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UNESCO - Mainstreaming series

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Mainstreaming the
Needs of Women

Excerpt from the Director-General of UNESCO, Mr Koïchiro Matsuura's introduction:
"In every walk of life and in the boards, committees and councils where policy decisions are made, women encounter a glass ceiling when they reach the levels at which influence and authority are wielded. Until women are fully represented at the leadership level of public, professional and economic life, we cannot say that they enjoy full and equal rights.
"UNESCO will continue its task of assisting the educational path of girls as the first and most important step in this direction. Helping to give women and girls access to education, knowledge and skills, employment and decent living conditions is one component of UNESCO’s action in the eradication of poverty, one of the Organization’s crosscutting themes in the Medium-Term Strategy for 2002–2007."
Koïchiro Matsuura
Director-General of UNESCO
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Youth can –and must –make a contribution, and a difference. We need your inputs not only on what to do, but on how to do it: guide us in devising programmes and projects in which there is a space for young people; help us define the possible interface between the activities you undertake with your associations and non-governmental organizations and UNESCO ’s activities. Let us define ways for establishing a real partnership in order to help us open up for young people ’s participation.
Koïchiro Matsuura
Director-General of UNESCO
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Mainstreaming the Least Developed Countries

Excerpt from the Director-General of UNESCO, Mr Koïchiro Matsuura's introduction

More resources greater resolve

The challenges are enormous. Without urgent and effective action, the LDCs will plunge even deeper into poverty. But we must be wary of launching over-hastily into uncoordinated, ill-planned and inadequately targeted emergency operations. Each
country must also be able to secure the support of its partners, both ‘internally’, through partnerships with civil society, local communities and the private sector, and ‘externally’, through assistance from multilateral agencies, international and regional donors, bilateral partners and non-governmental organizations. And we must all find a way of participating harmoniously in this great challenge that we have collectively set ourselves. We must learn to make more of our own potential, to work better with and to be more attentive to others.
Koïchiro Matsuura
Director-General of UNESCO
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Mainstreaming the
Culture of Peace

'The United Nations and UNESCO were founded to bring about a world at peace. Peace is more than an absence of war. It means justice and equity for all as the basis for living together in harmony and free from violence, now, but even more so for our children and succeeding generations. The General Assembly has designated 2001–2010 as the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. This decade will provide a unique opportunity to translate solemn declarations and good intentions into reality. We always must renew our shared pledge to attain this goal: a world at peace with itself in a new century and a new millennium.'
Koïchiro Matsuura
Director-General of UNESCO
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Dialogue among Civilizations Collection

     On 3 August 2001, UNESCO and the United Nations University brought together political leaders, intellectuals and decision makers to discuss the political aspects of a dialogue among civilizations. The messages of Kyoto have an enduring relevance and shall stimulate reflection and debate. It is through such debate that we can learn to understand others – and, concretely the Other – in order to seek for solutions to real or perceived conflicts. The need for a dialogue among cultures and civilizations has progressively moved to the forefront of international politics and the agenda of summit meetings in the contemporary world.
     UNESCO’s rationale for convening this conference was to discuss the impact of civilizational developments and realities on politics - and vice versa – given the complexity of these issues. We need strong political will and leadership to engender a real dialogue among civilizations. At the time of the Kyoto Conference – prior to the events of 11th September – all agreed that “humanizing globalization” was necessary for greater understanding between peoples, cultures and civilizations. This political will, they concluded, ought to be expressed in the determination to preserve cultural diversity, and to counter ignorance, intolerance and discrimination of all kinds.
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     As a pivotal event, the symposium somehow interconnected the various conferences held throughout the world on the theme in 2001 and so provided a review, while extending reflection to embrace the geostrategic upheavals that marked the year. As history is a political issue, even a weapon much wielded in the strategic controversies over the world’s values and visions, there has to be a response to the demand for understanding the complex socio-political parameters that shape the question of dialogue among communities, cultures and civilizations.
     Such was the symposium’s goal, as reflected in this volume, third in the UNESCO Dialogue Among Civilizations series. The line of inquiry through ‘travels, texts and translations’ makes it clear that no knowledge or information can dispense with a critical analysis of documents and the first-hand accounts brought back over the centuries by travellers. The impact of these exchanges is part of a wider issue of power and human governance. By giving rise to reflection on the nature and extent of local knowledge, these exchanges have also prompted a desire to appropriate exogenous forms of knowledge, which has sometimes resulted in real achievements.
     The persistence of old images in the collective imagination is sometimes expressed in ‘dreams of empires’, even though new political models are continually being sought. While revealing a desire for openness to others, the exploration of ‘new forms of universalism’ also shows how hard it is to achieve a comprehensive view of the plurality of cultures and their constant interactions in time and space. This plurality also compounds the difficulty of defining ‘civilization’ itself. Dialogue among civilizations is therefore the fruit of a wide variety of perceptions whose intersecting nature assists a greater grasp and understanding of others.
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Dialogue among Civilizations
The International Conference
in Vilnius, Lithuania
23-26 April 2001

