Tag Archives: UNESCO

2030 Agenda: UNESCO Underlines Quality Education In Mother Languages

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Mother languages are essential to providing quality education, which in turn supports the achievement of the new global development agenda, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova has said.

 
He said this is necessary as the UN marked the International Day established to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world.
International Mother Language Day was proclaimed by the UNESCO General Conference in November 1999, and has been observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.

“Mother languages in a multilingual approach are essential components of quality education, which is itself the foundation for empowering women and men and their societies.

There is need to recognise and nurture this power in order to leave no one behind and craft a more just and sustainable future for all.’’
The theme of the 2016 Mother Language Day is “Quality education, languages of instruction and learning outcomes’’.
“Goal 4 of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development focuses on quality education and lifelong learning for all, to enable every woman and man to acquire skills, knowledge, and values to become everything they wish and participate fully in their societies,’’ Bokova said.

She noted that this was especially important for girls and women, as well as minorities, indigenous peoples and rural populations.
Bokova said that UNESCO’s Education 2030 Framework for Action, a road-map to implement the 2030 Agenda, encourages full respect for the use of mother language in teaching and learning, and the promotion and preservation of linguistic diversity.
“Multilingualism is essential to drive these objectives forward, it is vital for success across the 2030 Agenda, regarding growth, employment and health, as well as sustainable consumption and production, and climate change.
“UNESCO brings the same focus to advancing linguistic diversity on the Internet, through support to relevant local content as well as media and information literacy,’’ she said.
Through the Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) programme, UNESCO is highlighting the importance of mother and local languages as channels for safeguarding and sharing indigenous cultures and knowledge, which are vast reservoirs of wisdom.

 

 

(PANA/NAN)

Governor Ayade Bags UNESCO Award Of Excellence

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Cross River State Governor, Ben Ayade, has been conferred with the Award of Excellence by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for his leadership and foresight in improving the lives of the people of the state.

Presenting the award at the Governor’s office in Calabar the state capital, the Executive Director of the UNESCO Centre for Peace, Mr Guy Djoken, disclosed that the award is aimed at boosting his morale for more result-oriented initiatives.

Mr Djoken, who is also the President/CEO of US-UNESCO Clubs, Centers and Associations, said that through the show of commitment exhibited by the state, UNESCO through the support of the United States is willing to collaborate with the Cross River State Chambers of Commerce and Industry to create wealth and continuously improve on the living conditions of the residents of the state.

Some areas of collaboration he higlighted are the establishment of a virtual Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Center that will serve as a call center as well as support all other IT-related activities.

This will be set up with the view to building the entrepreneurship area of agriculture, renewable energy, education and healthcare delivery.

In his response, Governor Ayade said that he saw the award as a call for more work and charged UNESCO to complement the state’s tourism drive under the medical tourism brand.

The Governor gave the assurance that with the conducive business climate the state has, coupled with the hospitable deposition of the people, Calabar would definitely bring a huge return on investment if it sites a health facility in the state.

Credit: ChannelsTv

UNESCO DG Voices Concern Over Killing Of 2 Syrian Journalists

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Ms Irina Bokova, the Director-General, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) on Monday condemned the killing of two Syrian journalists, found dead a little over a week ago in the city of Sanliurfa in the southeast of Turkey.

Bokova in a statement condemned the killings of Ibrahim Qader and Fares Hammadi.

She called on the authorities to ensure swift justice for these crimes.

She stated that “we must do everything we can to protect journalists from the violence of extremists who are prepared to resort to murder to suppress people’s right to share information.’’

The statement said that Qader, 20, was co-founder and Executive Director of Raqqa, an online news portal by citizen journalists and human rights activists reporting on the city of Raqqa, Syria, which is controlled by violent extremists.

It added that Hammadi was Head of Production at Eye on the Homeland, a Syrian media collective.

NAN recalls that the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, observed every year on Nov. 2.

UNESCO said that since 2006, over 700 journalists have been killed in the line of duty.

No fewer than nine out of ten of these killed journalists, it added, have been local correspondents and reporters.

Furthermore, it stated that this year alone, there were over 70 cases of killed media personnel, up until September.

It added that from 2006-2014, print media has the most cases of killed journalists with 40 per cent of the victims, television comes second with 28 per cent while Radio represents 21 per cent of the victims.

The remaining statistics, it added are six per cent for Web-based journalists and five per cent for journalists active on multiple platforms.
The traditional media, it added, accounts for 89 per cent of all victims.

It further added that the rate of voluntary response by UNESCO Member States to requests by the Director-General for information about judicial follow-up to killings has risen from a 30 per cent response rate in 2013 to 42 per cent in 2015.

 

(NAN)

Kosovo Fails In UNESCO Membership Bid

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Kosovo on Monday failed to secure enough support to join UN culture agency UNESCO, in a victory for Serbia.

A former province of Serbia which split in 2008, Kosovo needed a two-third majority support of 95 votes in the UNESCO general conference, but had only 92, with 50 against and 29 abstaining.

“The majority of world’s countries voted for Kosovo but unfortunately, we were three votes short of the required majority,” Kosovo Foreign Minister Hashim Thaci said.

Thaci said that Kosovo cannot be stopped on its way and we would apply for membership in organisations, including again for UNESCO.

Serbia, which insists on sovereignty over Kosovo despite agreeing to normalise ties in an EU-brokered process, has campaigned globally to rally opposition to the UNESCO bid.

In Belgrade, President Tomislav Nikolic declared a victory in the vote on Kosovo’s membership in UNESCO.

The United States and major Western powers backed Kosovo, while Russia and China voted against it.

The scene of a war against Serbia’s rule in 1999, Kosovo has been recognized by 111 of the 193 UN member states.

Serbia insisted that its induction into UNESCO would have been a step towards UN membership and full-fledged statehood.

 

 

(dpa/NAN)

Nigeria To Benefit From $47m UNESCO Water Study

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Nigeria is among 16 countries to benefit from a ground breaking research on Emerging Pollutants in Wastewater Reuse. The project is a collaboration between the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

The project titled: “Characterisation of pharmaceutical pollution in the aquatic environment of Nigeria and their potential ecotoxicological effects”, is being implemented by Lagos State University and involves a scientific study into pollution of the Lagos Lagoon. The project began in July 2015 and it is expected to end in the first quarter of 2016.

According to Claire Lynga, a research advisor at SIDA, the project is estimated to cost about $47 million over four years. She said the issue of wastewater reuse is becoming a popular phenomenon globally and thus important that major research be carried out on the problems of pollution.

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