Addresses delivered in the general policy debate by the Head of Delegation at the General Conference
37 session of the General Conference
His Excellency Mr Madhav Prasad Paudel, Minister for Education, Communication and General Administration of Nepal 
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 meetings36 session of the General Conference
H.E. Mr Shankar Prasad Pandey, Secretary, Ministry of Education Speech delivered during the General Policy Debate of the 36th session of the General Conference and posted as received35 session of the General Conference
Honorable Ram Chandra Prasad Kushwaha, Minister for Education“I would like to congratulate the new Director-General for her nomination. (…) My heartfelt gratitude goes to the outgoing Director-General for his excellent performance during his tenure of 10 years.”
“(…) We have arranged many conventions and made many recommendations for the safeguarding of our rights, cultures and achievements. Despite all our efforts, our achievements levels are still not enough to address the needs and rights of our people. In addition, we have been encountering a number of new problems and challenges such as climate change and natural disasters, food insecurity, illiteracy, swine flu, HIV/AIDS and so on. I feel that it is the time to work together more effectively and efficiently to tackle these global problems. “
“(…) We have arranged five major international level gatherings on Education and have made many recommendations. In this regard what I would like to request is that the well developed member countries should increase their cooperation with developing countries, mainly countries in a political transitional phase in order to address the new educational challenges.”
“UNESCO has been playing a lead role in its areas of competency. All member states including Nepal have been benefiting from policy guidelines, technical supports, and capacity building opportunities and networking of UNESCO. However, the countries in conflict or post conflict situations are still in need of significant supports in terms of programmes and opportunities.”
“(…) Our cultural heritage is the property of our future generations and most prominent cash crops for our development activities. UNESCO should further focus its programmes in empowering the host Member States for generating funds for the sustainable use of cultural heritage. In this regard also, the capacity building programmes for local level are in need. (…) UNESCO should review inter and intra communication channels. (…) UNESCO field offices at the country level, should work in close cooperation with respective National Commissions.”
“I would like to assure this grand gathering that the Government of Nepal is committed to achieve the ideals of UNESCO. Before I conclude, once again, I would like to express our gratitude with thanks to all our international development partners for their continued cooperation and supports.”
34 session of the General Conference
H.E. Hon. Pradip Nepal, Minister for Education and Sports“Nepal congratulates and welcomes Montenegro as a new member of UNESCO and Singapore for rejoining the Organization.”
Nepal is striving hard to achieve Millennium Development and Education for All goals. The whole national policy and strategy are being reviewed to universalize the opportunity of quality education for sustainable development and safeguard Human Rights especially of the minorities. All educational programmes are targeted for sustainable development.
“Nepal is also keenly engaged in the development of the school sector reform programme and the comprehensive programme for Literacy and Female Education (LIFE), and needs the support of the Organisation particularly for the LIFE initiative and human resource development.
“In order to address the World Literacy Decade, we are planning to launch a comprehensive literacy programme in a campaign model with the support of UNESCO…” The South-South collaboration has to be also strengthened. Nepal is looking for creating a sub-regional centre for literacy and a UNESCO Institute of Literacy and Lifelong learning.
It is time to focus on world peace by ensuring fundamental Human Rights and democratic culture for a prosperous world. Nepal believes that UNESCO and its member States will increase their visibility, support and cooperation in our efforts of reconstruction and socio-political transformation in Nepal.
“We highly appreciate the international community for recognizing cultural diversity as the common heritage of humanity. By means of the “Preservation of Cultural Heritage through School Education” programme, Nepal promotes and preserves both intangible and tangible cultural heritages. Moreover, the country is grateful that the Kathmandu Valley was de-listed from the World Heritage endangered list.”
“The Government of Nepal has developed the necessary legal and institutional provisions to ensure free, pluralistic and independent media. The government is promoting ICT education from school level to higher education.”
“Nepal highly appreciates the efforts of UNESCO in mobilizing science knowledge and policy for sustainable development. Inspired by UNESCO’s policy objective, Nepal is leaping forward to harness technology to the best of its capacity to eradicate poverty and illiteracy.”
UNESCO should be more proactive in using science and technology to overcome global challenges like climate change and poverty. The regional and sub-regional network for sharing technologies and scientific achievement should be strengthened.
Nepal would like to support the Medium-Term Strategy for 2008-2013 and the proposed Programme and Budget for 2008-2009. Nepal also believes that UNESCO and all of our development partners will certainly increase their support to the country in order to address the problems in this transitional phase.
Nepal
