not legally bound to the UN assessment scale and has,

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as other specialized agencies of the UN do, the right introduce its own version. If this proposal will be realized, it means that only two Member States (United States and Japan) would have to pay the ceiling of 10.0 percent. One can assume that both Member States will welcome this reduction. Own calculations lead to the conclusion that the top 10 contributors to the regular budget would have to pay 61 instead of 69 percent. Besides extra-budgeting funding, a new source of income should be introduced, namely charging fees in case of specific services. For instance, the monitoring activities based on the provisions of the World Heritage Convention should be financed by fees that are calculated as a percentage based on the assessment scale of UNESCO. During the General Policy Debate at the 37th session of the General Conference the United Kingdom statement of 7 November 2013 differed from those presented by the majority of other Member States. Besides many unanswered questions one issue has been at least implicitly raised, namely the future financing of UNESCO. The speaker postulated that a continuation of UNESCO’s shrinking resources in real terms “means in fact a future increasingly reliant on extra-budgetary resources, which themselves depend on UNESCO performing”. And he assumed that this might be indeed UNESCO’s future. In order to guarantee a solid financial base, extra-budgetary contributions are, of course, most welcome. However, the majority of them must be “core contributions”, i.e. not contributions for specific programmes or projects. Otherwise, the Organization will no longer be able to act independently. Therefore, it should be stressed again that the Organization needs a solid financial security and remains independent of a few “major donors”.

Cooperation versus competition Although UNESCO often claims how well the Organization is integrated within the UN system, the competing forces should not be ignored. UNESCO’s system of UNESCO Chairs is well known. Why did the UN initiate the United Nations Academic Impact to align institutions of higher education, scholarship and research with the UN? UNESCO’s leading role in education is wellknown. Why did the UN Secretary-General start a Global Education First Initiative? UNESCO’ Science Sector is well known. Why did the UN Secretary-

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General start the initiative to set up a Scientific Advisory Board? These questions must be raised when dealing with UNESCO’s responsibilities. In the first section of this chapter some selected problem areas were listed without claiming to be exhaustive. Among others, the agenda “Education 2030” should include a transparent comparative analysis of education financing, both bilaterally and multilaterally. It has also been mentioned that a new wave of UNESCO World Reports does not favour the often postulated interdisciplinary work among the Sectors of the Secretariat. Also, all criticism of the highly politicized CR Committee will not improve its performance as long as the Committee is composed of representatives of Member States. The current financial crisis of UNESCO invites the Member States as well as the scientific community to analyse not only historically developed performance patterns which are outdated today. The existing structure must be questioned. The present crisis management undertaken by the Secretariat and the Executive Board is extremely time-consuming; it is a necessary, but under no circumstances a sufficient exercise.

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Index

Academia 7, 36, 59, 92, 127 Academic Impact 131 Ad hoc Forum of Reflection 33–35 Ad hoc Preparatory Group (of the Executive Board) 28, 69, 77 Advisory Opinion 75 f., 79, 130 Basic education 34, 45, 83 Bridging fund 76, 79 Bureaucracy 8, 11, 35, 77, 82 Clearing house 44, 58 Committee on Conventions and Recommendations (CR) 26, 28, 37, 107 f., 110, 112–115, 132 Communication and Information 24 f., 38, 41, 44, 52, 70 f. Comparative advantages 88, 90 Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME) 15 f. CONFINTEA VI 46 Convention against Discrimination in Education 106–109 Convention for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage 51 Council of the League of Nations 16 Delivering as One 84, 88 Delors Report 33, 46, 103 Development Assistance Committee (DAC) 104 Director-General of UNESCO 11, 17, 27, 33, 38, 43, 48 f., 61, 69, 73, 77, 81 f., 84, 104 Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) 21 Education for all 25, 44 f., 47, 86, 98, 100, 103, 116 Education for sustainable development 46 f., 121 Education institutes 47 EFA Global Monitoring Report 45, 99 Emergency Fund 69–72, 75, 77–79 European Centre for Higher Education (CEPES) 46 European Commission 42, 65, 103 Executive Board of UNESCO 28 f., 77 f., 110, 129

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France 10, 16, 20, 33, 41, 56, 62, 77, 79, 129 Functional autonomy 48 f., 57, 96, 130 Funds, extra-ordinary 96 Germany 10, 20, 33, 56, 62 f., 76 f., 79, 118 f., 121–123 Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) 93, 131 “Governmentalization” 8, 10 f., 81, 88 General Conferences of UNESCO  1st General Conference 15  5th General Conference 61  7th General Conference 61  14th General Conference 117  19th General Conference 27, 117  20th General Conference 55, 108  26th General Conference 30–33  28th General Conference 23, 46  31st General Conference 23, 38  32nd General Conference 81  35th General Conference 85  36th General Conference 11 f., 21, 54, 62, 69 f., 73 f., 76  37th General Conference 11 f., 21, 24 f., 38, 45, 59, 62, 75, 131  38th General Conference 12, 24, 27, 49, 95, 124 Global architecture 87, 126 f. Global Database on the Right to Education 110 Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) 93, 131 High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 103 Holocaust education 70 Honour roll 74 Human rights 9, 22, 37 f., 47, 50, 58, 106 f., 109–114, 120 Human rights conventions 109 Humanism  New Humanism 17, 38, 46  Scientific Humanism 17 Incheon Declaration 47, 95 Inclusive education 46, 103, 121 Individual complaints procedure 110, 114 Intangible cultural heritage 51, 122 Intellectual autonomy 96

