Identity area
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Administrative history
From 1946 to 1952, the General Conference took place every year, since 1952 every second year.
Name of creator
Administrative history
The United Nations Conference for the establishment of an educational and cultural organization (ECO/CONF) was convened in London from 1 to 16 November 1945. Scarcely had the war ended when the conference opened. It gathered together the representatives of forty-four countries. Spurred on by France and the United Kingdom, two countries that had known great hardship during the conflict, the delegates decided to create an organization that would embody a genuine culture of peace. In their eyes, the new organization must establish the “intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind” and, in so doing, prevent the outbreak of another world war.
At the end of the conference, thirty-seven countries founded the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
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Content and structure area
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Accruals
System of arrangement
- Provisional agenda (C/1)
- Organization of the work (C/2)
- Report of the Director-General on the activities of the Organization (C/3)
- Medium-term Strategy (C/4)
- Programme and budget (C/5)
- Recommendations by the Executive Board on the Draft Programme and Budget (C/6)
- Commission documents (C/COM)
- Draft resolutions submitted by Member States and Associate Members (C/DR)
- Information documents (C/INF)
- Legal committee's reports (C/LEG)
- Information regarding elections (C/NOM)
- Draft Resolution of Plenary Session (C/PLEN)
- Statutory reports of UNESCO’s intergovernmental committees and councils submitted to the General Conference, and the reports of governmental, regional and international conferences (C/REP)
- Proceedings (C/Proceedings)
- Resolutions (C/Resolutions)
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
- Arabic
- Chinese
- English
- French
- Russian
- Spanish
Script of material
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Physical characteristics and technical requirements
All documents of the General Conference from 1946 to 2000 are available in the Reading Room of the UNESCO archives as paper documents.
Nearly all documents are also available in electronic version online on UNESDOC (missing sessions will be completed soon).
All documents from 1946 to 2000 are also available on microfiches in the UNESCO archives.
Finding aids
For General Conference documents until 1989:
List of General Conference Documents (UIS.90/WS/2)
including:
- List of documents of the Conference for the establishment of Unesco in 1945
- Reference to the lists of documents for 1976-1989 (19-25C)
- List of indexes to the Conference documents 1945-1989
- List of Reports of the Director General on the activities of the Organisation (C/3) 1946-1989.
Inventory of General Conference documents, 1946-1989 (SID.78/WS/2 Rev).
Inventory of General Conference Documents. 1945-1978 English series of bound volumens in the Unesco Archives (SID-78/WS/2).
ICONFEX database (paper version): subject index to resolutions and related documents of the General Conference.
For all General Conference documents:
All documents in full text available via UNESDOC database using the drop-down menu in the left frame and the advanced search.
Search in documents:
Full text search in all General Conference Documents
Full text search in all Resolutions and Decisions.