     The question of the scope and potential of dialogue among cultures and civilizations is achieving unprecedented significance, especially in the present international context. More than ever before, dialogue poses a fundamental challenge and must be based on the unity of mankind and commonly shared values, the recognition of the world’s cultural diversity and the equal dignity of each civilization, culture and individual. This publication underlines the need to prevent the emergence and nurturing of new prejudices and stereotypes.
     Dialogue among Civilizations: the International Conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, 23–26 April, 2001, is the second publication in UNESCO’s Dialogue among Civilizations series. It contains the proceedings of a major event organized by UNESCO during the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations (2001).The Vilnius Conference brought together heads of state, political decision-makers and diplomats, distinguished scholars, academics and artists to debate about the complex issues of culture and civilizations in the contemporary world.
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     The United Nations, indeed the entire global community, observed the year 2001 as United Nations Year for Dialogue among Civilizations. This book captures the essence of what was an important starting point for the year in stimulating global discussions on this challenging subject.
     Leaders from all continents assembled in September 2000 to share their views on the eve of the historic Millennium Summit. The political perspectives advanced then were complemented by contributions from personalities drawn from literature, the media, academia, diplomacy and international organizations. In presenting the various contributions, this book sets out a frame for dialogue in an increasingly interconnected world, although also one of growing and troubling disparities and divisions.
     The ideas put forward during the Round Table show that a ‘dialogue among civilizations’ is an essential stage in the process of founding a form of human development that is both sustainable and equitable, humanizing globalization and laying the basis of an enduring peace.
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Other publications

" ... International Women’s Day (8^th March) is not only a day for reflection and redirection to women’s rights and an agenda for positive change. It is also an occasion to celebrate the enormous and vibrant contribution women have made to all aspects of societal life. That is why UNESCO decided this year to focus on the artistic contribution of women, to highlight their accomplishments and to underline the wonderful diversity which stimulates us – globally and in each country. The exhibition which UNESCO’s Section for Women and Gender Equality in the Bureau for Strategic Planning is offering on the occasion of International Women’s Day 2003 under the motto « On this Side of the Sky » is designed as a salute to women artists, as an encouragement for further creativity and engagement and as an inducement for the viewer to better appreciate the vibrancy of women’s contribution to contemporary art. Clearly, it is not a comprehensive show, it can only provide an indicative selection."
Hans d'Orville
Director, UNESCO's Bureau of Strategic Planning
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Message to the Children of the
Twenty-first Century
An International Symposium Commemorating the
50th Anniversary of Japan’s Participation in UNESCO
3 July 2001, Tokyo, Japan

'The children of the twenty-first century will face many challenges. What should they be learning to help them overcome these challenges, and how should they be learning? These are questions that are particularly important now, as values continue to diversify and the world continues to change. This book presents six themes that are linked by the concept of harmony. ... This idea of harmony in place of confrontation in solving our various problems is one that the Director-General of UNESCO, Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, emphasized in his inaugural address in 1999, and this concept is reflected in UNESCO’s initiatives to promote dialogue among civilizations...'
Atsuko Toyama
Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan

'As children of the twenty-first century, no matter where you are and how different you may be, you have at least one thing in common: you all embody our hope for the future. It is our hope that you will carry on doing what the preceding generations ... have done well; more than this, we hope that you will do even better, far better, than us. ...
'As we begin the new century, our top priority must be the eradication of poverty, ignorance, and violence, each of which acquires new dimensions and new meanings in a world characterized by globalization.'
Koïchiro Matsuura
Director-General of UNESCO
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