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If her appointment is confirmed by the
organisation's general assembly next month, one of Bokova's first tasks will
be to build bridges with the governments that supported her rival in the
final round, Farouq Hosni, Egypt's culture minister.
Many of Hosni's supporters are in Asia
and Africa — they will be disappointed that remarks he made in the past may
have cost him the race, as they were perceived as anti-semitic by some in the
West. This will need careful attention, as UNESCO should be playing a key
role in bridging the cultural divide of an increasingly polarised world.
The science challenge
But Bokova's broader challenge will be
to give new purpose and coherence to UNESCO. Too often, internal and external
political wrangling has undermined its effectiveness and prevented the agency
from achieving its full potential.
Nowhere has this been more true than
in its science programmes, which did not figure prominently in the election.
The only candidate who emphasised science in his campaign — Sospeter Muhongo
from Tanzania — received just one vote in the first round and promptly
dropped out, apparently in favour of Hosni.
And while Bokova stressed the
importance of education and meeting the needs of Africa in her campaign, she
said virtually nothing about science.
Nevertheless, promoting science and
integrating it into development strategies — particularly through science
education — rightly remains an important priority for the organisation.
The problem is that UNESCO's efforts
to meet a wide set of goals — partly a reflection of the diverse agendas of
its member states — combined with thinly-stretched financial resources, has
led to damaging fragmentation in its science programmes. This was pointed out
by an external review committee in 2007 (see UNESCO science 'not good enough', says review).
Bringing resources to bear
Little has changed since the review
committee delivered its recommendations. The need to address fragmentation
with greater focus and a new sense of purpose remains as acute today as it
was two years ago.
Next month's general assembly offers
an opportunity to put much needed changes into effect. One welcome suggestion
is to increase UNESCO's support for building capacity in developing countries
— particularly in Africa — to create sustainable science policies (even if
this has yet to be translated into concrete proposals for the next programme and
budget).
But the organisation has long had
ambitious goals to support science in this way. The problem has been a lack
of resources, so efforts have too often led to little more than cosmetic
changes.
Other proposals that will be put to
the conference for streamlining science programmes are relatively modest,
leading to fears among many of the larger delegations that the future will
only bring 'more of the same'.
A mandate for change
Real change in science programmes, as
elsewhere within the agency, will require strong and visionary leadership.
The good news from this week's
election is that the final ballot, in which Bokova beat Hosni by 31 votes to
27, provided a clear outcome. A stalemate at this stage — each candidate had
secured 29 votes in the previous round — could easily have undermined the
authority of the eventual winner.
Less satisfactory is that, to secure
her victory, Bokova is likely to have made serious commitments to those
governments who eventually voted for her (she visited 45 countries in her
campaign).
Accommodating these promises in a
coherent and focused reform agenda will be a challenging task — but an
essential one if UNESCO is to reclaim its leadership position in science and
technology for development.
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