VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHFR #1666/01 3431110
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 091110Z DEC 09
FM USMISSION UNESCO PARIS FR
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 0000

UNCLAS UNESCO PARIS FR 001666 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL SCUL SOCI TPHY UNESCO
SUBJECT:  U.S. OPPORTUNITIES AT UNESCO 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  A window of opportunity has opened for the 
United States at UNESCO.  With the election of Irina Bokova, the 
U.S. has a favorably disposed Director-General who is looking for 
new ideas.  Rather than being on the defensive, the U.S. should be 
making programmatic proposals to help set the Organization's agenda. 
 While maintaining our long-standing support for literacy and 
management reform, the U.S. should broaden its efforts to other 
areas.  Gender parity is one.  UNESCO could do more to promote girls 
education, adult female literacy, the inclusion of women in 
scientific and engineering work, and action to protect women in 
conflict zones.  Youth is another field for possible U.S. action. 
We could encourage UNESCO to broaden its existing partnerships with 
U.S. high tech firms to make greater use of social networking.  We 
could also encourage UNESCO to promote the U.S. community college 
model and more practical post-secondary education focused on 
job-related skills.  Inter-cultural understanding is another area of 
possible U.S. focus, one which could include existing U.S. efforts 
to work with UNESCO to foster Holocaust Education.  Finally, in the 
field of culture, the U.S. might wish to consider an initiative to 
provide developing countries with capacity building training and 
help them preserve World Heritage sites. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Summary Continued.  All of this will take money.  UNESCO 
will almost surely need contributions of U.S. extra-budgetary funds 
to accomplish these things, but it will need staff even more than 
money.  The U.S. will thus need to consider innovative ways of 
providing personnel, whether through secondment, interns, or 
UNESCO's associate expert program.  End Summary. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) The U.S. now has a unique opportunity to affect UNESCO's 
future course.  Our successful efforts to influence the outcome of 
the Director-General selection at last September's Executive Board 
have demonstrated to other member states that the U.S. is a power to 
be reckoned with in this Organization, and in the person of new 
Director-General Irina Bokova, we have someone who is well disposed 
to the U.S. and who is clearly aware of how much she owes us.  As of 
now Bokova is proceeding cautiously and consulting us frequently. 
She is focused on assembling her management team and has said 
relatively little about her programmatic priorities for the 
Organization other than that she would like to do more on science 
and on inter-cultural dialogue.  This is, therefore, the moment for 
the U.S. to make clear to Bokova and to member states what we would 
like UNESCO to do. 
 
Gender Across the Board 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Gender equality should be one of our key themes at UNESCO. 
 UNESCO's Medium-Strategy already makes it a priority for the 
Organization which should be reflected in all its programs, and 
UNESCO already has a small office that focuses on this subject.  We 
feel, however, that UNESCO could do much more in this area than it 
has been.  Director-General Bokova is clearly interested.  One of 
her very first appearances as Director-General-elect was at our 
roundtable with Ambassador Verveer. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) There are many ways in which UNESCO could intensify action 
on gender issues and give them a higher profile.  As UNESCO's first 
female Director-General, Ms. Bokova will enjoy an excellent bully 
pulpit to push the issue.  We might consider encouraging her to 
appoint a gender advisory panel, conceivably with a seat set aside 
for Ambassador Verveer.  Depending on program funds, we might take 
the example of the UNESCO-L'Oreal science prizes for women 
researchers and explore establishing a smaller prize for women 
entrepreneurs, particularly in the developing South.  UNESCO's 
Creative Industries division attempts to bring craftswomen's work to 
a larger audience; we could encourage U.S. companies to promote this 
initiative. We might also suggest that NGOs such as Vital Voices or 
Hunt Alternatives formalize partnerships with UNESCO. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) UNESCO's Education Sector could give greater attention to 
gender parity.  We should press UNESCO to focus more on girls 
education and adult female literacy.  We might seek passage of a 
draft decision at an Executive Board to this effect and work to 
include this issue more explicitly in the Organization's next 
program and budget.  Some of our remaining UN Literacy Decade Funds 
could immediately be devoted to a program focused on literacy among 
adult women.  We have already solicited a proposal from the 
International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) that would 
concentrate on girls education in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Girls and science/engineering is another area on which 
UNESCO already does work that needs to be expanded.  The L'Oreal 
prize for women in science has been a great success, but it needs 
follow up and expansion to other areas.  Even in the United States, 
we suffer from a dearth of women in the sciences and engineering. 
UNESCO could seek to enlist other partnerships like L'Oreal which 
could create further initiatives aimed at popularizing women in 
these fields. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Domestic violence and violence against women in conflict 
zones are other areas of possible UNESCO action.  We understand that 
the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is seeking 
support in the African region for creation of a Category 2 institute 
that would focus on the problems of women in regions of conflict. 
After proper due diligence, this is an initiative we might wish to 
support. 
 
Youth 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Youth is another issue on which UNESCO could put more 
effort.  Member states are interested.  A senior Secretariat 
official told us recently that many governments have asked for help 
in this area.  The June 2008 anti-radicalization conference (Youth 
at the Crossroads) in Bahrain which the U.S. funded was a success. 
Gulf Governments were interested in the issue as soon as they were 
reassured that we were not trying to criticize Islam.  With a 
relatively small amount of unspent funds from the Bahrain 
Conference, UNESCO was able to fund another conference on this 
subject in Indonesia with Indonesian youth.  Significantly, the 
Indonesian Government committed some of its own funds in support of 
the effort.  With relatively small amounts of extra-budgetary funds, 
the U.S. could encourage other national or regional conferences on 
the topic.  These meetings could be useful not only in focusing 
attention on the issue but also in helping to form a network among 
the NGO's working in this field.  In our discussions with employees 
of these NGO's, we have learned that they are keen to exchange ideas 
on best practices and what works. 
 
