USUNESCO - A/S POWELL VISIT: PD SCENESETTER

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 006615

SIPDIS

FROM AMBASSADOR OLIVER TO A/S POWELL

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: UNESCO KPAO
SUBJECT: USUNESCO - A/S POWELL VISIT: PD SCENESETTER



1. (U) SUMMARY: I am looking forward to your October 23 and 24
visit to UNESCO, and would like to suggest that UNESCO with its
education, communication and culture mandates is the ideal platform
to advance the Secretary's transformational diplomacy agenda. In
this regard, I would like you to consider raising a number of
potential Public Diplomacy initiatives during your meeting with the
UNESCO Director-General, Koichiro Matsuura on October 24. I would
also welcome press guidance on education issues in order to
effectively engage with the press during and on the margins of the
Fulbright New Century Scholars Plenary Session. The multiplier
effect for PD at UNESCO is huge given the fact that 192 member
states belong to UNESCO. Many of their Ambassadors come from
Education or Cultural ministries, which provides a unique
opportunity for outreach to an elite that is often skeptical of the
United States. Moreover, ECA's programs directly link to the
Mission's top priority of education reform, as well as democracy
building and our active leadership as a member of the UNESCO World
Heritage Committee. END SUMMARY.

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UNESCO'S MIDDLE NAMES ARE EDUCATION AND CULTURE:
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2. (U) I propose 4 ways in which ECA could consider bridging with
UNESCO through educational exchanges and cultural promotion: the
Fulbright Senior Specialists Program to increase U.S. influence in
the organization's thinking and approach to programs and budget, the
Fulbright Teacher Exchange to provide teacher training in countries
where UNESCO has a strong record on educational reform, the
Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation to annually fund a
project chosen jointly by the U.S. Mission and UNESCO's World
Heritage Center, and ECA Cultural Programming in the visual arts to
promote American achievement in film during the 2007 General
Conference, when over 190 Education and Cultural Ministers as well
as Heads of State from around the world converge at UNESCO. These
ideas go beyond publicizing these programs at UNESCO, which we
already do.

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FULBRIGHT PROGRAMS:
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3. (U) I am currently negotiating with UNESCO to bring on board
5-10 Fulbright Senior Specialist Fellows, starting in May 2007 for
periods of up to 6 weeks. UNESCO sectors have responded keenly to
the possibility, with requests for experts in media law, curriculum
assessment, program evaluation, bioethics law, oceanographic issues,
and statistics evaluation. All of these fields link directly to our
priorities and support Department Transformational Diplomacy goals,
whether it is correctly measuring the impact of literacy programs
through teaching people in developing countries how to interpret
statistics, or helping to build a database of media law for
post-conflict countries to draw on when they draft legislation on
freedom of expression. Ideally, we would like to complete an
agreement with UNESCO before mid-October so that A/S Powell may
announce this initiative to the DG. UNESCO, as host institution,
can offer workspace and subsidized lunches. UNESCO Management is
looking into whether it can support housing costs for Fulbright
Senior Specialists in the field or at Paris Headquarters, though I
believe this support may be extremely limited due to UNESCO's
zero-no-growth budget. I ask that your office consider identifying
resources to cover housing expenses here in Paris and in the field
in order to place fellows from this valuable program at UNESCO.


4. (U) Introducing the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program to UNESCO
in order to promote teacher training would demonstrate in practical
terms U.S. leadership on education reform, complement the First
Lady's role as UNESCO Honorary Ambassador for the United Nations
Decade of Literacy and capitalize on the enormous public success of
the First Lady's September 18 White House Conference on Global
Literacy. This exchange could occur in countries that have made
progress on education reform, in the pilot program countries of
UNESCO's Literacy for Life initiative, or in the 5 countries which
will host follow-on conferences to the First Lady's September 18
Literacy Conference. The experiences of these teachers could be
shared with UNESCO field offices. They could also yield best
practices to be shared publicly at the five planned UNESCO follow-on
literacy conferences, which would underscore the power that
people-to-people exchanges have in promoting literacy in the
developing world. In the cases in which this important Fulbright
program already exists in chosen countries, this Teacher Exchange
Program could build upon or supplement existing programs; perhaps it
could be identified as a specific U.S.-UNESCO program.

