31st session of UNESCO's General Conference

October 15 - November 3, 2001

The conference ap-proved a budget of $544 million dollars for the organisation over 2002-2003, which represents a fall in real spending of 3.5% over the previous biennium. It also gave the green light for the five new priorities proposed by Director-General Koichiro Matsuura: basic education, fresh water resources and ecosystems, the ethics of science and technology, diversity, pluralism and intercultural dialogue, and access to information for all, especially public domain information (see Sources no. 137).

The delegates opened the meeting with a resolution on terrorism, expressing "sorrow and indignation at the tragic events of 11 September in the United States of America."

The resolution stressed "that the values of tolerance, universality, mutual understanding, respect for cultural diversity and the promotion of a culture of peace (...) have acquired a new relevance for inspiring action by international organisations, states, civil society and individual citizens."

This conviction underpinned the rest of the conference's work.

The delegates adopted two major texts: the Convention on the Protec-tion of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (see pages 4-9) and the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (see Sources no. 137).

They asked UNESCO to prepare a draft Declaration against the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage aimed at preventing such crimes as the destruction by the Taleban of the giant Buddah statues at Bamiyan. The conference also authorised UNESCO to pursue its efforts for the protection of intangible heritage, especially languages

Information and communication technologies also featured in debates at the conference, which defended the principle of equitable access to cyberspace and called on UNESCO to continue its work on an international treaty for this domain. The delegates also elected the 26 members of the first Intergovernmental Council for the Information for All Programme.

Two important meetings were held parallel to the conference: fifty-two science ministers gathered for a roundtable on the international implications of bioethics, and the members of the High Level Group on Education for All - a task force set up to follow up last year's World Education Forum in Dakar (Senegal), also met for the first time.

This group brings together 29 key decision makers, including 16 ministers of education, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy, Oxfam director Barbara Stocking, and ministers of international cooperation from Canada, Denmark, France and the United Kingdom, as well as the head of Japan's international cooperation agency.

They stressed that "EFA goals must be pursued as part and parcel of national poverty reduction strategies," and that "strategic alliances with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are crucial in this regard." They also called on all EFA partners "to redouble their efforts to meet the goals and targets of Education for All."

Speech of Mr. Imangali Tasmagambetov, Chairman of Kazakhstan National Commission for UNESCO (Rus)