Addresses delivered in the general policy debate by the Head of Delegation at the General Conference

37 session of the General Conference - Leaders Forum

Mr Bold, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Chairperson of the Mongolian National Commission for UNESCO

Speech delivered during the General Policy Debate of the 37th session of the General Conference - revised and corrected version of the verbatim records of plenary meetings

37 session of the General Conference

His Excellency, Mr Luvsanvandan Bold, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Mongolia

Speech delivered during the General Policy Debate of the 37th session of the General Conference - revised and corrected version of the verbatim records of plenary meetings

36 session of the General Conference

H.E. Mr Shukher Altangerel, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to France, Permanent Delegate to UNESCO

Speech delivered during the General Policy Debate of the 36th session of the General Conference and posted as received

35 session of the General Conference

H.E. Mr Yondon Otgonbayar, Minister for Education, Culture and Sciences

“I would like to pay a special tribute to Mr Matsuura, outgoing Director-General (…). Mongolia is particularly thankful that under his leadership the cooperation between Mongolia and UNESCO has intensified significantly.”
“Let me congratulate Madame Irina Bokova on the election to the post of Director-General of UNESCO.”
“In Mongolia we decided not to cut investment in education, in order to maintain the already attained level. In order to achieve Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals, Mongolia has made considerable efforts to ensure better access and quality of education. We are implementing the education sector master plan that determines our policy and goals in the near future. We started last year the transition to a 12-year schooling system to meet international standards. All these efforts are in line with UNESCO’s Medium-Term Strategy. Still more efforts are needed to be undertaken in order to assist developing countries, especially at the time of financial crisis, to maintain their educational services intact and to preserve the achieved level.”
“We are already halfway towards the end of the UN Literacy Decade, so a great deal of effort must be undertaken by UNESCO and its Member States to reach the goals set forth in 2003.”
“Mongolia has developed a science and technology master plan up to 2020 with the assistance and expertise from UNESCO. The plan is directed towards creating a knowledge-based society in the promotion of sustainable development. I would like to express our willingness to continue cooperation with UNESCO in water, ecology, biotechnology and innovation to implement the master plan.”
“We highly appreciate the important role that UNESCO is playing to support biological and cultural diversity. Through existing programmes and networks, Mongolia had two sites registered on the World Natural and Cultural Heritage List, six sites registered on the List of Biosphere Reserve Networks. (…) we are also trying to make our own contribution. Mongolia proposed to organize a North-East Asia summit on climate change. Since the last General Conference we have organized a series of meetings at the experts level.”
“The Government of Mongolia highly values the contribution that UNESCO is making towards safeguarding our national heritage, the hub of nomadic civilization. We are grateful to UNESCO for inscribing our traditional musical instruments Morin Khuur and Tsuur, traditional long song Urtiin duu, dance Biyelgee and traditional epics on to the List of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.”
“UNESCO has accumulated great experience in protecting and restoring cultural sites in many countries and I believe UNESCO will cooperate with Mongolia in conducting comprehensive historical and archaeological research in the very cradle of many civilizations which left their mark in world history.”

34 session of the General Conference

H.E. Mr U. Enkhtuvshin, Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Chairman of the Mongolian National Commission for UNESCO

Mongolia is happy to see Singapore back in the Organisation.
“Mongolia believes that education is an important means for fostering human rights, freedom and reducing poverty. Mongolia fully supports UNESCO’s worldwide movement towards Education for All.
Mongolia was an author of the United Nations Literacy Decade resolution and would like to thank UNESCO for its involvement.
“Mongolia developed and adopted a Master Plan of Education Development 2006-2015, a plan that determines our education sector policy and goals for the near future.” It will also ensure the coordination with international standards.
The Government of Mongolia supports UNESCO’s Medium-Term Strategy.
“The challenges which are included in the list of global issues, such as global climate change, air pollution, desertification, protection of drinking water resources, […] human safety and health, prevention from natural disasters, strengthening emergency readiness and management capacity, are also becoming important for Mongolia.”
The Government of Mongolia requests UNESCO to give more attention to the issues of desertification and supplies of drinking water. Furthermore, Mongolia proposes to host the Northern East Asian Summit on climate change.
Mongolia plans to create an information pool for cultural heritage researches and welcomes all professional and financial support for this project. The country needs to develop methodologies for safeguarding and protecting cultural heritage.
Developing information technologies is a necessity for a country as sparsely populated as Mongolia. The Government is taking active measures to grant broader public access to computers and make wider use of information technology in education.
Mongolia supports the reforms carried out by the Director General in order to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of the Organisation. The Mongolian Assembly has recently acceded to the Convention of the protection and promoting of the diversity of cultural Expressions and to the Convention against doping in sport.

