I won’t resign, says U.N.E.S.C.O. head

Press, 4 October 1984, Page 11

I won’t resign, says U.N.E.S.C.O. head

NZPA-Reuter Strasbourg

U.N.E.S.C.O.’s directorgeneral, Mr Amadou Mahtar M’Bow said yesterday that he would not resign to stop the United States or any other nation from leaving the Paris-based United Nations agency. Mr M’Bow was taking part in a debate on United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation activities at the parlia-

mentary assembly of the Council of Eiurope, whose 21 member States pay a third of U.N.E.S.C.O.’s budget. He faced a barrage of critical questions from the assembly aind before his arrival 47 Conservative and Christian Democrat members tabled a motion deploring the invitation to him to attend.

The United States has said that it will withdraw

from U.N.E.S.C.O. at the end of this year, saying that the agency is mismanaged and over-politicised. It has, however, avoided attacks on Mr M’Bow, a former Senegalese education minister.

In yesterday’s debate Mr M’Bow rejected criticism of U.N.E.5.C.0., saying that all its programmes had been adopted by consensus. He also denied accusations that he exercised power alone.