This commitment is at the very foundation of the United Nations, established after the “great and terrible” Second World War to create and maintain peace through economic, social or political agreements. But this is no longer enough today. The foundations of peace still need to be laid, with the help of the specialized agencies which make up the United Nations system such as UNESCO. For over 60 years, UNESCO took over that mission in conformity with its Constitution which asserts that, “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed”. In this regard, the same Constitution highlights that “a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world, and that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind”.