Celebration of anniversaries

100th anniversary of the birth of Tsevegmid Dondogiin, educator, writer, scientist and politician (1915-1991) (2015)

The qualifications and achievements of Tsevegmid Dondogiin support the ideals of UNESCO and the Education Sector, and he appears to have contributed much to the development the national education system in Mongolia.

150th anniversary of the death of Danzanravjaa Dulduitiin, philosopher (1803-1856) (2006)

A Buddhist thinker with many talents, ranging from music to architecture and philosophy to the theatre, Danzanravjaa Dulduitiin has had an important influence on thought and culture, well beyond the borders Mongolia. His vast body of work is now being rediscovered with the renewal of traditional Mongolian culture.

750th anniversary of "The Secret History of the Mongols" (Mongolia) (1990)

The vast mountainous-steppe zone of Mongolia makes up part and parcel of
two important regions of world civilization, that is the Eastern part of
Central Asia and the extreme East of the so-called Eurasian steppe belt
stretching from the banks of the Danube and the Mediterranean. Mongolia was at
a cross-roads of world communications since time immemorial. Two great roads -
the 'Great silk road' and the Eurasian steppe corridor, also known as the
'Silk road of the steppes', linked Mongolia with the ancient civilizations of
the East and the West. Mongolia is regarded as a locus classicus of Central
Asian nomadism. There originated empires of nomadic peoples and a great
historical process of meeting and cross-meeting of peoples and cultures took
place. The nomads had borrowed and made their own much of other people's
cultural and religious values. On the other hand, they acted occasionally as
transmitters of the acquisitions of different cultures. They also bequeathed
to others the achievements of their own distinctive culture and strikingly
inimitable art skill and folklore.
•The Secret History of the Mongols (SHM) is a history-chronicle retold
in epic style and impregnated with steppe aroma.
It says not only of the old genealogy of Mongol khans, of the life and
deeds of Chingiz-khan as the founder of the Mongol State. It also gives a very
vivid and truthful panorama of the nomadic mode of life of the Mongols and
provides the richest material for understanding the different aspects of the
Mongol society in the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries.
The 'SHM' is also a great literary monument distinguished itself with
the highest artistic, aesthetic and poetic values. It is an unique phenomenon
in the literary history of nomadic peoples. It is not quite by chance that the
'SHM' used to be compared with great literary monuments of other peoples -
'Iliad' and "Odyssey", "The Alexander Romance', 'Chanson de Roland', 'Slovo o
polku Igorove'. 'SHM' is considered as not only the capital monument of the
thirteenth century Mongolian literature, but it is one of the great literary
monuments of the world. It contains more than a hundred verses and some of its
paragraphs represent epic poems finely composed in rhymes. At the same time it
is the richest treasure-house of Mongolian folklore.
The 'SHM' as a truly great literary work is remarkable for its
invariable universal humanity literary values, that's heroism, bravery,
honesty, mobility and dignity of man and people's desire for peaceful and
independent life.
The script in which the first opus magnum of the Mongols had been
recorded, goes back by its origin to the Phonecian, Aramaic and Sogdian system
of writing. A detailed examination shows the traces of religious and
mythological notions of the ancient Oriental peoples, in particular the
influence of the Zoroastrian-Manichaean cult of Light in the Mongolian legend.
Reference document: 131 EX/50