Belarus in UNESCO: the Effectiveness of Cooperation (Dmitry Krivoshey)

Раздел - "Международные отношения"The history of our country's participation in UNESCO activities goes back to May 12, 1954. But the actual character of the relations between Belarus and this organisation took shape only in the 1990's, when our country was able to pursue a completely independent foreign policy in the conditions of sovereignty. Priority in this period was given to such spheres of collaboration as education, culture and ecology. Cooperation in the field of education was aimed at assisting the reform in the systems of secondary and higher education. To implement the reform the country took fruitful efforts in introducing new educational technologies, developing new textbooks and manuals, sharing knowledge and experience, establishing UNESCO chairs and participating in the international lawmaking. Belarus has been actively working within the framework of the set of programmes "Science" at the programme "Man and Biosphere" (MAB) which aims at preserving biological diversity. The Belarusian National MAB Committee has been successful in this respect. The UNESCO experts consider it one of the most actively working on the earth. 1996 saw Belarus joining self-financed extrabudgetary project "Chemistry for Life". The Organisation supported within its framework our country's proposal on the establishment of a Centre of chemical education in the republic. Belarusian academics take part in international cooperation with the UNESCO, mainly in various fields of natural sciences and in the implementation of the programme on social sciences (MOST). In the period from 1993 to 1997 Belarus was a member of the intergovernmental council of the UNESCO international programme on information which allowed to draw the attention of the Organisation to the problems connected with introducing computers in education, creating computer networks inside the country, linking up to international networks; it also permitted participation in creating Regional information network for the Eastern European countries. Belarusian cooperation with the UNESCO in the realm of culture strikes by its diversity. The republic is a memberstate of all UNESCO conventions in this realm, which gives it the right to take part in all events, covered by these conventions. Thus, the Republic of Belarus took part in UNESCO events commemorating the centenary of the cinema. The work under the programmes "Development of Central and Eastern European Countries", Memoria Mundi, the History of Book Culture of Podlyasye, Communication and Information continued. Belarus was an active participant of the events held by the UN within the framework of the "Culture Development Decade" (1988—1997). As a member state it received various assistance in developing the projects to preserve national heritage under the programme "Culture Development: Heritage and Creativity", in restoration work and human resource development, in training and upgrading the skills of art workers and encouraging artistic development in young people. It was the collaboration within the framework of the programme "UNESCO — Chernobyl" that has been most significant for our country. Under this programme a number of projects was implemented in 1991—1998 with provision of rendering various assistance in preserving and enhancing our country's culture. On gaining independence Belarus was able for the first time to submit its own proposals, which permitted it to draw resources from the UN regular budget. Beginning with 1993 different applications of our country to realise culture programmes have been financed, among them: preparation and publication of the lexical atlas of Belarusian dialects, holding the international scientific conference "Slavonic Cultures after World War II", the study of Belarusian national dress and ornamentation in the Chernobyl area, acquisition of materials for the restoration of the Mir Castle, creating computer catalogue database at the National Library and others. Mass support for the UNESCO activities is achieved in our country through the work of the Belarusian association of the UNESCO Clubs. This public organisation had a membership of 10000 in 1999 and worked in 3 regions, including 52 clubs from the associated UNESCO educational institutions. At present the Association is implementing 14 projects and programmes. In 1997 over 36 000 people took part in the events and actions of the Association in Belarus. 1991 and 1998 saw the official visits to our country on the invitation of the Government of the Director-general of UNESCO Federico Mayor. However, cooperation with UNESCO met certain obstacles. The organisation received very little information on Belarus, the UNESCO publications were only slightly used to promote the image of Belarus through articles on science, culture and education in our country. Advantage was not taken of the possibility to publish monographs of Belarusian authors in the UNESCO publishing house. On the other hand, there was very little information on UNESCO in Belarusian mass media. There were also certain obstacles connected with the arrears of our country to this Organisation which Belarus pledged to repay in 1995. At the XXX General Conference of UNESCO, which took place in autumn 1999, Belarus was elected to the Executive Board of this Organisation. Thus, in the conditions of sovereignty our country managed to lay down and build up the foundations of "the Belarusian School" of cooperation with UNESCO. Belarus got the possibility to take an independent part in the most important international programmes of UNESCO which laid the groundwork for fostering the international presence in the world cultural space, establishing diverse cooperation with the developed countries within the framework of multilateral relations