DG/2001/91 Original: English/French UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION Address by Mr Koïchiro Matsuura Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on the occasion of the information meeting with Permanent Delegates UNESCO, 25 September 2001
DG/2001/91 [The Director-General began his address in English] Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, The purpose of my requesting your presence here today was to provide you with certain information concerning the preparation of the forthcoming, 31st session of the General Conference, which will be an important one by all accounts, marking as it does the culmination of two years of intense efforts by the Secretariat and the Executive Board in the reform of UNESCO. I therefore thank you all for being here. Special words of greeting go to those of you who have just arrived in the UNESCO community here at Headquarters. Indeed, 14 new Ambassadors and Permanent Delegates have joined our ranks since late April: from Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Côte d Ivoire, Croatia, Denmark, Djibouti, Eritrea, Gambia, Israel, Japan, Malawi, Pakistan, Romania and Saudi Arabia. I extend to each and all of you a warm welcome. A meeting of this nature, however businesslike had been its original intent, requires of me that I begin with the grave world events of the past two weeks. The horrific attacks of 11 September 2001 were shocking in their brutality and scale. Particularly disturbing was the perpetrators utter contempt for the lives of civilians. Such a denial of basic human dignity and the right to life whenever and wherever it occurs is both intolerable and deeply troubling. No culture, no civilization, no religion, no ideology, no belief system can rest on such inhumanity. It goes against the very principles embodied in the United Nations Charter and UNESCO s Constitution. Our heartfelt sympathy and condolences are extended to the victims, to their families, friends and colleagues, and to the 80 or more countries to which the victims belonged. This was an attack not only upon the United States, its people and its institutions but also upon all of us, upon the values and principles that underpin the United Nations. I join with Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, in his unreserved condemnation of terrorism in all its forms. Appalling acts such as those perpetrated in the United States are a threat to international peace and security, as the United Nations Security Council stated in resolution 1368 (2001) adopted on 12 September 2001. On learning of the tragic events two weeks ago, I immediately sent to President Bush our heartfelt condolences and solidarity with the American people. The following day, I issued a statement to all UNESCO staff and the Permanent Delegations, with which both the President of the General Conference and the Chairperson of the Executive Board fully associated themselves. In this statement, I emphasized how important it is for us to reaffirm our commitment to the ideals and principles enshrined in our Constitution. I am sure that, during the three minutes of silence observed by a number of us on Friday 14 September 2001, our thoughts were united not only in sympathy and sorrow but also in our determination to withstand this challenge to our shared values and convictions. It is quite clear that the role of the United Nations system in its entirety needs to be strengthened. It is quite clear, too, that it must act as one, showing much more cohesiveness than
DG/2001/91 page 2 has sometimes been the case in the past. The scheduled meeting of United Nations agency heads in October should provide a timely occasion to develop common approaches and build stronger partnership. I believe that terrorism and other threats to peace must be addressed by the whole United Nations system. Political dialogue and short-term responses are the responsibility of the United Nations itself. This Organization, for its part, is one whose raison d être requires it to look to the longer term. We have been wrestling with the deep imperfections of the world and its growing interdependency for over five decades. And judging by the reactions to the events of 11 September 2001, the Organization s founding principles, and its ethical and intellectual mandate, are central to the concerns and needs of the international community today. UNESCO s agenda, in short, has shot to the top of the world agenda. We must avoid any knee-jerk reaction. But events call upon us to take a fresh look at some of our strategies and modalities of action, which may lead to some readjustments. It seems patently obvious that we need to enhance our outreach and reinforce our long-term impact in the field of intercultural understanding and shared values. We should not overlook the significance of the fact that these events occurred on the International Day of Peace and in the middle of the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations. As you know, within the framework of this International Year, serious efforts have been made to promote dialogue between and within cultures. Yet we must now ask ourselves whether the dialogue we have hitherto fostered has really sought to reach out to the circles of all those who need to be involved. We need perhaps to explore new types of dialogue. In addition, we must give extra emphasis to effective listening so that dialogue is genuinely two-way. We remain convinced that, more than ever, dialogue, not violence, is the best way to generate actions that redress real grievances, injustices and inequities in society. UNESCO must therefore serve as a key arena within which the intellectual and ethical dilemmas of our time are analysed, discussed and, if possible, resolved. At the very least, we must provide opportunities for people with real differences to find common ground. UNESCO must be a haven of measured reflection even if the world is tearing itself apart. We must actively seek to influence the terms of ethical and intellectual engagement between those with opposing views. In rising to the challenge before it, UNESCO must reinforce its core messages and find better, more effective ways to communicate them. The forthcoming session of our General Conference will probably be the first major intergovernmental forum for policy dialogue to convene in the period following the events of 11 September. It will therefore be crucial. And let me take this opportunity to stress that it will take place as scheduled. The work of our institution must and will go on, even though tighter security arrangements will be necessary. Stricter security measures already have been introduced and these will be enhanced during the General Conference. I am sure that I can count on your cooperation and patience regarding the security precautions required. I hope, therefore, that the Executive Board session immediately preceding the General Conference will help us to reflect on the processes to be put in place that will enable us to enhance our role. UNESCO s response clearly has to occur in a structured and coherent manner. Particularly important will be the tone as well as the substance of the debates. The maturity and seriousness of our discussions should set a standard for the world at large.
