Turkey

• © UNESCO
• Istanbul

Turkey joined UNESCO on November 4, 1946.

The agreement signed between the Turkish non-governmental organization Mother Child Education Foundation (MOCEF) and UNESCO illustrates the country’s collaboration with UNESCO in the Early Childhood Partnerships Programme. The ECPP promotes early childhood development and family education through research and development activities, training and technical assistance, and documentation and information.

Turkey is also an active member of the South-Eastern Mediterranean Sea Project (SEMEP), integrating science and environmental education in schools.

The country has three UNESCO Chairs, in Mechatronics, Computer-Integrated Manufacturing and Philosophy.

In 1996 Turkish singer, composer, writer, conductor and film director Omer Zülfü Livaneli was appointed a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.

Mathematics, medicine and astronomy were the core disciplines of Islamic science in the Ottoman Empire. The Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute Manuscripts, inscribed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2001, represent one of the world’s rarest manuscript collections. Housed at the Bogazici University in Istanbul, the collection comprises 1339 works in 581 volumes written in Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. A CD-ROM catalogue was published in 1996.