DEVELOPMENT: Britain Challenged To Rejoin UNESCO

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Dipankar De Sarkar

LONDON, Nov 7 1996 (IPS) - The British government is being urged to rejoin the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) more than a decade after it joined the U.S. in walking out, protesting mismanagement and political bias.

Aid policy chiefs for Britain’s three main political parties — the ruling Conservatives, and opposition Labour and Liberal Democrats — gathered here this week to support a document published by the charity Actionaid challenging misconceptions of poverty in developing nations.

But Emma Nicholson of the Liberal Democrat Party, traditionally a strong supporter of United Nations institutions, accused Britain of hypocrisy after British overseas development minister Lynda Chalker spoke of her anguish at “people just turning off” from the needs of the world’s poor.

“Hypocrites we are,” Nicholson said. “Of course the United Nations is a very big and clumsy institution and, like other such institutions, wastes some money. But it can work in places others cannot.

She said Britain should support the U.N. more comprehensively than it has do so far and urged: “Can (the government) please rethink its position on UNESCO? Or can it least say that we will rejoin as soon as we have the money?”

The United States under President Ronald Reagan and Britain led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher quit UNESCO in 1984 and 1985, claiming the body was inefficient and mismanaged. But critics of the move then argued financial mismanagement was a convenient cover to hide quit an organisation that had been consistently critical of Western cultural and political views.

Since their withdrawal, however, the two countries have taken increasingly increasingly divergent views on UNESCO — while the Clinton Administration has listed rejoining as a priority, the British continue to be cautious.

A spokesman for UNESCO in Paris said UNESCO had addressed all the issues raised by Britain as justification for its withdrawal and its time London took a serious second look. “Budget, management and free press — all these issues have been addressed,” said Tom Forstenzer.

“And its not the UNESCO saying this, but the House of Commons — not once but thrice.” Forstenzer said the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, a cross party grouping of the British lower house of parliament, has held three hearings so far on the subject and recommended after each one that Britain rejoin.

“This is not a partisan issue in Britain. As recently as during the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, (former British Foreign Secretary) Lord Howe stated publicly in the House of Lords that it was time to go back,” Forstenzer said.

But while Britain has “never tried to find out” UNESCO reforms, the U.S. has taken a keen interest in the body in recent years, he said.

“Even under a Republican administration, the Americans set up a committee to monitor UNESCO and advise the Secretary of State. Eight (U.S.) officials came to UNESCO for nine weeks in 1992-93, were given access to everything and concluded in two reports that UNESCO is the most reformed U.N. institution.”

U.S. president Bill Clinton subsequently wrote to UNESCO Director Federico Mayor saying rejoining is a priority.

“The British government, in contrast, has consistently moved the goal posts. When Howe was minister, he said ‘let’s wait to see what the US does’. Then they said they can’t find the money — an amount of 10 million pounds as contribution to rejoin.”

The Labour party currently leads in the polls against Britain’s struggling Conservatives with a election due by next spring; it has already pledged to see Britain rejoin UNESCO as part of what a party spokesman calls Labour’s “very supportive” policy towards the world body.

In the meantime some commentators believe that Britain, instead of waiting for a green signal from across the Atlantic, should go ahead and set an example.

Actionaid’s head of international education, David Archer, said UNESCO’s lack of funding meant lack of follow-up on international agreements such as the 1990 Jomtien Declaration of Education for All.

At the launch of the Actionaid document, Fact or Fiction, Britain’s Lynda Chalker praised British aid but spoke of the “very worrying habit” of “people (in the North) just turning off from other people’s needs, not realising we live in one world.” The trend was particularly noticeable in the US, but also in some other developed countries.

The action report highlights five ‘Third World myths’ that it says need to be exploded. They are: ‘Nothing ever changes for the better in the Third World’; ‘People in Third World countries are poor because they have too many children’; ‘There’s always wars — money goes on armies instead of health and education’; ‘People in the Third World don’t do enough to help themselves’; ‘It’s hopeless: there will always be drought or emergency’.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Actionaid contends. In relative terms the speed and extent of progress in developing countries has outstripped that historically achieved by more developed countries.

“Over the past 30 years, dramatic improvements in health care and education have had a major impact on the lives of millions of families in Africa, Asia and Latin America.”