DG/2003/016 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 for Delegates and Permanent Observers to UNESCO on UNESCO s action in the Middle East UNESCO, 29 January 2003
Madam Chairperson of the Executive Board, Mr Roed-Larsen, United Nations Special Coordinator, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, The purpose of our meeting today is to update you concerning the situation in the Middle East and about the work of the United Nations and UNESCO in the region. The meeting has had to be postponed twice on account of events in the region which prevented the participation of our guest speaker, Mr Roed-Larsen, United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. I would like to thank all of you for your patience and understanding with regard to the changes of dates, which were dictated by developments in the international situation that, as you will have realized, were beyond our control. Allow me first of all to express my gratitude to Mr Roed-Larsen who, in response to my invitation, has come specially to Paris in order to take part in this meeting. I have no doubt that his presence will greatly enrich our discussion. As you know, Mr Roed-Larsen has for many years been striving to find a lasting solution to the Middle East conflict and now plays a key role within the United Nations system concerning this subject. Among the various peace efforts mounted by the international community in general and the United Nations in particular, it seems important to highlight the determination of the Quartet the United States, the Russian Federation, the European Union and the United Nations to achieve a comprehensive settlement of this conflict within three years, as well as other international initiatives such as the meeting held in London on 14 January 2003 on the reform of the Palestinian Authority, which prevented Mr Roed-Larsen from joining us that day. I would like to take this opportunity today to thank Mr Roed-Larsen and his mission (UNSCO), along with the other United Nations system agencies on the ground, for the warm reception given to my colleagues in the Secretariat and our consultants who recently visited the region and for the sustained collaboration that they generously extend to our Ramallah Office. UNESCO s work forms part of the combined efforts undertaken by the United Nations system in the region, aimed at meeting urgent needs in the Palestinian Territories and contributing to reconciliation in the Middle East. In this regard, I have taken a particular interest in the outcome of inter-agency meetings convened by UNSCO. I closely followed the annual meeting held last November, chaired by Mr Roed-Larsen, that addressed the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian Territories. I am pleased that the Head of UNESCO s Ramallah Office participates actively in these meetings as well as in other joint initiatives; for example, she leads the working group on education. It now gives me great pleasure to invite Mr Roed-Larsen to speak and to tell us about the actual situation on the ground, as seen from his viewpoint, and about the work of the United Nations. Afterwards, I shall give an overview of UNESCO s current initiatives and actions in the region. The third part of our meeting will be devoted to a question-and-answer session in which your interventions will be most welcome. Mr Roed-Larsen, United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, you now have the floor.
DG/2003/016 page 2 I thank Mr Roed-Larsen for his very clear and illuminating account. He has given us good news, but also bad: news that reflects, alas, a most worrying situation. The Executive Board expressed the same concern at its last session, and expressed the wish that the Organization s action be strengthened in the region. I shall brief you today about the activities undertaken by UNESCO in the region since that date. The overall situation in the Middle East, highly complex in political and security terms, is constantly evolving. It is accordingly extremely difficult to formulate overall, long-term policies, in particular when these require multisectoral contributions. It nevertheless remains that, if it is to exert a real impact, UNESCO action in the Middle East must fit into a basic framework, and be predicated on a number of guiding principles. The first of these consists of appropriate coordination under the United Nations. UNESCO actions must all be geared to the overall framework for reconstruction and reconciliation defined by the United Nations. That framework is made up at one and the same time of the policies enunciated by the United Nations Secretary-General, the action undertaken by the various United Nations coordinating bodies, in particular the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, and the relevant resolutions of the Security Council. The second guiding principle is to limit action strictly to UNESCO s fields of competence. The political dimensions of the conflict in the region are a matter lying solely within the competence of the United Nations Secretary-General. In its action, UNESCO must be guided by the values that it promotes, by intellectual and scientific rigour and, above all, by the impartiality and calibre of its work. The third principle must be that of