The UNESCO Doha office has been serving Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates since 1976. In late 2009, Yemen joined the cluster, having previously been under UNESCO Cairo.

These countries have benefited from UNESCO Doha’s support in the fields of education, the natural sciences, culture, as well as communication and information.

The UNESCO Doha office consists of four internationally recruited staff and sixteen local recruits. It has a very active Natural Sciences programme, focusing on environmental issues, based on sciences and education. Specialists are also working on the Communication and Information as well as the Culture sectors. A Programme Specialist for Education is in the process of being recruited and will work with several assistant specialists that have already been actively implementing education-related projects. The Social and Human Sciences capacity of the Doha office is limited; however, considering the rapid social transformation of the Gulf region, it is currently under review.

UNESCO Doha enjoys strong partnership with the private sector and excellent cooperation with the United Nations University, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC), and regional bodies such as the Regional Organization for the Protection of the Marine Environment (ROPME) and the Regional Organization for the Conservation of the Environment of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden (PERSGA).

At the request of UNESCO’s Special Envoy for Higher and Basic Education, Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, and of the Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, the Doha office is host to an Iraq Liaison Officer, who serves as a key focal point for education programmes undertaken by the UNESCO Iraq office based in Amman, Jordan.

More than 50 UNESCO field offices operate around the world, 21 of which are national offices that serve their host state. There are 27 cluster offices that cover 148 Member States. These cluster offices represent the main supporting structure of UNESCO’s work in the field. The regional bureaux provide specialized support to national and cluster offices in a given region. The UNESCO office in Beirut, for instance, serves as the Regional Bureau for Education in the Arab States. [1] The UNESCO office in Cairo serves as the Regional Bureau for Sciences in the Arab States. [2] Both regional bureaux also provide support for sectors other than education and the sciences. UNESCO has been increasingly active in Post-Conflict and Post-Disaster (PCPD) countries, providing support where other UN agencies do not have the necessary expertise or capacity to provide. For example, UNESCO is the only UN agency that has been working on higher education and scientific research in Iraq. In Yemen, UNESCO has taken a leading role in capacity building for literacy.

[1] It also serves as the cluster office for Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and the Palestinian Territories.

[2] It is also the cluster office for Egypt, Libya, and Sudan.