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About the General Conference
At each of its ordinary sessions, the General Conference is required
to elect Member States to be members of the Executive Board or of
the Commissions and other subsidiary organs of the Conference, in
accordance with their rules of procedure or respective statutes. The
Nominations Committee, after receiving a report from the Executive
Board, and without any obligation to accept its recommendations, shall
determine and submit to the General Conference the list of nominations
for the posts of President and of the Vice-Presidents of the General
Conference. It shall submit to the General Conference proposals for
the composition of committees, commissions and other subsidiary organs
of the Conference on which Member States are not all represented.
Voting rights
Each Member State whose credentials have been found to comply with
Rule 23
of the Rules of Procedure shall have one vote in the General Conference
or in any of its committees, commissions and other subsidiary organs,
unless it has not satisfied the provisions of paragraph 2 of Rule
83 of the Rules of Procedure (however, the General Conference may
decide, on an exceptional basis and under certain conditions, to grant
it full voting rights). Such Member State, however, shall have no
vote in the General Conference or in any of its committees, commissions
and other subsidiary organs if the total amount of contributions due
from it exceeds the total amount of the contributions payable by it
for the current year and the immediately preceding calendar year,
unless the General Conference is satisfied that the failure to pay
is due to conditions beyond the control of the Member State. Before
each ordinary session of the General Conference the Director-General
shall, using the most reliable and rapid channels, notify Member States
in danger of losing voting rights in accordance with the provisions
of Article
IV.C, paragraph 8 (b), of the Constitution concerning their financial
position with respect to the Organization and the provisions of the
Constitution and Rules relating thereto, at least six months before
the General Conference session is due to open. Member States shall
address their communications invoking the provisions of Article
IV.C, paragraph 8 (c), to the Director-General, who shall transmit
them to the Administrative Commission of the General Conference. That
Commission shall take up the matter at the commencement of its work
and issue in plenary meeting, as a matter of priority, a report and
recommendations on the subject. The aforesaid communications from
Member States shall be submitted no later than three days after the
commencement of the proceedings of the General Conference. In the
absence of such a communication from the Member States concerned,
the latter may no longer be authorized to take part in voting at that
session of the General Conference. After that time limit has passed,
and pending a decision by the General Conference in plenary meeting,
only those Member States concerned that have submitted the above communication
shall have the right to vote. Any decision to permit a Member State
in arrears in the payment of its contributions to vote shall be made
conditional upon that Member State’s observance of the recommendations
for settlement of the arrears made by the General Conference. One
Member State may not represent or vote for another. (From Rule
83 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Conference)
Subsidiary Bodies
- General Committee, Commissions
and Committees
- Legal Committee;
- Headquarters Committee;
- Council of the UNESCO International
Bureau of Education (IBE);
- Intergovernmental Council
for the Information for All Programme;
- International Coordinating
Council of the Programme on Man and the Biosphere (MAB);
- Intergovernmental Council
of the International Hydrological Programme;
- Intergovernmental Committee
for Promoting Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of
Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation;
- Executive Committee for
the International Campaign for the Establishment of the Nubia
Museum in Aswan and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization
in Cairo;
- Intergovernmental Council
of the International Programme for the Development of Communication
(IPDC);
- Intergovernmental Council
of the Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme;
- Intergovernmental Bioethics
Committee;
- Intergovernmental Committee
for Physical Education and Sport (CIGEPS);
- Governing Board of the
UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS)
Executive
Board Election of Members of the Executive Board
At each of its ordinary sessions, the General Conference shall elect
by secret ballot the number of Members of the Executive Board required
to fill the vacancies occurring at the end of the session. Members
of the Executive Board shall be eligible for re-election. The term
of office of each Member shall begin at the close of the session at
which it is elected and shall end at the close of the second ordinary
session following that election.
Groupings of Member States for the purpose of elections to the Executive
Board
Submission of the names of candidate States
The Director-General shall ask each Member State whether it intends
to stand for election to the Executive Board. If so, the application
must be sent to him or her at least six weeks, as far as possible,
prior to the opening of the session, it being understood that candidate
Member States may at the same time communicate to the other Member
States and to the Director-General any information they consider relevant,
including the name and curriculum vitae of the person they intend,
if elected, to designate as their representative on the Board. At
least four weeks prior to the opening of the ordinary session of the
General Conference, the Director-General shall send Member States
the provisional list of Member States that are candidates. At the
opening of the ordinary session of the General Conference, the Director-General
shall have drawn up and delivered to the Chairperson of the Nominations
Committee and to each head of delegation a list of the Member States’
applications that have been transmitted to him or her by that date.
