Social and Human Sciences
In today’s increasingly diverse societies, UNESCO continues to accomplish every day its fundamental humanist mission to support people in understanding each other and working together to build lasting peace. UNESCO also helps to enable people to create and use knowledge for just and inclusive societies.
Yet, lasting peace rests on a complex and fragile web of daily practices embedded in local settings and the most ephemeral encounters that individuals and communities creatively maintain out of the conviction that they constitute the sustainable conditions for living together in dignity and shared prosperity.
At a time of increasing global challenges and threats, such as inequality, exclusion, violence and sectarianism worsened by local tensions and conflicts which undermine humanity’s cohesion, learning to live together among all members of the global community becomes more topical than ever before.
Individuals become interculturally competent through learning and life experience for successful living in the modern complexity of our heterogeneous world and consequently they become prepared to appreciate diversity as well as to manage conflicts in accordance with the values of pluralism and mutual understanding.
On a daily basis, from its Headquarters and in the Field, UNESCO intervenes to accompany its Member States and all its partners to better understand and address the challenges of our more and more diversified societies, particularly through its intergovernmental Programme for Management of Social Transformations (MOST), its Youth Programme as well the Culture of Peace and Non-Violence Programme which include, inter alia, initiatives for democracy and global citizenship, intercultural dialogue, peace-building.
Furthermore, UNESCO seeks to promote the development and the practice of sporting activities, as well as the fight against doping to foster social integration in different cultural and political contexts, recognizing that sport disregards both geographical borders and social classes.
UNESCO also continues to build and reinforce linkages among ethicists, scientists, policy-makers, judges, journalists, and civil society to assist Member States in enacting sound and reasoned policies on ethical issues in science and technology.