PARIS: The United States has lost its voting rights at Unesco after an official said it missed a crucial deadline, two years after halting its dues payments to protest the decision to make Palestine a member.
Under Unesco rules, the US had until Friday morning to resume funding or submit an explanation for its arrears. Neither happened and the US was losing its vote automatically, according to a Unesco official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the dispute.
The loss of the vote means the US cannot participate in funding decisions for the agency, which may be best known for its program to protect the cultures of the world via its Heritage sites, which include the Statue of Liberty and Mali’s Timbuktu.
The suspension of US contributions, which account for $80 million a year — 22 per centof Unesco’s overall budget — brought the agency to the brink of a financial crisis and forced it to cut American-led initiatives such as Holocaust education and tsunami research over the past two years.
It has worried many in Washington that the US is on track to becoming a toothless Unesco member with a weakened voice in international programs fighting extremism through education, and promoting gender equality and press freedoms.
“We won’t be able to have the same clout,” said Phyllis Magrab, the Washington-based US National Commissioner for Unesco. “In effect, we (now won’t) have a full tool box. We’re missing our hammer.”
The Unesco tension has prompted new criticism of US laws that force an automatic funding cutoff for any UN agency with Palestine as a member.
The agency may be best known for its program to protect the cultures of the world via its Heritage sites, which include the Statue of Liberty and Mali’s Timbuktu.
But its core mission, as conceived by the US, a co-founder of the agency in 1946, was to be an anti-extremist organization. In today’s world, it tackles foreign policy issues such as access to clean water, teaches girls to read, works to eradicate poverty, promotes freedom of expression and gives people creative thinking skills to resist violent extremism.
Among Unesco programs already slashed over funding shortages is one in Iraq that was intended to help restore proper water facilities. Another was a Holocaust and genocide awareness program in Africa to teach about non-violence, non-discrimination and ethnic tolerance, using the example of the mass killing of Jews during World War II.
This loss is a particular blow to the US, since Holocaust awareness was one of the areas the country aggressively promoted in the agency’s agenda when it rejoined in 2002 after an 18-year hiatus, during which the US had withdrawn from the organization over differences in vision.
The concern over Unesco is resonating in the US Congress.
“The United States must not voluntarily forfeit its leadership in the world community,” Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, told the Associated Press in an email. (Agencies)