Community Colleges:  Economic Access, Adult Education 
 
¶10.  (SBU) As part of our focus on youth, we could also encourage 
UNESCO to promote the community college model.  Member states, 
particularly in Africa, are pressing UNESCO to do more about 
tertiary education.  In addition to traditional four-year academic 
institutions, these countries need a flexible model for low-cost, 
post-secondary education that focuses wholeheartedly on equipping 
young and older adults with job-related skills.  Our advocacy of 
further work in open educational resources (OERs) aligns with 
promoting the community college model, as well as in the larger 
realms of literacy and access to information. 
 
Private-Public Partnerships 
 
¶11.  (SBU) One of the most intriguing areas for future UNESCO work 
is social networking.  The Organization has been slow to make use of 
the full possibilities of the internet.  It is waking up to them, 
however, and in Bokova we have a Director-General who is a 
generation younger and more interested in technology than her 
predecessor.  UNESCO already has formed partnerships with many of 
the large technology firms (Microsoft, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and 
Intel).  Recently, UNESCO has launched content agreements with 
Google and its You Tube subsidiary; we will want to further 
institutionalize such partnerships with American companies as they 
both improve UNESCO's organizational capacity as well as raise its 
profile with our domestic public. 
 
Social-Networking 
 
¶12.  (SBU) One particular area in which U.S. technology firms might 
be helpful is in the area of social networking.  They might, for 
example, consider working with UNESCO to intelligently harness 
emerging social networking trends to create youth discussion fora, 
online intercultural dialogue sites or other networks. 
 
Science 
 
¶13.  (SBU) The President in his Cairo speech suggested that science 
could be a bridge between the U.S. and the Islamic world.  UNESCO 
could be an incubator for such cooperation.  It already supports one 
project with such goals, the "Sesame" project which provides for 
regional cooperation (including Israel) on a synchrotron to be built 
in Jordan.  Others could be devised, particularly, in the area of 
fresh water engineering.  UNESCO has a robust program in this area 
and a network of Category 2 institutes (including one in the United 
States) which work in this area.  We might also take advantage of 
the new Science Envoys program to engage with UNESCO field offices 
in key countries, as well as at headquarters. 
 
Inter-Cultural Dialogue 
 
¶14.  (SBU) Bokova has made clear that she would like UNESCO to do 
more to improve cross-cultural understanding.  Supporting this 
effort would be consistent with our efforts on behalf of women and 
youth and our work in science.  In doing so, however, we will want 
to steer UNESCO away from hosting large conferences in which 
representatives (often clerics) from different religions debate each 
other while doing little to diminish the suspicions and fears that 
divide the world's publics.  This is another area in which social 
networking techniques may provide a fresh approach.  UNESCO's 
ASP-net which links schools across the globe might be helpful in 
this effort if it is given more resources. 
 
¶15.  (SBU) Another area in which the U.S. should press for action is 
on Holocaust Education.  In 2007, the U.S. took the lead in pressing 
for adoption of a resolution tasking UNESCO with work in this area. 
Since then, UNESCO has produced some materials but has stopped due 
to resource constraints.  We need to assist them to find resources 
to breathe new life into this effort.  A good Holocaust Education 
program would be a useful component in a larger push for greater 
cross-cultural understanding. 
 
World Heritage 
 
¶16.  (SBU) Many UNESCO member states place great importance on the 
Organization's cultural activities.  The U.S. should not seem 
disinterested in this aspect of UNESCO's work.  World Heritage is 
one area within Culture where the U.S. may wish to work.  Developing 
states, particularly in Africa, raise the need for more training and 
capacity-building for their nationals at every World Heritage 
meeting.  The U.S. - particularly the National Park Service -- has 
extensive expertise in this area.  We should develop a 
capacity-building initiative for developing countries.  If 
significant funding can be located, the U.S. might even wish to 
launch a category 2 institute aimed providing conservation training 
to those countries in need of it. 
 
Personnel 
 
¶17.  (SBU) As we move forward with those of these ideas that 
Washington may approve, we will need to keep in mind that UNESCO 
often lacks sufficient, trained personnel to implement the projects 
it wants to undertake.  Its personnel shortages are even more acute 
than its financial limitations.  If we want important projects done 
quickly and according to our wishes, we will in many instances have 
to help provide UNESCO the manpower to do them.  We will thus need 
to consider concluding an agreement with UNESCO to provide Associate 
Experts, who can be compensated out of our extra-budgetary funds. 
(Italy, UNESCO's largest donor of extra-budgetary funds, for 
example, makes extensive use of this mechanism to place Italians in 
positions of strategic importance to Italy.)  We will also wish to 
make use of existing mechanisms to second staff to the Secretariat 
and to place Fullbright fellows or interns in offices involved in 
implementing our programs. 
 
Management Reform 
 
¶18.  Finally, while we work creatively on the program side, we will 
also need to continue our longstanding efforts for management 
reform.  Well thought out management improvements would improve 
UNESCO's ability to deliver programs.  As a former ambassador to 
UNESCO, Bokova is well aware of the desire of most member states for 
improved management.  We will thus also be pushing on an open door 
in this area. 
 
KILLION