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Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) 49 International Bioethics Committee (IBC) 50 International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (CICI) 16 ScInternational Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) 52 International Court of Justice (ICJ) 75 f., 79, 130 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 109 f. International Development Association (IDA) 98 f., 102 f. International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) 49 International Hydrological Programme (IHP) 49 International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation (IICI) 16 International Labour Organization (ILO) 16 f., 129 International Maritime Organization (IMO) 128 International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) 52 f. Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) 82, 84, 91 Laboratory of ideas 8, 43, 58, 103, 124 f. Loan Fund 71, 76, 79, 130 Man and the Biosphere (MAB) 48 Management of Social Transformations (MOST) 50 Medium-Term Plan 23, 117–119 Medium-Term Strategy 23–25, 34 f., 43–45, 75, 83, 117, 124 f. Members, associated 19 Membership 7, 11, 16, 18 f., 21, 28 f., 36, 41, 55, 57, 62 f., 65, 68, 97, 109, 129 Multi-Donor Emergency Fund (see also Emergency Fund) 69 f., 72 Multilateral educational financing 97, 99, 103 National Commissions for UNESCO 53f., 74 Nominal zero growth 12, 63 Official Development Assistance (ODA) 104 Open letter 74f. Organizational structure 17, 26 f., 56, 116 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 99, 104 Palestine 7, 21, 63, 68, 79 f. Pérez de Cuéllar Report 33 Politicization 8, 57, 114 Private sector 20, 54, 65, 70, 88 f. Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR) 25 Real zero growth 78 Red list 51

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Regional Development Banks 65, 103 Regular Budget 12, 27, 47, 49, 58, 61–65, 67 f., 70 f., 75 f., 78, 80, 83, 87, 130 f. Sciences 13, 23–25, 30 f., 38, 41, 44, 48, 50, 58, 71, 127 Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) 49, 132 Secretariat of UNESCO 38 f., 82 Secretary-General of the UN 33, 50, 93 f. Social Sciences and Humanities 50, 58 Sustainable development 24 f., 44 f., 47–51, 59, 71, 94 f., 103, 118, 121, 123 Think Tank 8, 35 f., 43, 58 f., 88, 96, 103 f., 123 Tsunami early warning systems 49, 86 UN Charter 15, 17, 21, 43 UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 108 UN Development Programme (UNDP) 45, 65, 93, 98 f., 102 f. UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) 65, 93, 103 UN General Assemblies 21, 50, 80, 117 • 63rd UN General Assembly 105 • 64th UN General Assembly 62 • 67th UN General Assembly 62, 94 • 68th UN General Assembly 124 • 70th UN General Assembly 24 UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 65, 103 UN Post-2015 Agenda for Sustainable Development 47, 50, 59 UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) 98 f., 102 f. UN Women 93 UN World Information Summit 53, 116 UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) 128 f. UNA-Germany 70 f. UNESCO Constitution 9, 17, 18, 21, 23, 37, 41, 54, 129 UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) 95 UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) 95 f. UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE) 95–97 UNESCO International Institute for Capacity-Building in Africa (IICBA) 95 UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) 47, 95 f. UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC) 95

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UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) 95 UNESCO World Register “Memory of the World” 53 UNESCO World Reports 115 f., 132 UNICEF 65, 93, 98 f., 102 f. United Kingdom 18, 20, 37, 61 f., 68, 79, 104, 131 United States 7, 10, 12, 18–21, 24, 28, 41, 57, 59, 61–64, 68–70, 72, 74, 76–78, 80, 82, 119, 121, 123, 130 WFUNA 70 f., 91 Working Capital Fund 63 f., 73 World Bank 45, 93, 99, 115 World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST) 50 World Conservation Union (IUCN) 52 World Food Programme (WFP) 65, 98 f., 102 f. World Heritage Committee 37, 52 World Heritage List 51 f. World Heritage Programme 86 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) 128 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) 129 World Trade Organization (WTO) 46

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POLITIKWISSENSCHAFT Band 1 Albrecht Horn: Die Vereinten Nationen und multilaterale Sicher heitspolitik. Ergebnisse und notwendige Reformen. 112 Seiten. ISBN 978-3-86596-023-8 Band 2 Albrecht Horn: Vereinte Nationen – Akteure und Entscheidungs prozesse. 118 Seiten. ISBN 978-3-86596-101-3 Band 3 Klaus Hüfner: UNESCO und Menschenrechte. 158 Seiten. ISBN 978-3-86596-066-5 Band 4 Masao Nishikawa (Edited by Helmut Konrad): Socialists and International Actions for Peace 1914–1923. 344 Seiten. ISBN 978-3-86596-296-6 Band 5 Klaus Hüfner: Multilaterale Bildungsfinanzierung durch das UNO-System. 232 Seiten. ISBN 978-3-86596-306-2 Band 6 Klaus Hüfner: Wer rettet die UNESCO? 148 Seiten. ISBN 978-3-86596-544-8 Band 7 Peter Nitschke (Hg.): Der Prozess der Zivilisationen: 20 Jahre nach Huntington. Analysen für das 21. Jahrhundert. 288 Seiten. ISBN 978-3-86596-512-7 Band 8 Klaus Hüfner: Mehr Verantwortung übernehmen. Zum deutschen Finanz-Engagement in den Vereinten Nationen 1991–2013. 172 Seiten. ISBN 978-3-7329-0190-6 Band 9 Klaus Hüfner: What can save UNESCO? 148 Seiten. ISBN 978-3-7329-0216-3

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