Subsequent applications shall be admissible only if they reach the
Secretariat of the General Conference at least forty-eight hours before
the beginning of the ballot. The Nominations Committee shall submit
to the General Conference a list of all the Member States that are
candidates, indicating the electoral group to which they belong and
the number of seats to be filled in each electoral group. Procedure
for the election of members of the Executive Board
Election of Member States to the Executive Board
The election of Members of the Executive Board shall be conducted
by secret ballot. The Secretariat shall prepare for each delegation
an envelope without any distinguishing mark and separate ballot papers,
one for each of the electoral groups. The ballot paper to elect Member
States for each electoral group shall be of a different colour from
the others and bear the names of all the Member States that are candidates
for election in that electoral group. The voters shall indicate the
candidates for which they wish to vote by inserting the sign x in
the box appearing opposite the name of each candidate in this way:
x . This sign will be considered as an affirmative vote in favour
of the candidate so indicated. The ballot paper shall carry no other
notation or sign than those required for the pupose of indicating
the vote. Ballot papers and envelopes shall be distributed to delegations
by the Secretariat the day before the ballot, together with relevant
information concerning the carrying out of the ballot. Each delegation
shall be invited to choose a person to vote on its behalf. Voting
shall be held in a room separate from the meeting rooms. This room
shall be equipped with voting booths and with polling stations to
which the delegations will be directed according to alphabetical arrangements
corresponding to the names of their respective States. Ballot papers
and envelopes shall also be available in the room. Voting shall be
supervised by the President of the General Conference (or by a Vice-President
designated by the President) and by the tellers. They will be assisted
by members of the Secretariat designated by the Secretary of the General
Conference. The tellers shall satisfy themselves that the ballot box
is empty and, having locked it, shall hand the key to the President
of the General Conference or the Vice-President designated by the
President. Delegates may cast their vote at any time within the period
indicated for the ballot. Before placing the envelope in the ballot
box, each delegate will be required to write his or her name on the
list of Member States entitled to vote at the session and sign it.
A delegate who comes forward to vote on behalf of his or her delegation
will be presumed to represent that delegation, it being understood
that only one vote per delegation is allowed. The following shall
be considered invalid:
a) ballot papers on which a voter has cast an affirmative vote in
favour of more candidates than there are seats to be filled ;
b) ballot papers on which the voters have revealed their identity,
in particular by apposing their signature or mentioning the name
of the Member State they represent ;
c) ballot papers on which the name of any candidate appears more
than once ;
d) ballot papers containing no indication as to the intention of
the voter;
e) subject to the provisions (a), (b) (c) and (d) above, a ballot
paper shall be considered valid when the tellers are satisfied as
to the intention of the voter.
The absence of any ballot paper in the envelope shall be considered
as an abstention.
Current composition of the Executive Board
| Group |
(States) Seats |
Until the end of the
32nd session |
Until the end of the
33rd session |
| Group I |
(26) 9 seats |
France
Greece
Italy
Netherlands
Spain
|
Germany
Iceland
Turkey
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Nothern Ireland |
| Group II |
(24) 7 seats |
Georgia
Poland
Romania
Russian Federation
|
Belarus
Slovakia
Ukraine
|
| Group III |
(33) 10 seats |
Chile
Dominican Republic
Mexico
Peru
|
Bahamas
Brazil
Cuba
Dominica
Jamaica
Suriname
|
| Group IV |
(41) 12 seats |
Bangladesh
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Malaysia
Pakistan
Philippines
Republic of Korea
|
Australia
China
India
Japan
Vanuatu
Viet Nam
|
| Group V |
(64) 20 seats |
Benin
Chad
Ethiopia
Kuwait
Madagascar
Malawi
Morocco
Nigeria
Oman
Tunisia
|
Algeria
Burkina Faso
Egypt
Jordan
Kenya
Mozambique
Rwanda
Senegal
Swaziland
United Republic of Tanzania
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