DG/2001/91 page 3 Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, When delegates from the world over gather in General Conference in October, they will find an Organization in very different shape from the one they left two years ago. I believe there is much room for satisfaction with the achievements of the Secretariat and the Executive Board in driving forward a reform effort that has reached into every nook and cranny of our Organization s life and work. We can be confident that UNESCO has prepared and positioned itself for the challenges ahead. We have painstakingly reviewed all our strategies and programmes in an effort to respond faithfully to our mandate and to the needs of the international community. In an extraordinarily difficult budget context, we have streamlined the Secretariat s structure at Headquarters. We have rationalized its field network, and the clustering process is on schedule. Most of the offices due to close this year have already done so. I have brought in a new team of senior managers who are all now hard at work in an atmosphere of energy, collegial decision-making and intersectoral cooperation. With very few exceptions, all senior posts have been filled and the heads of the field offices appointed. Management practices and administration and staff policies including recruitment, contractual arrangements, training, rotation and mobility, motivation and rejuvenation are being completely overhauled in order to put in place the modern, flexible and efficient Secretariat this Organization needs and our Member States expect. The detailed plans on staff policies, including their implementation calendar, are now being developed and reviewed by the senior management. They will be introduced after full consultations with staff in the course of next year. The necessary computerized management support systems are being introduced, with SISTER operational, FABS ready to go live in January, and the plans for human resource management well under way. To be more precise in regard to FABS, I wish to inform you that the financial concerns about its implementation can be put to rest. The funding package has been finalized for the current biennium, and FABS will be phased in over the first half of next year, alongside a full training programme. The much-needed repairs to our Headquarters buildings have begun; the Fontenoy entrance hall and the main Conference lobby already have been renovated, as has the Sports Room in the Miollis Building. Repairs have also begun outside the Miollis Building. The next steps, in accordance with Phase 1 of the Belmont Plan, will include urgent safety work concerning electricity supply, fire protection and detection measures, improvement of the security system, and improvements to the Fontenoy buildings façades. Allow me next to draw your attention to the preparations under way to formulate regional and subregional strategies, conditional upon the approval of documents 31 C/4 and 31 C/5. The new field offices will play a key role in this process, which will involve all relevant stakeholders. It will not be until these regional and subregional strategies have been completed that UNESCO will be fully ready for programme implementation. In this regard, let us remember that the whole purpose of our decentralization reform is to strengthen our action in Member States. The new emphasis on results-based programming, carefully reflected in documents 31 C/4 and 31 C/5 at the behest of our Member States, is also being put to the test in a series of workshops for professional staff at Headquarters and in the field. It is through these workshops that the soughtfor change of mentalities and day-to-day work practices will begin to take hold. The same applies to
DG/2001/91 page 4 the introduction of knowledge networks; it is gratifying that these already have begun to form part of our working lifestyle. And so we shall present to the international community as it assembles here the earnest beginnings of the new UNESCO to which they aspire, and to which I trust they will give their stamp of approval. In this regard, I cannot emphasize too highly how crucial are the forthcoming deliberations and decisions of the General Conference. I wish to take this opportunity to underline the importance of securing high-level endorsement of our blueprint for the future through the level of your countries representation at the Conference. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, You will recall that my most recent address to the Permanent Delegations occurred last April on the occasion of the first anniversary of the World Education Forum in Dakar. Since then, UNESCO s work as the coordinator and catalyst for the EFA movement has gathered pace. At the international level, the galvanization of support for EFA is gaining ground. The E-9 Ministerial Review meeting held in Beijing in August was very successful, not least for the emphasis placed on ICTs in the teaching/learning process and on early childhood care and education. The 46th session of the International Conference on Education, organized by the IBE earlier this month, was dedicated to the theme of learning to live together within the overall context of Education for All. This theme, which proved to be remarkably apposite given the events of 11 September 2001, will be given high priority throughout the Organization s work. The ICE meeting in Geneva was also significant for the special session on the role of civil society in EFA; this meeting provided an opportunity for high-level exchanges between Ministers of Education and civil society organizations. Shortly afterwards, the second meeting of the Working Group on EFA was held in Paris, bringing together representatives from Member States, sister United Nations agencies, multilateral