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Lucia A Keegan  11/07/2006 02:59:16 PM  From  DB/Inbox:  Lucia A Keegan

Cable 
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UNCLAS        PARIS 07210

SIPDIS
cxparis:
    ACTION: UNESCO
    INFO:   SCI POL ECON AMBU AMB AMBO DCM

DISSEMINATION: UNESCOX
CHARGE: PROG

APPROVED: AMB: LOLIVER
DRAFTED: DCM: AKOSS
CLEARED: LEG: TMPEAY

VZCZCFRI529
RR RUEHC RUCNSCO RUEHBS
DE RUEHFR #7210 3071604
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 031604Z NOV 06
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2837
INFO RUCNSCO/UNESCO COLLECTIVE
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS 1801

UNCLAS PARIS 007210 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FROM  USMISSION UNESCO PARIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: UNESCO SCUL ETRD
SUBJECT:  UNESCO - EDUCATION AS A PUBLIC GOOD 
 
 
¶1.  Summary.  Mission has picked up some murmurs about the desire of 
a few UNESCO member states to have UNESCO draft a convention that 
would treat education as a public good and attempt to remove 
education from the purview of the WTO, much along the lines of what 
was attempted during the drafting of the cultural diversity 
convention.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  Mission first became aware of this issue from a story put out by 
the Belgian broadcaster RBTF about the September Francophonie summit 
in Bucharest reporting that "the French community (in Belgium) 
represented at the Francophonie by Minister President Maria Arena 
wants to make education the top priority of the Francophonie ... 
Education is not a commercial good like the others and should be 
protected.  ...The final communiqu of the Franophonie makes a 
reference to this, but it is rather cautious."  Language asserting 
that education is not like other traded goods and services, is 
identical to language used by France and other Francophonie members 
to describe cultural goods and services in the run-up to the 
cultural diversity convention. 
 
¶3.  The impetus for the cultural diversity convention came from the 
Francophonie with France and Canada in the lead.  The Canadian 
delegation at UNESCO, however, tells us that they opposed the 
Belgians' attempt in Bucharest and would likely oppose attempts to 
use the Francophonie in the same manner as before. (Comment: 
Canadian opposition likely stems from that country's federal system 
of education.) 
 
¶4.  During the last Executive Board, the representative of 
Luxembourg intervened on this issue.  He said, "We have successfully 
removed cultural goods and services from the WTO, now we must do 
this with education."  He was supported by the Harvard-educated 
South African representative.  (Comment:  The Luxembourger's comment 
is revealing about the types of problems the cultural diversity 
convention will face when it goes into effect because the Mexican 
"understanding" submitted with its ratification shows it is not a 
view shared by all signatories of the convention.)   We heard 
subsequently that the Belgian ambassador to UNESCO has raised this 
topic with the secretariat but also said, "The Bush Administration 
is against all normative instruments at UNESCO, so we will have to 
wait until after the next Presidential elections." 
 
¶5.  This issue was raised during A/S Dina Powell's October 23 
meeting with the Director-General.  At the time the DG said that he 
personally was against such an instrument, but that the decision 
would ultimately be up to member states.  He did not say he would 
try to stop it. 
 
¶6.  When discussing higher education, UNESCO tends toward the 
Francophile and statist view of the world.  During negotiations last 
year over UNESCO-OECD cross-border higher education guidelines, the 
U.S., Australia and the UK pushed back successfully to prevent them 
from becoming binding.  The Mission and other like-minded countries 
ultimately succeeded in the establishment of a portal to share best 
practices.  This came about despite attempts by several states 
during the spring 2005 Executive Board to see UNESCO create and 
control a database that could potentially supersede national 
authorities in determining quality standards for higher education 
and would have been very expensive. 
 
¶6.  Comment:  While the effort to have education considered as a 
public good is still far from gathering any traction, Mission will 
track this issue closely and work to prevent it from gaining 
momentum. At the same time, the Mission will proceed cautiously 
because we do not want to give the idea legs it does not yet have. 
Moreover, as reported last week by "The Economist," European higher 
education is seriously under funded and in trouble and is clearly 
not the model that developing countries should aspire to. 
 
¶7.  Comment continued:  The cultural diversity mischief can be laid 
squarely in the lap of the Francophonie organization.  With the U.S. 
on the outside of both UNESCO and the Francophonie when the 
convention was being cooked up, we had no idea what was coming at 
us.  Washington may want to consider paying closer attention to the 
Francophonie, and based on the larger Francophone population in the 
U.S., eventually consider becoming observers to that organization. 
OLIVER