Paris, May 28 (No.2001-74) - The Executive Board of UNESCO, chaired by Sonia Mendieta de Badaroux (Honduras), this morning opened its 161st session (due to close on June 13), which will chiefly focus on the examination of UNESCO’s draft 2002-2003 Programme and Budget and Medium Term Strategy for 2002-2007, described by Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura as “key documents for the future of our Organization”.

During the opening of the session - in the presence of the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Imangali Tasmagambetov, and of the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Alexander Sychov - the Chairperson of the Executive Board stressed the two drafts mapping out UNESCO’s major priorities bore a “stamp of innovation” and said they represented “significant strides […] towards the alleviation of poverty, the elimination of illiteracy and the promotion of sustainable peace”.

Ms Mendieta de Badaroux added: “Development is a process calling for a total transformation of existing structures. The present socio-economic predicament of the developing world has for decades now given rise to many conflicts and dilemmas, for which a lasting solution should be found. In this process of change, UNESCO’s role is to be a crucial one.”

For his part, the Director-General declared that the present session of the Executive Board marked the end of a period of transition: “The past 18 months have served to lay the foundations of reform […]. The phase of construction can now begin.” He said that the draft Strategy for 2002-2007 “is the basis for a true renewal of the Organization’s programmes.”

Mr Matsuura spoke of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, in Afghanistan, and stressed the need to undertake “reflection about the kind of sanctions that could be envisaged against the perpetrators of deliberate crimes against cultural properties”.

After appealing to the conflicting parties in the Middle East to “return to the path of dialogue and reactivate the peace process”, the Director-General asked whether the time might have come to “launch a major initiative to start a joint revision of Israeli and Palestinian school text books with a view to transforming them into instruments of a genuine will to live together. […] UNESCO would be willing to provide the framework for such an initiative”, Mr Matsuura said.

The Director-General finally welcomed the recent vote by the United States House of Representatives of a bill preparing for the return of the USA to UNESCO, declaring that this would be in the interest of all Member States.

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