Citizendia

 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
 
Org typeSpecialized Agency
AcronymsUNESCO
HeadDirector General of UNESCO
Koïchiro Matsuura
Flag of Japan Japan
StatusActive
Established1945
Websitewww.unesco.org
Wikimedia
Commons		Commons:Category:UNESCO UNESCO
PortalPortal:United Nations United Nations Portal

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on November 16, 1945. is the current Director-General of UNESCO. He was first elected in 1999 to a six-year term and reelected on 12 October 2005 for four years following a reform instituted For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a repository of Free content images sound and other multimedia files The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security Events 534 - A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus is published Year 1945 ( MCMXLV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar Its stated purpose is to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through education, science, and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the UN Charter. Peace, in the modern usage is a concept defined by the ideal state of relationship as absence of hostility at the international level that of a War. Security is the condition of being protected against danger loss and criminals Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together toward an intersection of common goals — for example an intellectual Education encompasses both the Teaching and Learning of Knowledge, proper conduct, and technical competency Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning " Knowledge " or "knowing" is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic Respect is esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person a personal quality or ability or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability JUSTICE is a Human rights and law reform organisation based in the United Kingdom. The rule of law, in its most basic form is the principle that no one is above the law Human rights refers to the "basic Rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled Political freedom is the absence of interference with the sovereignty of an individual by the use of coercion or aggression The United Nations Charter is the Treaty that forms and establishes the International organization called the United Nations. [1] It is the heir of the League of Nations' International Commission on Intellectual Cooperation. The League of Nations was an International organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920

UNESCO has 193 Member States and 6 Associate Members. The organization is based in Paris, with over 50 field offices and many specialized institutes and centres throughout the world. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Most of the field offices are "cluster" offices covering three or more countries; there are also national and regional offices. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programmes: education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, and communication and information. Projects sponsored by UNESCO include literacy, technical, and teacher-training programmes; international science programmes; the promotion of independent media and freedom of the press; regional and cultural history projects, the promotion of cultural diversity; international cooperation agreements to secure the world cultural and natural heritage (World Heritage Sites) and to preserve human rights; and attempts to bridge the world-wide digital divide. traditional definition of literacy is considered to be the ability to read and write or the ability to use Language to read, write, listen, Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning " Knowledge " or "knowing" is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding The news media refers to the section of the Mass media that focuses on presenting current News to the public Freedom Constitutional or statutory protections pertaining to freedom of the press History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology Cultural diversity encompasses the cultural differences that exist between people such as language dress and traditions and the way societies organize themselves their conception of Cultural heritage ("national heritage" or just "heritage" is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or Society Biodiversity is the variation of Life forms within a given Ecosystem, Biome or for the entire Earth. A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a site (such as a Forest, Mountain, Lake, Desert, Monument, Building, complex Human rights refers to the "basic Rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled The term digital divide refers to the gap between those people with effective access to Digital and Information technology and those without

Contents

Structure

The UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France
The UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France

Three bodies are responsible for policy-making, governance, and day-to-day administration at UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

The General Conference is a gathering of the organization's member states and associate members, in which each state has one vote. Meeting every two years, it sets general policies and defines programme lines for the organization.

The Executive Board's 58 members are elected by the General Conference for staggered four-year terms. The Executive Board prepares the sessions of the General Conference and ensures that its instructions are carried out. It also discharges other specific mandates assigned to it by the General Conference.

The Secretariat consists of the Director-General and his staff and is responsible for the day-to-day running of the organization. The Director-General, who serves as the public face of UNESCO, is elected for a (renewable) four-year term by the General Conference. The staff currently numbers some 2100, of whom some two-thirds are based in Paris, with the remaining third spread around the world in UNESCO's 58 field offices. The Secretariat is divided into various administrative offices and five programme sectors that reflect the organization's major areas of focus.

Controversy and reform

UNESCO has been the centre of controversy in the past, particularly in its relationships with the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and the former USSR. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Singapore The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 During the 1970s and 1980s, UNESCO's support for a "New World Information and Communication Order" and its MacBride report calling for democratization of the media and a more egalitarian access to information was condemned in these countries as attempts to curb freedom of the press. The New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO or NWIO is a term that was coined in a debate over media representations of the developing world in UNESCO in the late Many Voices One World, also known as the MacBride report, was a 1980 UNESCO publication written by the International Commission for the Study of Communication Freedom Constitutional or statutory protections pertaining to freedom of the press UNESCO was perceived by some as a platform for communist and Third World countries to attack the West, a stark contrast to accusations made by the USSR in the late 40s and early 50s. The term Western world, the West or the Occident ( Latin: occidens -sunset -west as distinct from the Orient) can have multiple meanings [1] In 1984, the United States withheld its contributions and withdrew from the organization in protest, followed by the United Kingdom in 1985 and Singapore in 1986. Following a change of government in 1997, the UK rejoined. The United States rejoined in 2003, followed by Singapore on 8th October 2007.

