<incom> UNESCO

[Soenke Zehle]

Reading around, trying to get a better sense of how UNESCO is 
positioning itself in the post-WSIS area re: ICT issues), I came across 
this assessment, maybe you'll find it to be of interest, Soenke

Klaus-Heinrich Standke, "Science and technology in global cooperation: 
the case of the United Nations and UNESCO", Public Policy (Nov 2006), 
access PDF via <http://www.unesco.de/1212.html> SUM: "This is on the 
Rise and Fall of S&T on the global agenda. The 1963 Geneva UN Conference 
wanted the S&T divide between rich and poor countries to be bridged by 
systematic international cooperation. The later North–South 
confrontation gave the transfer of knowledge a decisive role. Come the 
1979 Vienna Conference, fewer UN agencies participated. Twenty years on, 
UNESCO and ICSU had a World Science Conference in Budapest; the UN and 
other agencies were bystanders. The focus was on S and not the T. The 
end of the Cold War and the ongoing globalisation led to new S&T 
partnerships. UN and its agencies face an increasingly critical attitude 
from their member states on S&T, aggravated by there now being no UN 
system-wide approach."

PS Re UNESCO, I found their recent (Smith-era) report on info-ethics 
very confusing, as if the agency wanted to re-cast its info-political 
agenda by explicitly avoiding non-US references, but maybe that's also 
part of the controversy around Smith and his reform efforts

<http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001499/149992E.pdf>

Former Cal State official resigns from U.N. position
He cites threat on his life, 'negative' UNESCO climate

Jim Doyle, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, March 16, 2007

Peter Smith faced criticism for no-bid contracts awarded ...

Peter Smith, the former president of the California State University 
campus at Monterey Bay, has resigned from his post at UNESCO in Paris 
amid allegations of staff troubles, a death threat and a contract scandal.

Smith is the latest casualty in efforts to revive the international 
organization. In recent months, he had become increasingly embattled in 
his job as assistant director-general for education at the United 
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization -- drawing 
criticism from some members of his staff due to a reform campaign they 
claim had weakened the agency's programs.

At their most recent board meeting, UNESCO directors from several member 
nations voiced concern that Smith had acted unilaterally in 
restructuring the agency's literacy program and also in awarding 
millions of dollars in no-bid contracts.

In his resignation letter to UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura 
on Monday, Smith cited a threat against his life as a prime reason for 
his decision to leave the agency -- reiterating that he had received a 
written death threat on Feb. 9 through the mail at his home in Paris.

"After receiving the death threat, I can no longer tolerate the working 
environment at UNESCO," Smith wrote. "For each of us, there is a limit 
to what we will endure in the name of 'doing the right thing.' The 
threat against my life, and the subsequent weak follow-up, has taken me 
past that limit at
UNESCO."

He also complained of "a negative climate in the workplace."

"There is a small group who have worked steadily since the unveiling of 
the reform recommendations to kill the reforms by discrediting me, 
attacking you and demonizing America," he wrote. "The attacks on me ... 
have gone unanswered by the organization. I neither anticipated the 
viciousness of these attacks nor the organizational culture at UNESCO 
that tolerates such activities."

Smith took credit for numerous achievements in reforming the agency's 
educational sector. "The vast majority of our staff is committed to the 
reform," he wrote.

In a brief note to his staff, Matsuura accepted Smith's resignation 
"effective immediately."

Alan Farstrup, director of the International Reading Association of 
Newark, Del., voiced misgivings about Smith's tenure.

"I've tried not to get too mixed up in claims and counterclaims on who 
the good guys and bad guys are over there," Farstrup said Thursday. 
"(But) I was concerned that someone from the U.S. had come into the 
organization like a bull in a china shop without concern for cultural 
sensitivities."

Smith's predecessor, John Daniel of the United Kingdom, also met 
resistance when he tried to restructure the educational sector. He 
resigned about three years ago.

Smith, a former Republican congressman from Vermont, left the CSU 
Monterey job in 2005 and took the UNESCO position with the blessing of 
the Bush administration. Two years earlier, the United States had 
returned to UNESCO after an 18-year absence.

During his first year at UNESCO , Smith continued to receive a 
six-figure salary from the CSU system -- a $157,932 transition payment 
that critics labeled a golden parachute. He retired from CSU in 2005.

Smith's mission was to reform UNESCO's educational sector, which has 
been criticized as costly and ineffective. But some of his actions 
infuriated his employees.

For starters, he had a hand in naming first lady Laura Bush as UNESCO's 
honorary ambassador for the "Decade of Literacy" -- a move that won 
kudos as well as criticism from international literacy specialists, who 
recognized the value of a high-visibility campaign but worried about 
heavy-handed U.S. involvement.

Agency records indicate that Smith diverted $200,000 from UNESCO's 
literacy program to finance the White House Conference on Global 
Literacy -- a gala event in New York in September where the first lady 
was featured. The event drew nearly 200 people from 75 countries, 
including 39 ministers of education.

At an October meeting in Paris of UNESCO's executive board, 
representatives from several member nations, including South Africa and 
India, and a representative of the European Union voiced concern that 
Smith had acted without consultation in developing his reforms. They 
questioned the cost of reforms and the propriety of multimillion-dollar 
contracts to a U.S. consultant.

According to UNESCO documents, about $2.1 million in no-bid contracts 
have been awarded since June 2005 to Chicago-based Navigant Consulting 
Inc. to study the intergovernmental agency and create a plan to 
restructure its educational sector. Funds to pay those contracts came 
out of the agency's educational programs.

In August, the agency's deputy comptroller criticized the Navigant 
no-bid contracts, pointing out a lack of specificity in the work to be 
performed and UNESCO's rule that contracts for more than $100,000 must 
be competitively bid. Smith and other senior officials said the 
contracts were approved without bidding due to the need to expedite the 
reform process. In October, the UNESCO board hired a French firm to 
audit the contracts.

E-mail Jim Doyle at jdoyle at sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2007/03/16/MNG99OMCBM1.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 12 of the San Francisco Chronicle