and bilateral partners, regional bodies, and civil society organizations. The Working Group paid particular attention to the following topics: the preparation of national EFA plans; progress towards completing the monitoring report that will be presented to the meeting of the High-Level Group in late October; and the design of a comprehensive EFA strategy, incorporating the global initiative on resource mobilization. Under UNESCO s coordination, major collaborative efforts among EFA partners will be made in the months ahead to draft and finalize the comprehensive EFA strategy. Meanwhile, UNESCO is well advanced in its preparations for the first meeting of the High- Level Group, which has been deliberately timed to coincide with the General Conference. On the basis of the first post-dakar monitoring report, the High-Level Group will address key issues of resource mobilization, political commitment, advocacy and partnership so that the global EFA agenda may be further advanced. Mention should also be made of how EFA has gained a strong place on the G-8 agenda. Building on our success in Okinawa last year, the meeting in Genoa in July reinforced the G-8 countries commitment to EFA and their support for UNESCO s role regarding universal education. The next scheduled meeting of the G-8, in Canada in 2002, is likely to be decisive for shaping the way that key development partners will address EFA funding needs in coming years. At the national level, Member States are trying to get to grips with the practical implications of their Dakar commitments. The preparation of a national EFA plan of action is the essential first step, one which is proving difficult for many countries. Naturally, UNESCO will do all it can to
DG/2001/91 page 5 help Member States perform this task. Let us recall that, in Dakar, the generation of credible EFA plans was given special emphasis because they would be indispensable for attracting funds. UNESCO is collaborating with its EFA partners to develop criteria and subregional mechanisms for the joint review of national EFA plans. With careful regard to the sensitivities involved, this participatory review process will be aimed at generating coherent and realistic proposals that donors will support. This is the concrete outcome that UNESCO s work is seeking to achieve. Thus, through resource mobilization, coordination and advocacy at the international level and through capacity-building and technical advice at the national level, UNESCO is actively playing its role as the main catalyst of the global EFA movement. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, [The Director-General continued in French] I now turn to the other key issues of the General Conference. You will observe that it will have at this session to examine a number of standard-setting instruments, in the broad sense of the term. This intense standard-setting activity no doubt reflects the feeling among Member States that they need to develop a set of references and principles to guide their action, nationally and internationally. The bulk of them concern cultural diversity, a subject now heading the international agenda, particularly in the wake of very recent events. I am happy that UNESCO reacted promptly and is thus able to start responding to these complex issues. I refer of course to the draft declaration on cultural diversity, but also to the possibility of drafting an instrument concerning acts constituting crimes against the heritage of humanity or the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage, subjects I shall come back to in detail when I address the Executive Board next week. Three special evenings will be offered you on 16, 22 and 29 October during the General Conference session, featuring seven masterpieces awarded prizes at the first Proclamation of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage on 18 May 2001. In addition, seeing how topical the theme of cultural diversity is, I have decided that the exhibition planned in connection with the General Conference will be devoted to this single theme. Despite very limited means, I hope that the exhibition will make its mark and be to your liking. Another instrument to be examined by the General Conference is the convention on the protection of the underwater cultural heritage. The first draft was undertaken over five years ago and intense work has since been carried out. Very many committees of experts have met, in particular this year. There is not, I know, a full consensus on the text that we have produced, already distributed to Member States. Some States still object to certain aspects. At this stage I should like to re-emphasize how important I find it to adopt the text of a convention at the forthcoming session of the General Conference. I know that an overwhelming majority of Member States also want this, aware that failing a convention a good many countries may unilaterally adopt domestic legislation or regional agreements that are more restrictive still than the draft convention as it stands. The underwater cultural heritage is currently the only aspect of the tangible heritage not afforded international protection, a gap that must be stopped. Who is better fitted than UNESCO to do so? I cannot think of any other international body more competent than UNESCO to look after the underwater heritage, particularly since nothing in the proposed text could be construed as contravening the provisions of the law of the sea, as explicitly referred to in Article 3 of the draft convention. That being said, and though unanimity is unlikely, I think that we should use the coming weeks to soothe away any reluctance. This is a responsibility that lies with the interested Member States but, if they so wish, I am ready to give them every assistance.
