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PACIFIC LINK
Australian Permanent Delegation Newsletter to the Pacific Community of UNESCO
Issue 18 - 1/2005 

Editorial

Welcome to the spring 2005 edition of the Pacific Link, the newsletter for Pacific Island Members of UNESCO which is prepared by the Australian Permanent Delegation to UNESCO in Paris. This issue focuses on a variety of subjects including the 171st session of the Executive Board. As mentioned in our last issue, 2005 will be a busy and exciting year with the General Conference, election (or re-election) of the Director-General, elections to the Executive Board and the various intergovernmental bodies, as well as the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the UNESCO Constitution.
DIRECTOR OF APIA OFFICE
The Director-General has appointed Mr Visesio Pongi (a Tongan national) to the post of Director of the UNESCO Apia Office and representative to the Pacific Member States.

Mr Pongi is an education specialist whose entire career has been devoted to promoting quality education both at national and sub-regional levels. He joined the Ministry of Education of Tonga as Chief Education Officer in 1986 and was promoted to the post of Deputy Director of Education in 1991. In 1996, Mr Pongi was appointed Deputy Director of the South Pacific Board for Educational Assessment (SPBEA) and was promoted to Director three years later.

Mr Pongi will take up his duties on 11 July 2005 and we would like to take this opportunity to welcome him and wish him every success in his new endeavour.

Key Points made by the Minister of Education and Executive Board Representative of Vanuatu, the Hon. Joe Natuman

Education for All

We do not want our flagship to sink and although we are grateful to UNESCO for assisting Member States in the Pacific to formulate EFA Action Plans, Action Plans are OK but all countries need financial and human resources to implement them.

Most Pacific Member States now have Action Plans and are currently meeting in Nadi to review progress with Brian Doyle from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics who is directing the Pacific Statistics Project.

There are two key areas in the Vanuatu Action Plan:
• Access, expanding the infrastructure in schools,
• Quality, retraining teachers at teachers college.

Next year Vanuatu is expanding basic education from Year 6 to Year 7. Last year a gender policy was adopted in education, the first ministry to adopt such a policy.
Vanuatu is concerned regarding the lack of coordination of development aid in education. There is assistance from the EU, Australia, New Zealand, for expansion and better coordination is necessary.

This year Vanuatu will endeavour to amend the Education Act to make education compulsory.

Decentralisation

For Pacific countries it is a long way from Headquarters, it takes me more than 25 hours flying time to get here. Remember too that Apia is further from Bangkok than Bangkok is from Paris.

Decentralisation is very important to the Pacific and although the decentralisation policy seems to be causing problems in UNESCO we must keep going with it. There must be the political will to decentralise, even though there seems to be some reluctance.

I agree with the Australian view that UNESCO must have fully functional Field Offices. Ours is the longest ocean in the world and the Apia Office must have the capacity to get around it.

The role of regional offices and cluster offices needs to be clearly defined and they must work closely with National Commissions.

EXECUTIVE BOARD DECISIONS AT A GLANCE

The Executive Board requested the Director-General to present to the 172nd session a further budget proposal with a baseline of US$610 million accompanied by a supplementary proposal for the strengthened delivery of principle priorities identifying additional financial resources of up US$ 25 million through innovative mechanisms, excluding carry-over.

• Recommended that the 33rd session of the General Conference adopt the draft International Convention against Doping in Sport and that it include in the Convention the financing of the Secretariat by the regular budget of UNESCO.
• Expressed concern once again over the Education for All (EFA) flagship programme in light of its failed efforts to design a proper EFA strategy for 2005-2015 and that the document tabled at the Board was not the Strategic Review promised.
• Decided that the UNESCO-OECD Guidelines on “Quality Provision in Cross-Border Higher Education” be inscribed on the agenda of the 33rd session of the General Conference with a view for further discussions of these non-binding Guidelines.
• Expressed dissatisfaction with the Plan for the UN Decade for Education for Sustainable Development. Decided to call for further work, with a clear and focused plan to the involvement of UNESCO, as lead agency, in the decade before accepting the UN implementation scheme.
• Agreed that a third Intergovernmental Meeting of Experts be convened from 25 May to 4 June 2005 to further develop the preliminary draft Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions.
• Felt that decentralization was a failing policy with theory, as well the practice, confused, complex and not effective. Called for less but fully functional field offices i.e. covering all programme areas. Also requested that efforts be made, in cooperation with Member States, to strengthen relations of UNESCO Headquarters, its field offices with National Commissions.
• Strongly supported the ad hoc working group on governance recommendations regarding the reform of the General Conference; unanimously supported the new evaluation document as the starting point for drawing up the C/4 and C/5; supported about two-thirds of the recommendations on the Executive Board; and strongly supported the recommendations concerning the Secretariat.
• Decided that discussions on the preparation of the next Medium-Term Strategy (34 C/4) commence at the forthcoming 33rd session of the General Conference.
• Achieved some progress towards clarifying and streamlining rules for the use of UNESCO’s logo and for endorsement of UNESCO Awards and Prizes, though many Member States still find the procedures too complex and further work is to be done.
• Thanked the International Bioethics Committee and its drafting group for their significant work and expressed the opinion that the draft Declaration on Universal Norms for Bioethics should provide sound basis for governmental negotiations at finalising the draft declaration to be submitted to the 33rd session of the General Conference.
• Noted a proposal from the UK to establish an IHP-HELP Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science at the University of Dundee, under the auspices of UNESCO.
Text of the intervention by Australia at the 171st session of the Executive Board of UNESCO

They say that life begins at 60. But will this be true for UNESCO in the last biennium of our Medium-Term Strategy?

