U.N.E.S.C.O. donors fear for agency’s future

Press, 23 March 1985, Page 11

U.N.E.S.C.O. donors fear for agency’s future

NZPA-Reuter Geneva

Twelve main contributors to U.N.E.S.C.O. believe that the Paris-based United Nations organisation may not survive unless it cuts spending soon, delegates from the countries concerned say. Foreign Ministry officials from the mainly Western countries had decided at talks in Paris yesterday to press U.N.E.S.C.O.’s director-general, Mr Amadou Mahtar M’bow, for a detailed list of the organisation’s programmes for the next two years, they said. The group wants to examine possible cuts in the programmes before Mr M’bow submits the list to U.N.E.S.C.O.’s next executive board meeting at Paris, in May.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation was deprived of a quarter of its budget when the United States quit it last year on the ground it was mismanaged and over-politicised. A Swiss representative, Franz Muheim, said yesterday that the contributors, who provide about 70 per cent of the U.N. agency’s money, felt it would be “very difficult to redress the situation” if significant progress in reforming U.N.E.S.C.O. failed to come about at the May meeting.

“It is a matter of U.N.E.S.C.O.’s survival. We are running the risk of

irreparable damage that could provoke the withdrawal of a large number of countries.” The informal talks were attended by Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Spain, West Germany and the United States, which has observer status at U.N.E.S.C.O.

Britain and Singapore have served notice that they will also quit at the end of this year if reforms are not made. West Germany, The Netherlands, and Japan have expressed discontent with the agency. Switzerland has also accused the agency of antiWestern attitudes and mismanaging funds, but has emphasised that reform should be urged from within.

Mr Muheim said that it was also vital to draw the attention of non-aligned countries to the gravity of U.N.E.S.C.O.’s state of affairs at their next meeting, at New Delhi, in April. At an emergency U.N.E.S.C.O. board meeting last month Western and Third World countries, backed by Communist States, violently disagreed on how to cut spending to cope with the United States withdrawal. The Western bloc failed in a key demand for an immediate 25 per cent cut in U.N.E.S.C.O.’s SUS39I million ($879.7 million) budget base for 1986-87.