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Director of Ceremonies
Chairperson of the National Commission for UNESCO, Prof. Phillip Tobias
Members of the Commission
The Acting Director-General, Colleagues from the Ministry of Education
Ladies and Gentlemen

I am delighted at this opportunity to welcome you all as members of the South African National Commission for UNESCO. Your acceptance is an indication of the will to serve not only the structure you are appointed to, but also the interests of the country you are citizens of. I will take this opportunity to briefly discuss the importance of the South African National Commission for UNESCO to South Africa.

Basically, the role of the National commissions is determined by the mission or aims of UNESCO. UNESCO's mission, as stipulated in its Constitution, is to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion.

By accepting your appointment as Commissioners you have assumed the responsibility of executing the functions stipulated in the UNESCO Charter of the National Commissions. In executing your Commission duties you will be assisted by the Secretariat of the National Commission.

The Secretariat of the Commission comprises a full-time Secretary General and professional and administrative support staff. The Secretary-General has the responsibility of coordinating the functions of the National Commission and that of its Secretariat.

The relevance and importance of UNESCO to South Africa becomes immediately apparent when Article 1 of the UNESCO constitution is juxtaposed with Article 7, the Bill of Rights, from the South African constitution. Article 1 of the UNESCO read as follows:

To contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and for human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world without distinction of race, sex, language or religion.

Article 7 of the South African constitution says

This Bill of Rights is the cornerstone of democracy in South Africa. It enshrines the rights of all people in our country and affirms the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom. The state must respect, protect, promote and fulfill the rights in the Bill of rights.

The South African constitution also enshrines the right to education in paragraph 29(1) the respect for culture in paragraph 30. The fact that South Africa recognizes the importance of science in development is attested by the fact that a special ministry to promote arts, science and culture was established.

South Africa thus has a similar philosophy to UNESCO and as such, membership to UNESCO will assist South Africa to uphold its vision and also allow South Africa to make a contribution to the international community based on its hard-earned freedom.

The following factors highlight the importance of UNESCO to south Africa.

Firstly, as an intellectual forum, UNESCO will help eradicate the effects of the long isolation which the South African intellectual community and the country suffered during the apartheid years. Through access to the different UNESCO institutes which act as clearing houses of ideas and information, South Africa will be able o access a broad spectrum of information which would otherwise not be easily obtained.

UNESCO also produces synoptic reports which while providing scientifically sound information, are accessible to a non-specialist reading public and will be useful to decision-makers, in particular. The World Reports are published in the fields of Education, Science and Culture. (On the 23 July 1998 the Assistant Director General of UNESCO, Prof. Iaccarino came to South Africa to present the Minister of Arts, Science, Culture and Technology with the latest World Reports on Science). South African intellectuals will also get the opportunity to share their knowledge with the world by contributing to these reports or conducting projects and research, the outcomes of which can be fed to the UNESCO institutes.

Secondly, UNESCO's ethical mission, South Africa as a country involved in the reconstruction of all facets of social life, needs new points of reference to guide ethical behaviour. The horrors revealed in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission highlight such a need. South Africa thus stands to benefit from UNESCO's standard setting capacity on the one hand but can also demonstrate its capacity in upholding human rights on the other. UNESCO has an important ethical mission. It promotes the adoption of international conventions and statutory recommendations by member state.

The following UNESCO conventions are of immediate relevance to South Africa: The BIO-ETHICS CONVENTION and THE UNIVERSAL COPYRIGHTS CONVENTION. UNESCO in co-operation with other inter-governmental organizations, will give assistance to member states that wish to modernize their legislation in the Organization's fields of competence and prepare legal texts based on a comparative study of national legislations.

Thirdly, the Participation Programme has been designed to provide direct assistance to initiatives undertaken by member states in the Organization's fields of competence. Assistance under the Participation Programme is intended to promote activities of a national, sub-regional, or inter-regional nature. The UNESCO Director-General puts out a circular at the end of each budgetary period (biennium) calling for the submission of proposals for funding through the Participation Programme.

The national Commission receives and prioritizes these proposals and then sends them to UNESCO headquarters. The number of proposals which each country can submit is limited. To date, UNESCO os finding eight (8) projects carried by South African organizations

Fourthly, UNESCO's mission to enhance cultural heritage and promote living cultures. According to its Constitution, UNESCO I mandated to ensure the conservation and protection of the world's inheritance of books, works of art and monuments of history and science. This responsibility is even greater today as wars, natural disasters, urbanization and industrialization increasingly jeopardize our heritage. At the same time, the heritage is destined to play a major role in development, especially in the growth of tourism, which in many countries constitute and important source of income. To ensure the implementation of this mandate, in 1972 UNESCO developed the Convention for the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage. To encourage efforts of member states to uphold the requirements of this convention, UNESCO also developed the WORLD HERITAGE LIST which contains monuments and sites considered to be of 'outstanding universal value'.

South Africa became signatory to this convention on the 10th July 1997 and as a result UNESCO trained staff from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism together with staff from relevant stakeholder organizations, to develop proposals for the inclusion of some South African heritage sites in the WORLD HERITAGE LIST. To date three South African sites, viz, Robben Island, St Lucia Wetlands and Sterkfontein Valley Caves have been submitted for inclusion in the list. The results of South Africa's nominations will be made known in December in 1999

Finally, UNESCO's mission to promote Free Flow of Information, is aimed at encouraging the free flow of ideas by word and image and creating a wider and better balanced dissemination of all forms of information contributing to the advancement of societies. The need for the promotion of information-sharing has become more imperative as globalisation progresses. South Africa is increasingly experiencing the effects, negative and positive, of belonging to the global village and as such requires empowerment to deal with its new situation. In this regard, South Africa is likely to receive such empowerment from UNESCO's programme on Communication, Information and Informatics.

I hope that the reasons outlined above give a clear indication as to why UNESCO is important to South Africa. Once more I wish to most heartily than you for availing yourself to serve such a noble cause. I welcome you to the National Commission and trust that for the next two years we will have a great working relationship.

THANK YOU.

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