concentration and selection. In a context in which needs are so enormous, UNESCO must focus on a limited number of realistic actions in spheres in which its expertise and competence are established and recognized. Such actions must be geared to already established networks, enabling them to be rapidly implemented. The fourth principle is to ensure that short-term needs are compatible with long-term objectives. The success of all UNESCO action is indeed contingent upon our ability to reconcile urgent short-term needs with the long-term objectives of building a lasting peace objectives that can be attained only by bringing about mutual confidence, mutual understanding, respect and reconciliation. It is only at this price that our actions will have a genuine, solid impact. Dialogue must be carefully sustained. Each small step accomplished in this direction is worthwhile. We must work both within the region and with outside players. The fifth and last principle is to give priority to joint projects involving the participation of both parties. The most important pre-condition for all credible and sustainable UNESCO action in the Middle East is to ensure that our Organization is perceived as an honest, reliable partner by all the different parties involved. While it is acknowledged that, in the current situation, such a consensus is extremely difficult to secure, the priority nevertheless remains progressively to open up new areas of understanding and trust, and to bring the various partners to the same table to focus on specific issues. So much for the basic framework. It is in the light of these five principles, and on the basis of the many contacts we have had during the past months with the Palestinian and Israeli authorities, the representatives of civil society, the academic community and, to be sure, the United Nations system, that I am currently preparing the main lines of a strategy that I shall present to the Executive Board at a forthcoming session.
DG/2003/016 page 3 This leads me naturally to brief you more particularly on the results of the high-level mission that I dispatched last December to the region. The objectives of that mission, which I entrusted to the Deputy Director-General and which was composed of high-level Secretariat officials, were examined with the utmost attention at the meeting held on 28 November 2002 of the Intersectoral Task Force on Reconstruction and Reconciliation in the Middle East, which I chair myself. I was thus able to define, in close collaboration with the Israeli and Palestinian authorities, but also with the United Nations and the donors, the mission s terms of reference. It was carried out from 7 to 15 December 2002. I wish to convey my special thanks to Ambassador Eldan, Permanent Delegate of the State of Israel, and Ambassador Abdelrazek, Permanent Observer for the Palestinian Authority, for their invaluable assistance in the accomplishment of this important and withal difficult task. The mission s objectives were: to speed up the implementation of activities of the utmost urgency financed from carryover funds; to evaluate the new needs in the Palestinian Territories resulting from the current crisis and to refocus our actions accordingly, by incorporating these new components also in the draft of document 32 C/5 and in extrabudgetary fund-raising; in the light of numerous high-level contacts in Israel and in the Palestinian Territories, to bring together the key components of our strategy and our plan of action for reconstruction and reconciliation in the Middle East; finally, to strengthen coordination in order to ensure that our contribution is integrated into the overall assistance programme of the United Nations system, the international community and the donors. That mission was carried out as a follow-up to the intensive contacts established since last September some ten missions have been dispatched since then aimed at strengthening our assistance on the ground. It represents the culmination of the first phase, which consisted of an overall evaluation of the situation in our fields of competence in order to adapt our response to the new situation. I take this opportunity to thank Mr Roed-Larsen and the other sister agencies of the United Nations system once again for their invaluable assistance. The detailed results of the mission will be recorded in a document for the next session of the Executive Board. However, I should like here and now to acquaint you with a number of key features which have emerged: First of all, we were able to bring a powerful message of support to our Israeli and Palestinian partners, confirming our determination to provide all necessary support during the current crisis, while at the same time speeding up implementation of the activities scheduled under the carry-over funds. Two contracts have been signed within this framework, one with the Palestine Ministry of Education and Higher Education for an amount of US $230,000 in order to help some 450 schools, the other for the purpose of contributing to the installation of a computer network at Al-Azhar University in Gaza (for an amount of $60,000). Special attention was focused on the finalization of activities financed from carry-over funds, in particular those earmarked for immediate implementation.
