UNESCO. General Conference; 30th; Records ... - unesdoc - Unesco

(31.23) Madame la Présidente, Mesdames et Messieurs, les débats qui se sont déroulés dans cette Commission
ont été d'une grande richesse et la participation active des délégations a montré l'importance qu'il convient
d'accorder aux questions stratégiques liées au développement de la société de l'information. Le constat des
disparités demeure, mais les commentaires positifs formulés au cours de ces dernières journées témoignent que les
orientations prises par l'UNESCO rejoignent les attentes des Etats membres, même si elles ne permettent pas
encore de les satisfaire. Cette société de l'information ne cesse de poser de nouveaux défis, éthiques, juridiques et
socioculturels et les controverses que suscite aujourd'hui dans certaines instances la préservation de la diversité
culturelle et linguistique prouvent bien que les enjeux sont considérables. Il nous appartient donc de prouver
davantage encore notre conscience de l'importance des problématiques liées à la communication dans le contexte
de la mondialisation, et de renforcer, dans ce cadre, le rôle que l'on entend confier à l'UNESCO.
(31.24) Pour terminer, Madame la Présidente, je ne peux que regretter qu'un débat sur des questions aussi
importantes de nos jours que la communication et l'information et leur impact sur nos sociétés se tienne à une date
si tardive dans le calendrier de la Conférence générale quand la plupart des délégués sont déjà rentrés chez eux.
J'en appelle aux membres du Conseil exécutif pour que ce débat ait lieu plus tôt à la prochaine session de la
Conférence générale. Madame la Présidente, j'en ai terminé avec le rapport de la Commission V. Je vous remercie
de votre attention.
32. The PRESIDENT:
Thank you very much, Mr Al-Mashat. I do agree with you that it is a pity that the debate on the reports
takes place when many people have left, but there are other people here and I hope they will transmit what they
hear. It is always the way - the people who are in the Commission are not present at the adoption of the report,
which is a pity for many reasons. In any event, I congratulate you and your team on the excellent work of the
Commission and on the quality of your report, and, as always, I wish to remind delegates that the report in the
document before them is submitted to them for their consideration in its entirety, but if not we shall refer to the
printed document and not to the oral presentation. I already have one delegate asking for the floor, and that is the
representative of Germany. You have the floor, Sir.
33.1 Mr SCHÖFTHALER (Germany):
Thank you, Madam President. I will be very brief. First of all, Germany would like to commend
Mr Al-Mashat and his team, including the Rapporteur, Ms Corinne Matras, for the excellent quality of this report.
It is indeed a very exhaustive and comprehensive yet concise report, which also uses frank language, and this is
something I particularly appreciate, because it could lead us to a more frank exchange of opinions and to a
clearer wording of decisions, which we desperately need in this House.
33.2 I particularly appreciate the frank wording of the last part, concerning the procedure for adopting draft
resolutions without exactly knowing the budgetary consequences, and I can only support the view expressed in
the report by Mr Al-Mashat, that this should not happen again in two years’ time. We need clear indications from
the Secretariat regarding the exact budgetary and other implications of the adoption of individual resolutions, and
I think, as has been expressed on many occasions, in too many cases we adopt resolutions without knowing
exactly what will happen. We can only hope that the Director-General will be able to submit clear indications of
what will happen afterwards to the spring session of the Executive Board.
33.3 I have only one comment concerning the content, and it also concerns a traditional problem of our
House. Many statements are combined and introduced by “one speaker said”, and in this particular case it was
reported that one speaker had requested that ethical activities should be fully integrated into major programme
activities. I think that this was certainly not a view held by only one speaker, and indeed this particular speaker, I
think it was Germany, recalled a very pertinent decision adopted by the Executive Board only a few weeks ago
concerning the evaluation of the transdisciplinary project “Towards a culture of peace”. There is no room for any
extra and separate ethical and other activities which do not fall within the framework of the major programmes. It
was therefore enough that one speaker said it, because he recalled a pertinent decision of the Executive Board,
which has a real impact. There are no grounds for using the ethical or intellectual missions of our Organization as
pretexts for going beyond UNESCO’s mandate and fields of competence, as has regrettably been the case in the
past few years, on more than one occasion. Thank you very much for your attention.
34. The PRESIDENT:
Thank you. We now have the representative of Senegal asking for the floor, to be followed by Ethiopia.
35.1 M. NDIAYE (Sénégal) :
Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente. Je serai bref. Je voulais tout simplement remercier les auteurs
de ce très beau rapport, très clair, et faire deux remarques. La première concerne le projet de résolution
30 C/DR.6 Rev. qui figure au paragraphe 9 (b) du rapport écrit. Je crois savoir que le Sénégal avait appuyé ce
DR présenté par le Canada et je souhaiterais que l'on répare ce qui est sans doute un oubli en ajoutant le nom de
mon pays à ceux de la Bélarus et de la Norvège. Ce projet de résolution, qui se réfère à la Déclaration universelle
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