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Namibia prepares to commemorate UNESCO’s 70th Anniversary
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) commemorates its 70th Anniversary this year. The celebrations in Namibia will start on 10th August 2015 with an introductory event at the National Theatre of Namibia to reflect on some of UNESCO’s key achievements and contributions to Namibia’s development.
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The main celebration will take place on 22 September 2015 and is expected to be attended by senior Government officials, members of the international community and other key stakeholders.
A public lecture and round table discussion on UNESCO’s work in Namibia is set for 25th November 2015 at the Poly- technic of Namibia. To conclude the celebrations, a 3-day camp for young people from UNESCO’s Associated Schools Project Network (ASPNET) will be held in February 2016 under the theme “UNESCO at 70: Cultural Heritage in Young Hands.
A public lecture and round table discussion on UNESCOs work in Namibia is set for 25th November 2015 at the Polytechnic of Namibia. To conclude the celebrations, a 3-day camp for young people from UNESCO’s Associated Schools Project Network (ASPNET) will be held in February 2016 under the theme “UNESCO at 70: Cultural Heritage in Young Hands”
The 70th Anniversary celebrations offer UNESCO and Namibia, as a Member State of the Organization since 2 November 1978, a unique opportunity to reflect on past achievements, revisit and rethink UNESCO’s orientations and programmes for the future, with particular focus on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
UNESCO was founded in 1945 to develop the “intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind” as a means of building lasting peace. Its pioneering work has helped change the way people everywhere understand each other and the planet we live on.
In its early years, UNESCO helped rebuild schools, libraries, and museums destroyed during World War II, and served as an intellectual forum for exchanging ideas and scientific knowledge. As newly independent countries joined between the 1950s and 1970s, it turned its attention to access to education for all girls and boys and tackling illiteracy, which remain major challenges.
UNESCO led the movement to protect the environment and sounded the alert over the planet’s shrinking biodiversity. Through its “Man and the Biosphere Programme”, established in 1971, it sought to reconcile both the use and conservation of natural resources. It was the first step towards sustainable development.
The Organization also championed the protection and promotion of tangible, intangible and documentary heritage as well as respect for cultural diversity on the basis of human rights.
Through the development of community radios and multimedia centres, training for journalists, helping governments design media laws or, encouraging them to develop broadband services for all, UNESCO has promoted freedom of expression, the rights of citizens to information, and helped lay the foundations of tomorrow’s Knowledge Societies.
UNESCO is firm in the conviction that in this age of immense social change and increasing limits, the world must invest in resources that are renewable: education, cultural diversity, scientific research and the boundless energy of human ingenuity that will enable and drive the development essential for a just and sustainable future.
Millions of girls and boys still have no access to learning. Illiteracy prevents hundreds of millions of women and men from fully participating in their societies. Youth unemployment is a global challenge. Education remains a top priority on the new global development agenda being shaped by the international community. UNESCO makes the case for a new goal for equitable and quality lifelong learning and is mobilizing governments and a wide range of other partners for this.
Climate change, shrinking biodiversity and increasing demands on natural resources call for more science, and more scientists, to increase our capacity to observe and comprehend the planet. UNESCO’s programmes on the ocean, fresh water resources, the sharing of scientific knowledge, and in the social sciences have an important contribution to make.
Culture, a force for dialogue, social cohesion, economic growth and creativity, remains at the heart of UNESCO’s mission. UNESCO is determined that it should be a priority in the post-2015 agenda, which should be human rights-based, with a focus on governance and the rule of law.
This is why freedom of expression is also so important and why UNESCO will continue to advocate for harnessing information and communication technologies, building knowledge societies and bridging divides.
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| Author(s) |
UNESCO Windhoek Office |
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| Publication Date |
06 Aug 2015 |
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