Australia believes this must be a biennium of demonstrable achievement. By this we mean:

• constant pursuit of performance which is evident
• transparency and accountability
• visibility
• successful results and outcomes.

The context of the 33 C/5 is the reform process. Australia strongly supports reform, not just for the sake of reform, but to strengthen our vital mandate.

Let us examine the report card of UNESCO on reform at this point.

There are some pluses:
• some streamlining of structures
• attempts at prioritization
• sound levels of extrabudgetary funding
• a few partnerships with the private sector
• emerging capacity in post-conflict and emergency situations
• a welcome emphasis on youth in programmes, and UNESCO’s own crucial Young Professionals Scheme
• a higher profile for development of small island states
• some key programmes, like fresh water, which are really making a difference.

But the negatives are many:
• the flagship programme EFA is failing badly;
• our “rolling strategy” has never rolled;
• weak role of UNESCO in the UN and in the multilateral system;
• little progress in the intersectorality of programmes;
• results-based management is far from attained in concept and practice - despite some excellent reports from the External Auditor and IOS, they have not changed the culture of the Organization, and evaluation and performance is not linked to the human resource management;
• there are no real sunset clauses - the sun never sets on a UNESCO programme;
• decentralization has broken down and from the papers before us at this meeting, even the theory behind it, as well as the practice, is confused, complex, and not effective. Each field office should cover all programme areas even if there are less of them i.e. fewer but fully functional field offices. In the Pacific, we have one field office for 16 Member States scattered over an area larger than Europe – why cannot other clusters follow this example?
• the Asia-Pacific region, and especially the Pacific, does not have its rightful share of either the programme spending or the staffing of UNESCO. It is after all the largest region in area and population.

Consequently, the image of UNESCO appears to be that:
• the mandate is more relevant than ever;
• some programmes are becoming focused;
• there is poor management and staff morale is very low;
• the governance requires major improvement; and
• there is patchy visibility, leaving UNESCO virtually unknown in some regions.

So the reform process is unfinished and has a long way to go. Will the being known as UNECO live beyond 60 years? This is not wholly certain as only the structures i.e. the anatomy - not the physiology - of the Organization are being given effective treatment.

Australia can only support $610 million in the next biennium for the regular budget for a range of reasons:

• Our flagship programme is floundering and simply throwing more money at it is not the answer: it needs proper restructuring. Education for All should lead to sustainable development for all individuals. Australia considers sustainable development of utmost importance, even though the design of the coming Decade for Education for Sustainable Development looks rather weak.
• There appears to have been a rather cavalier approach to determining priorities in this draft C/5 document. It is not enough just to increase the percentages going to each major programme in each sector. They can all exist on ZNG and in the Social and Human Sciences Sector the ethics of science, whilst an important topic, gets too big a slice of that sector’s budget.
• There is little transparency in this document. Where are the staffing details for every programme and sub-programme? We cannot judge the true priorities without this information.
• The performance indicators have not improved. We still see reference to the number of conferences or workshops, meetings etc. These are all inputs, barely outputs and certainly not outcomes, which is what they should be. Despite attempts, notably by IOS and HRM, to improve these processes, the culture of performance has not really changed. Budgetary reinforcement for IOS or HRM will not change this, leadership can.
• The implementation rate is very slow and whatever happened to the budget increase due to the return of the United States?
• The cross-cutting themes have rightly been reduced and some rolled into the regular programme, which was an Australian suggestion, resulting in savings of many millions of dollars, but, apart from this, there is little cutting out, or contracting out, of programmes.
• Decentralization is a failing policy and we cannot invest increased funds in it until there are field offices which are comprehensive in coverage, even if fewer in number.
• There are not enough intersectoral programmes – thank you for the new matrix but it should be three times the size. I am still surprised that there are no youth programmes in the SHS and Culture Sectors.
• Given the vital role of UNESCO in combating terrorism, we urgently need an intersectoral programme on inter-religious understanding, bringing together Education, Culture and SHS Sectors.
• The modalities are shaky. There should be far more emphasis on capacity building which is so crucial in the Asia and the Pacific - no more talkfests, more action!
• For us, a real priority is the Participation Programme – the lifeblood of National Commissions and the effective, visible face of UNESCO. The budget allocation must be restored immediately to $23 million.
• The potential for private sector and extrabudgetary funding does not appear to have been fully explored in the draft 33 C/5. The World Heritage Centre should be able to raise extra needs from private sector sponsorship. Similarly, the foreshadowed capital expenditure and loan repayments should be funded further from extrabudgetary sources.
• And should we really be refurbishing our restaurant at a time when we cannot even deliver Education for All, our flagship programme? Surely extrabudgetary funds should be going to the core programmes of UNESCO?

In summary, Australia supports $610 million for the 33 C/5 because:
• there is lack of transparency in the draft document, especially regarding staffing levels for programmes;
• there has been a slackening and breaking down of the reform process;
• there is still an extremely dangerous premise in this document that problems can be solved simply by throwing more money at them. We must never reward lack of performance; and
• there must be more evidence of performance and effective use of existing funds before any increases can be contemplated.

As Executive Board members, in the governance of UNESCO, this is the only responsible course that we can take.

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