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Interventions by Australia > 166th session

UNESCO EXECUTIVE BOARD
166th session
Reports by the Director-General on:
The execution of the programme adopted by the General Conference;
The follow-up of decisions adopted by the Executive Board at its previous sessions;

The reform process.
and
The Draft Programme and Budget for 2004-2005 (32 C/5)
Items 3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3 and 4.1

Intervention by Kenneth Wiltshire AO (Australia)

8 April 2003

Madame President,

We note the views expressed by yourself and the Director-General on the current international situation.

Australia shares the sentiment expressed by the Director-General in relation to the evolving situation in Iraq and stands ready to assist UNESCO and other international efforts directed towards the reconstruction of Iraq.

Let me turn now to our agenda and the Draft 32 C/5 – the budget.

The word “budget” is derived from the old French “bougette” which means a bag or a wallet. It appeared in the eighteenth century when a Prime Minister was delivering his budget and they likened him to a conjuror opening his box of tricks and magic.

This Draft 32 C/5 contains magic and some miracles.

The first miracle is the production of the documents themselves given that the Board is meeting much earlier than usual. Spring has come early to Paris. The fasicules arrived day after day in the post – it was very exciting like a mystery novel with three possible scenarios. I could not put it down and I hoped for a happy ending. We now have the C/5 in hard copy, we have it on CD Rom. I am looking forward to the film. Thank you Mr Director-General to you, BSP and the secretariat at Headquarters and in the field, for the documents and the spirit in which they were produced.

The second piece of magic is the amount of extrabudgetary funding. The Director-General is truly amazing in the way he generates these funds.

The budget is faithful to the C/4 Medium-Term Strategy.

It is also faithful to the Board’s previous reactions and we welcome the new strong emphasis on sustainable development, follow-up to Johannesburg, the links with NEPAD, the exciting new endogenous development in Africa, and the important reconstruction for Afghanistan.

The C/5 is also faithful to the Millenium Development Goals, although this could have been made a little more explicit.

We are very pleased with the growing intersectorality:

§ Education with Science

§ Culture with Science

§ The Sciences themselves.

The silos in UNESCO are beginning to crack. Soon the house will have less partitions; it will be more communal.

It is also heart-warming to see UNESCO playing a leading role in the UN system and internationally with many partners through:

§ The Dakar initiative Education for All

§ The Literacy Decade

§ The new decade for education for sustainable development

§ Preparations for the first ever World Summit on the Information Society.

We are also pleased with the allocation of funding between the sectors in the budget and the dollar allocations to the major priorities also look about right.

In the macro the budget looks in good shape.

But what of the micro? When we put the C/5 under a microscope we have some concerns.

The way in which the fine details of this budget was drawn up appears to have been incremental, rather than based on a culture of evaluation, and management by results.

So Australia would like to make some constructive suggestions by recommending some budgetary principles which should guide the consideration of this Draft 32 C/5. These principles apply to all three scenarios.

The first budgetary principle could be clarity of objectives. Some of the programmes in this C/5 do not seem to be clear in their aims. Examples include secondary education, and quality education. This also applies particularly to cross-cutting projects. Now the cross-cutting projects are an excellent concept with their bidding process and they have breathed new life into the secretariat. But many of the new ones are vague and not well defined in their objectives and their relevance to the cross-cutting themes. They often read like our postgraduate students’ applications for funding at the University. In this they represent the triumph of hope over experience. I realise that some 20% were already cut but I estimate another $1-$2 million could be pruned from this area.

The second budgetary principle we would commend is transparency. The first example is staffing. These budget documents never tell us the allocations of staff yet if you want to understand the real priorities of any organisation it is not just the funding but the number of staff allocated to each programme which is a true indication of priority. We realise that there needs to be flexibility in staffing but please give us at least indicative figures of staff by programme.

There also needs to be some more transparency on the use of extrabudgetary funds.

I make a special plea regarding youth. We must strengthen our youth programmes and ensure young people accept and absorb our ideals and our mandate. But since youth have been mainstreamed in the budget I cannot find them. Like fish they are now mainstream, upstream, downstream – I want feed them but I cannot see them. Please press a button and give us a matrix on the various youth components in the Draft 32 C/5.

We also note the significant cut to the budget of the natural science sector and no real explanation has been given for the cause of this.

The third principle is that of rewarding excellence. We think of the UNESCO programmes which are so highly regarded in the Asia-Pacific region and especially the Pacific:

§ Associated Schools Project

§ Technical and Vocational Education and Training

§ Man and the Biosphere (MAB)

§ The wonderful micro-finance programme.

The budget for these programmes appears to have remained flat or even reduced.

We strongly support the MOST programme, and the dollar amount allocated seems O.K. but the reports in the documents of turbulence in the social and human sciences sector gives us cause for concern re the servicing and secretariat support for this vital programme.

I turn in particular to the educational institutes especially the IIEP and IBE. The IBE does very good work in curriculum and the IIEP is the quintessential UNESCO good news story – it conducts cutting edge research in Education for All, HIV/AIDS, Quality Education, and Technical and Vocational Education and Training. The IIEP is training future Directors-General of Education and education leaders – capacity building at its finest.

But every time the IIEP increases its extrabudgetary funding its regular budget contribution is reduced. This is sending a wrong message – it is not conducive to motivation. It brings to focus the matter of carrots and sticks in encouraging UNESCO programme managers which is not being well handled.

Then there is the principle of Comparative Advantage, Impact, and Visibility.

Here there can be no doubt which two programmes are key:

§ The Participation Programme

§ National Commissions.

The combination of National Commissions with Participation Programme funds gives UNESCO a unique comparative advantage with a dynamic impact at the grass roots.

But both these projects seem to have had their budgets cut. This should be the reversed.

The budgetary principle of Effective Modalities is extremely important. In the Asia-Pacific region we like the modality of capacity building. There has been some improvement re modalities in this document but there are still too many talkfests and not enough training, resource material production, modules, and lessons from experience. The performance indicators cited also sometimes leave much to be desired. Some vague performance indicators cited are too vague – the number of position papers? the number of meetings? the number of countries “involved”?

The final budgetary principle we advance is the Multiplier Effect. Where can UNESCO get the greatest return? Clearly Small Island States offer great instant returns especially in the Pacific where every UNESCO dollar spent generates an enormous multiplier benefit. But of all the areas which offer potential the support of teachers is the greatest. They are the hope of the world and we must devote more resources to their support and their training. This is true all over the world.

So, Madame President, Australia believes that, in the broad, this is a good budget. But in the detail there are some budgetary principles which ought to be applied.

If UNESCO were a government, our constituents would be pleased with the policy settings and directions. If it were a company, the shareholders would be satisfied with their dividends and there would be more investment.

Mr Matsuura, these documents are evidence that your reform has come a long way. There is still some distance to go. But you are now a very famous marathon runner and I am confident that, with the ongoing support of the Board, you will be more than equal to the task.

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