DG/2003/016 page 4 A systematic review of the manner in which UNESCO might best respond to the needs of the Palestinian people within its fields of competence has been undertaken, drawing on all the resources available under the regular budget, carry-over funds and extrabudgetary funds. A strategy document together with a plan of action are being prepared on this basis. Once completed, they will provide the basis for the new UNESCO Programme for Palestine (UPP) for the coming three years which will be submitted for approval to the next meeting of the Joint UNESCO/Palestinian Authority Coordination Committee. Our advocacy role has been identified very clearly as an essential priority area in which we should play a more visible, proactive role, with particular prominence being given to children s right to education and protection of the cultural heritage. The issue of the threats looming over certain old houses in the Old City of Hebron was raised with the Israeli authorities at the end of the mission. The strengthening of good relations with the other United Nations agencies, in particular with UNDP, UNICEF and UNRWA, also emerged as a key factor, serving to confirm the importance that UNESCO attaches to being an active partner, in particular in the formulation of joint programmes in specific fields of common concern. The representatives of donors (essentially Italy, the European Community, Japan and Norway) were questioned about their potential interest in funding certain UNESCO activities, in particular in the fields in which our Organization has evident technical qualifications such as education and the cultural heritage, within a specific programming framework and with extensive capacities for implementation. The mission also learned a great deal from the Palestinian and Israeli partners encountered, including members from both National Commissions, who confirmed their interest in and readiness to pursue a constructive dialogue in order to build bridges between institutions and individuals. In this context, the principle of a meeting between the two National Commissions which could take place in the coming months was accepted. The various partners suggested that the agenda and proposals concerning the venue for the meetings should be submitted sufficiently far ahead to facilitate any subsequent discussion. Various activities to promote reconciliation were mooted with other institutions and NGOs of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, which reported to us on their work. We pledged to support their remarkable efforts to the utmost of our means, mainly under carry-over funds arrangements. On many occasions, I have stressed that flagship projects such as SESAME are both a form of concrete assistance and a means of bringing conflict-torn peoples closer together. This type of project should accordingly be seen as a source of major tools for communication, mutual enrichment and peace-building. In this connection, I took part in the official ceremony, attended by the King of Jordan, for the laying of the Centre s foundation stone on 6 January 2003 at Al-Balqa University, in Jordan. There we officially launched SESAME, with the adhesion of seven founding members: Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey. New members and observers such as Armenia, Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States of America are expected. The Jordanian Government generously provided the site on which the Centre will be located, and pledged to finance the construction of the building, the cost of which is estimated at between US $6 and 8 million. It should be operational by 2006.
DG/2003/016 page 5 To encourage scientific cooperation at the regional level, the Centre will seek to secure the participation of science institutes in different countries in order to set up a full-scale regional network, thereby paving the way for the building of solidarity and mutual understanding and of a culture of peace through science. It is my hope a hope we are currently working to fulfil that other regional flagship projects will generate such fruitful outcomes. To conclude, I should like, lastly, to draw to your attention a number of other major scheduled activities: The UNESCO Ramallah Office has, as I informed you, been strengthened. I have in fact appointed to it an educational specialist, who has already begun work in Ramallah, and a cultural specialist, who should be arriving shortly. Hence in the priority spheres of our cooperation in the region namely, education and culture the Office now has greater resources to enable it to perform its mission. In addition, the Office will shortly enjoy the services of a professional fundraiser. Moreover, on the proposal of the Palestinian authorities, a fund-raising meeting in the United Arab Emirates is to be organized, targeted at specific Arab and European countries identified as potential sources of financing for the projects submitted to the joint UNESCO/Palestinian Authority Coordination Committee. Missions by the Communication Sector (February) and the Social and Human Sciences Sector (March) are also planned. Finally, it is my hope that the Meeting of the Joint UNESCO/Palestinian Authority Coordination Committee can be held in the spring. As I informed you a moment ago, a detailed analysis of current activities will be undertaken during this meeting, and a revised cooperation programme for the coming three years will be approved. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, I fear I have spoken at some considerable length, but I was anxious to share with you these few ideas and items of information, for they are to my mind of particular importance at the present time. I am convinced that the debate to which I am now inviting you will throw up other interesting ideas. I am at your disposal should you wish to obtain any clarifications or further particulars. Any suggestions aimed at focusing more effectively our joint endeavours on behalf of peace in the Middle East cannot but be welcome. I thank you.