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CULTURAL INITIATIVES:
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5. (U) The Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation is another
field with great potential for cooperation at UNESCO. For the past
two years, I have sent the program's annual report and a letter to
all of my colleagues notifying them of it and encouraging them to
apply through the U.S. Embassy in their home country. Responses have
been very positive. For example, South Africa, Chile, Equatorial
Guinea, Paraguay have all expressed appreciation for the
information, been delighted to learn of projects in their home
countries (the South African Ambassador praised the U.S. for its
cooperation with African countries to preserve Africa's cultural
richness as a whole) and noted the program's potential for capacity
building, training and site management. I ask you to consider
building on the existing program by allowing the Mission to choose
one endangered World Heritage site per year in conjunction with the
UNESCO World Heritage Center for Ambassador's Fund support. Results
of the annual project could be shared with the World Heritage
Committee to encourage best practices for site management.


6. (U) From October 15 to November 1, 2007, UNESCO will host its
biannual General Conference, and welcome Education and Cultural
Ministers as well as Heads of State from around the world. This is
an ideal opportunity to, in keeping with the First Lady's Global
Cultural Initiative, showcase American Film. UNESCO Ambassadors are
a jaded lot - with 190 peers deploying their full cultural arsenal
month after month, it can be hard to keep their attention. However,
a classic American Film presented in UNESCO's Conference Hall by a
leading celebrity at UNESCO would be a showstopper - and would
attract celebrity UNESCO Ambassadors such as Sidney Poitier
(Bahamas) and Charles Aznavour (Armenia),in town for the General
Conference, and potentially Goodwill Ambassadors such as Claudia
Cardinale (Italy) and Catherine Deneuve (France). In May, I
presented remarks on cooperation in popular culture at the
President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities Symposium on Film,
Television, Digital Media and Popular Culture in Los Angeles, and
met there with American Film Institute (AFI) leaders, who indicated
an interest in cooperation with Mission on programs.


7. (U) These program suggestions would help the U.S. further improve
its standing within the UNESCO diplomatic community and increase our
influence and leadership at UNESCO. Our efforts to do so are of
particular importance as we are the Vice Chair of UNESCO's policy
setting Executive Board, where we are preparing for the 2007 General
Conference which will set the UNESCO Agenda from 2008 to 2013 in its
medium term strategy - a document we are negotiating now. We are
also continuing to have problems with certain individuals at UNESCO
who try to promote anti-Americanism and ignorance over American
goals and priorities in key UNESCO sectors.

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PRESS AT THE NCS PLENARY:
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8. (U) As we approach the Fulbright New Century Scholars (NCS)
Plenary on October 24, I have noticed an up tick in press play and
in policy moves among some UNESCO staff on the issue of education as
a public good. For example, there were recent reports in the media
that Belgian officials, at the September 28 annual meeting of French
speaking countries worldwide (the Francophonie),called for a UNESCO
instrument modeled on the 2005 cultural diversity convention to
ensure education is exempt from established international trade
laws. Since the NCS Plenary discusses private-public partnerships
and equitable access to education, Mission would encourage ECA to
reach out to scholars who support private education, and ask them to
consider doing some press pull asides to explain their views.
Mission would also ask ECA to coordinate with IO/PPC, IO/UNESCO,
USTR and the Department of Education to proactively draft press
guidance addressing this issue and the related issue of non-binding
cross border education guidelines that were jointly negotiated by
UNESCO and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD).


9. (U) I am so pleased that you have chosen to hold the NCS
plenary at UNESCO headquarters, the only UN agency with a mandate
for education, and am very appreciative of your willingness to meet
UNESCO Ambassadors and the Director-General on the margins of the
NCS conference. I hope that you may be able to explore with the
Director-General the synergies outlined above between ECA programs
and UNESCO's mandate. I also hope that by proactively showing the
richness of views and scholars to the press at the NCS plenary, we
can open more minds at UNESCO, including those of many Francophones
and representatives of the developing world, to the merits of
protecting the diversity of education systems and providers
worldwide.

Oliver