FACING THE CHALLENGE OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

What lessons can be drawn from the preceding accounts of UNESCO’s action in education over the past half century? Certainly, one conclusion is that UNESCO has persisted, often in extremely difficult circumstances, to proclaim and promote the right to education. Through five decades, in times of harmony as in times of strife, UNESCO has remained faithful to the missions entrusted to it in its Constitution: ‘the education of humanity for justice and liberty and peace’ and ‘the advancement of educational opportunity without regard to race, sex or any distinctions, economic or social’. To this day, the enormous faith that UNESCO’s founders placed in the power of education to build a more peaceful, just and democratic world continues to animate the Organization and to inspire its programmes.

The world that confronts UNESCO on the eve of a new millennium is, of course, profoundly different from that into which it was born half a century ago. Yet, the vision of the founders and the mission that they defined for UNESCO are as valid and compelling today as they were fifty years ago in the aftermath of the Second World War. Indeed, in certain ways, the challenges confronting humanity are more urgent today than ever before. Even as we celebrated the end of the Cold War and the diminished threat of nuclear annihilation, wars within nations and between peoples were erupting dramatically. We cannot meet this new threat by concluding treaties and agreements between governments; we must do so by building the defences of peace in the minds of individuals. Thus, fifty years on, we must address anew the issue that preoccupied UNESCO’s founders: how to make education an effective instrument for building an enduring peace founded on ‘the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind’.

BUILDING ON PAST SUCCESSES

An Organization that has been in operation for fifty years must be judged not only on the nobility of its purposes and intentions, but also, indeed mainly, on its record. Yet, here too, as the accounts in this volume and the accompanying CD-ROMs testify, the achievements have been impressive. In numerous areas of education, UNESCO has played a leading role. From its origins, for example, the Organization has stressed the importance of literacy work and has done much to advance its progress. Illiteracy, of course, remains a preoccupying problem: there are today nearly 900 million illiterate adults in the world. Yet, the literacy rate has increased from approximately 60 per cent to nearly 80 per cent over the past forty years, even as the adult population has more than doubled. This enormous – if still disappointing – progress is due mainly to the persistent efforts of governments and non-governmental organizations and, above all, to the selfless devotion of millions of women and men who have worked tirelessly in the cause of literacy. But would anyone deny the importance of UNESCO’s constant advocacy and support in motivating and sustaining the world literacy movement?

What of UNESCO’s future work? It is evident that the world is beset by new problems and new threats to peace, democracy and development. UNESCO has its role to play – and education is usually an essential part of it – in helping to meet these new challenges. At the same time, the Organization must continue the undertakings begun in previous decades: the pursuit of programmes aimed at extending the reach and improving the quality of education in countries around the world.

And even if the goals that UNESCO seeks remain the same, the Organization must adapt its action to new conditions, circumstances and constraints. The world of today, for example, is enormously more complex than that of fifty years ago. UNESCO itself has contributed to this complexity by building up networks of institutions in nearly all fields of education as well as through its encouragement to and co-operation with large numbers of non-governmental organizations active in various aspects of education. It is, thus, no longer possible for the Organization to act alone or exclusively through governments. Greater economy and effectiveness can be achieved by working with partners – non-governmental and governmental alike – to develop and implement activities. UNESCO, like all organizations within the United Nations System, must also respond to new demands to do more with less, to find more efficient means for accomplishing its vital mission. Thus, as UNESCO celebrates its fiftieth anniversary and reflects upon its past, it is concentrating its thoughts and efforts on preparing to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

UNESCO was born!
	Session of the Preparatory Commission for UNESCO, London, 1946	Opening of the First Session of the General Conference of UNESCO, Sorbonne, 19 November 1946
	A Session of the first General Conference of UNESCO, Paris 1946	From left to right: Y. Brunsvick, L. Blum (resident of the Conference), H. E. Wlson and R. Guesneth