Part of the reason for their change of stance was due to considerable reforms implemented by UNESCO over the past 10 years. These included the following measures: the number of divisions in UNESCO was cut in half, allowing a corresponding halving of the number of Directors — from 200 to under 100, out of a total staff of approximately 2,000 worldwide. At the same time, the number of field units was cut from a peak of 1287 in 1998 to 93 today. Parallel management structures, including 35 Cabinet-level special adviser positions, were abolished. Between 1998 and 2009, 245 negotiated staff departures and buy-outs took place, causing the inherited $12 million staff cost deficit to disappear. The staff pyramid, which was the most top-heavy in the UN system, was cut back as the number of high-level posts was halved and the “inflation” of posts was reversed through the down-grading of many positions. Open competitive recruitment, results-based appraisal of staff, training of all managers and field rotation were instituted, as well as SISTER and SAP systems for transparency in results-based programming and budgeting. In addition, the Internal Oversight Service (IOS) was established in 2001 to improve organizational performance by including the lessons learned from programme evaluations into the overall reform process. In reality though, IOS's main tasks involve auditing rather than programme oversight; it regularly carries out audits of UNESCO offices that essentially look into administrative and procedural compliance, but do not assess the relevance and usefulness of the activities and projects that are carried out.

Programming coherence and relevance remains a challenge at UNESCO. One of the main reasons for this is that activities and projects can be identified and supervised by various services within the organization.

Activities

UNESCO implements its activities through the 5 programme areas of Education, Natural Sciences, Social and Human Sciences, Culture, and Communication and Information.

Prizes, awards and medals

UNESCO awards several prizes in science, culture and peace, such as:

Postage Stamps

Various countries have issued postage stamps commemorating UNESCO. The UNESCO Prize for Peace Education has been awarded annually since 1981. The UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education, created in 1978 to mark the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, serves to honour the The UNESCO Science Prize is a biennial Prize awarded by UNESCO to "a person or group of persons for an outstanding contribution they have made to the technological The UNESCO/Institut Pasteur Medal is a biennial international Science prize created jointly by UNESCO and the Pasteur Institute in 1995 "to UNESCO Artists for Peace are international celebrity advocates for the United Nations agency UNESCO. The Creative Cities Network is a project under the patronage of UNESCO. The Seal of Excellence for Handicrafts is awarded to handicraft products annually by UNESCO A postage stamp is an adhesive paper evidence of pre-paying a fee for postal services The organization's seal and its headquarters building have been common themes. In 1955 the United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) issued its first ones honouring the organization. The United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA is the postal agency of the United Nations.

While UNESCO has never separately issued stamps valid for postage, from 1951 to 1966 it issued a series of 41 "gift stamps" to raise money for its activities. Designed by artists in various countries, they were sold at a desk by the UNPA counter located in the United Nations Headquarters building in New York City. The United Nations Headquarters is a distinctive complex in New York City that has served as the headquarters of the United Nations since its completion in 1950 The City of New York No longer available at the UN, most of these Cinderella stamps can be purchased at low cost from speciality stamp dealers. A cinderella stamp is a label similar in appearance to a Postage stamp but which does not normally pay a fee associated with sending mail beyond a purely local service

Directors General

  1. Julian Huxley, Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom (1946–1948)
  2. Jaime Torres Bodet, Flag of Mexico Mexico (1948–1952)
  3. John Wilkinson Taylor, Flag of the United States United States (acting 1952–1953)
  4. Luther Evans, Flag of the United States United States (1953–1958)
  5. Vittorino Veronese, Flag of Italy Italy (1958–1961)
  6. René Maheu, Flag of France France (1961–1974; acting 1961)
  7. Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow, Flag of Senegal Senegal (1974–1987)
  8. Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Flag of Spain Spain (1987–1999)
  9. Koïchiro Matsuura, Flag of Japan Japan (1999–present)

Locations

UNESCO has offices in many locations across the globe; its headquarters are located in Paris, France. Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS ( 22 June 1887 &ndash 14 February 1975) was an English Evolutionary biologist The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Jaime Torres Bodet ( 17 April 1902 – 13 May 1974) was a prominent Mexican politician and writer who served in the executive cabinet The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. John Wilkinson Taylor (1906 &ndash 2001 was a US educator He was President of the University of Louisville from 1947 to 1949 The United States of America —commonly referred to as the In law when someone is said to be acting in a position it can mean one of three things Luther Harris Evans ( October 13 1902, Bastrop County Texas &ndash December 23 1981, San Antonio Texas) was an The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Vittorino Veronese (1910 &ndash 1986 was an Italian lawyer who was Director-General of UNESCO from 1958 to 1961 Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest René Gabriel Eugene Maheu (1905&ndash1975 a close friend of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, was a French professor of philosophy and the sixth This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. In law when someone is said to be acting in a position it can mean one of three things Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow (born 1921 is a Senegalese educator Born in Dakar, M'bow served in France and North Africa during World War 2 Senegal (le Sénégal officially the Republic of Senegal, is a country south of the Sénégal River in western Africa. Federico Mayor Zaragoza (b 1934 in Barcelona) is a Spanish scholar and politician Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. is the current Director-General of UNESCO. He was first elected in 1999 to a six-year term and reelected on 12 October 2005 for four years following a reform instituted For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics.

References

  1. ^ Grahm, S. A geographic coordinate system enables every location on the Earth to be specified in three coordinates using mainly a spherical coordinate system. E. (April 2006). "The (Real)politiks of Culture: U. S. Cultural Diplomacy in UNESCO, 1946–1954". Diplomatic History 30 (2): 231–251.  
  2. ^ Varga, Susan (2006). Edinburgh Old Town (Images of Scotland) (Images of Scotland). The History Press Ltd. ISBN 0-7524-4083-7.  

External links


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