DG/2001/91 page 6 In another culture-related area, the draft recommendation on the promotion and use of multilingualism and universal access to cyberspace will be submitted to the General Conference, as it requested at the last session. This draft has been the subject of wide-ranging consultations among Member States and finalized in its present form by a group of 24 governmental experts. It sets out definitions, general principles and practical recommendations on measures to be taken, nationally and internationally, to make progress towards four main objectives: facilitating access to telematics services, promoting multilingualism, facilitating access to public domain information and its contents, and applying exceptions to copyright. These especially the fourth on the list are sensitive areas and the aim is to address issues that are still emerging but will have major implications for all societies. I therefore wished to draw your attention to the importance of the issues dealt with in this text and requiring meticulous examination. Lasting throughout the Medium-Term Strategy, this work will entail a comprehensive examination of the notion of fair use (usage loyal in French) in the new technological environment and will undoubtedly be an important part of our contribution to the World Summit on the Information Society due to be held in 2003. Closely linked to this quest for principles in new fields is the theme of bioethics; the Round Table of Ministers of Science on that subject scheduled to coincide with the General Conference session could well prove to be a highlight in that reflection. This is the first time that ministers of science from all over the world will be meeting to discuss a subject of this kind. The extraordinary progress made in recent years both in the living sciences and in biotechnologies now offers unprecedented potential for interventions affecting human life. It poses new questions in the field of bioethics, for example concerning organ, tissue and cell donation, embryology research or the scientific, epidemiological, diagnostic and therapeutic uses of genetics. It has become vital for States to take part not only in reflecting on what is at stake in those areas but also in framing national and international legislation to bind them by the founding principles of bioethics. For that very reason, in my opinion, this meeting was an urgent necessity. The Round Table will benefit from the findings of the International Bioethics Committee (IBC) and the Intergovernmental Bioethics Committee (IGBC), which represent real groundwork for the meeting. The IBC held its eighth session from 12 to 14 September 2001. Apart from devising an international instrument on genetic data, it is working on the possibility of drafting a universal international instrument on bioethics, on the dissemination of bioethics-related information and on the follow-up to its reports on solidarity and international cooperation between developed and developing countries concerning the human genome, and on the ethical aspects of intellectual property in regard to genomics. There can be no doubt that the Round Table s work will be extremely important for both Committees, and that they will make room for its recommendations in their future timetables. The Executive Board will also undoubtedly wish to endorse its guidelines. More than 30 ministers or deputy ministers of science, and around ten scientific researchers have confirmed their attendance. I am therefore counting on your assistance to ensure that as many ministers as possible from your countries attend. I think we can be proud that UNESCO is now widely recognized as the lead agency for bioethics in the United Nations system, thanks in particular to its Declaration on the Human Genome. Every effort must now be made to ensure very close coordination in dealing internationally with these urgent issues. With that in mind I took the initiative of proposing the setting up of an inter-agency committee on bioethics, which held its first consultative meeting on 17 September 2001. Afterwards, on 21 September, I wrote to the Secretary-General of the United
DG/2001/91 page 7 Nations to inform him of our Organization s willingness to see to the scientific preparatory work for the drafting of a convention prohibiting cloning for the purposes of reproduction of human beings, as proposed by France and Germany at the present session of the General Assembly. Another important event coinciding with the forthcoming session will be the Youth Forum. I am happy that this Forum is to be held for the second session running, despite the mainly financial difficulties involved. I think it is one way of responding to a long-standing demand for young people to be associated much more closely not only in the Organization s work but also in the actual determination of its project and strategies. What is happening in the world shows us that it is more urgent than ever to see young people as full stakeholders rather than merely as being at the receiving end of international action. I should like to conclude with a word or two about the financial context of the forthcoming General Conference session. The budget allocation for it is $1.5 million lower than provided for in document 29 C/5. Taking into account the cuts already made in 1999, this amounts to a 27% cut in the space of two sessions, which is considerable. I must therefore emphasize the difficulty of the present situation. In addition to the budget cuts several support services, particularly those concerning languages and document production, have suffered major reductions in human resources. This leaves us no leeway for coping with contingencies in the organization and functioning of the Conference. I shall now hand over to Stany Kol, Secretary of the General Conference, who will give you some more details.