1. Introduction: marking the 70th anniversary of UNESCO

The opening line of the UNESCO Constitution, “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed,” rings as true today as when it was adopted by the UN General Assembly on November 16, 1945. Over the seventy years since, UNESCO has echoed the people’s cry to never again engage in the horror of war and has continually striven for international peace and welfare for all through educational, scientific, and cultural cooperation.

While the founding principles and purposes behind UNESCO’s efforts to promote peace and welfare through educational, scientific, and cultural cooperation are immutable, the world around us has drastically changed over the last seven decades.

We have witnessed the emergence of more and more opportunities where people, societies, and cultures from across the entire spectrum can come together. Meanwhile the sustainability of our global community has become a major concern, one that is underscored by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the UN this year.

The areas where UNESCO should play a vital role are expanding:  helping make quality education available to a more diverse range of people; providing everyone with a chance to enjoy the fruits of science and technology, benefit from their cultures; improve their lives through economic growth and development;strengthen the international framework of human rights, and more. We are also faced with a host of global challenges, including rampant poverty and health crises, rising discrimination, prejudice and cultural intolerance, the escalation of armed conflicts, increasing acts of terrorism, climate change, environmental degradation, etc.

In light of all these changes that have occurred over the past seventy years, we should now reconfirm UNESCO’s principles and purposes, the foundation upon which we will build a new future as we reshape the world and UNESCO’s place in it.

Japan has a long history pursuing to be a part of UNESCO. Well before Japan’s participation with UNESCO in 1951, non-governmental organization was the first in the world to partner with UNESCO back in 1947. Since then, Japan’s public and private sectors have worked together to actively support UNESCO activities.

With such commemorating history, the Japanese National Commission for UNESCO is honored to submit this statement to the world upon the occasion of UNESCO’s 70th anniversary.

Looking back on the changes in the world throughout UNESCO’s past and with an eye to its future, ourcommission proposes three roles of UNESCO as we look to move beyond the last seventy years: (1) serve as an intellectual leader of the global community in the new era; (2) help build a sustainable society; and (3) pave the way to a society that respects diversity.

2. The Future of UNESCO in an Evolving World

The world has witnessed sweeping changes over the last seventy years in which UNESCO has been in existence. Although we have avoided any more world wars, we are seeing a growing number of victims of regional conflicts, poverty, famine, discrimination, prejudice, and human rights violations as the gap between rich and poor continues to widen.

Over the last few decades, a host of new risks have also come to the forefront, including climate change as well as environmental degradation affecting our water, soil, air, and food supply and threatening the lives of all of us who are in this same vessel we call “Spaceship Earth.” These risks are casting doubt on the ability of our global community to sustain itself.

Rapid advancements in science and technology have changed the lives of many for the better but are at the same time threatening the ability to sustain the life of the planet. The digital revolution in the 1990s triggered the rapid expansion of a networked society and drastically transformed not only how people communicate but also the political, economic, and diplomatic landscape. This technological change is the major factor behind the emergence of a global community where people, societies, and cultures interact with more frequency and intensity, and is one of the most dramatic changes to have occurred over the past seventy years.

Unlike innovations that have typically affected hard-core economy and enterprises, some of these changes have impacted “softer” areas. That is the lives of ordinary people, communities, and cultures where the role of UNESCO should come into play with respecting diversity. All of these areas are closely tied to our mind, like emotion, thoughts, how we communicate, and how we view the environment. That’s why we must work to ensure that everyone can make the best of these to the fullest potentials while preventing the worst from occurring.

While seeing such changes that have occurred since UNESCO was formed seventy years ago, we are ready toface them while standing firmly on the principles and purposes on which UNESCO was also founded. While working to solve serious problems facing people around the globe, UNESCO must contribute to the development of education, science, culture, and other areas where diversity and “soft” initiatives are vital to ensuring that everyone has access to the fruits these areas bear. Efforts should be made with a keen focus on respecting diversity and building a sustainable society, the basic prerequisites for achieving UNESCO’s goals.

Working with this in mind, UNESCO should continue to move forward with an eye to the future as it helps everyone everywhere lead a happy life.

3. Serving as an Intellectual Leader of the Global Community in the New Era

Looking at the changes in the world from the aforementioned perspective, we see that education, science, and culture, being the areas that can be expanded and developed when not only governmentsbut also various stakeholder take their own initiative, will constitute the core of human activities in the global community. UNESCO must now harness its wealth of experience to lead the formation of a global community in a new era as an intellectual leader in these areas.

The Constitution of UNESCO states in its preamble, “a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world, and ... the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.”

We must renew our awareness that peace must “be founded upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.” Looking to the future, we must harness the collective knowledge of mankind, promote education that nurtures individual thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, and generosity, maintain and leadsocieties and environments built on diversity and sustainability, and learn to look at the world and life via a lens that combines science, philosophy, thoughts, and culture. These should be the primary tasks of UNESCO.

We can’t do these tasks alone. We must enlist the aid of not only governments and regional entities but also international organizations, educational and research institutions, arts and cultural associations, private corporations, NPOs, NGOs, and various other types of groups, as well as a diversity of people including both young and old.

As a specialized UN agency, UNESCO has spearheaded initiatives aimed at different sectors to promote lifelong learning. It should leverage that experience to work with different organizations and individuals in forming a global community built on a foundation of diversity and sustainability with a focus on educational, scientific, and cultural development. That is, UNESCO must serve as the intellectual leader who will blaze a path that takes us well beyond the last seventy-year postwar era.

4. Building a Sustainable Society

In recent years, UNESCO has been working on peace-building as well as equitable and sustainable development across the fields of education, science, and culture.

So how should UNESCO take the lead on educational, scientific, and cultural initiatives specifically?

Access to education has always been a fundamental right and is crucial to ensuring human security. Education also plays a vital role in realizing UNESCO’s vision to construct the “defenses of peace.” Keeping this in mind, we must look at education beyond the scope of economic development. We must ensure that all people have the right to an education and can get one not just in theory but in practice.

It is especially important that we consider how education can lead to individual happiness and affluence rather than just weighing it in terms of economic development. While recognizing the importance of knowledge, we must promote education that offers a common good for generations to come.

Education for sustainable development (ESD), in particular, should focus on nurturing the kind of wisdom that will help lay the foundation for a sustainable society. Working jointly with UNESCO, Japan has led ESD for years. Japan proposed in 2002 that education was the foundation of a sustainable society, and followed up on that declaration by hosting the 2014 UNESCO World Conference on ESD Aichi-Nagoya, which marked the end of the UN Decade of ESD.

In addition to acquiring knowledge and skills, ESD instills respect for humanity, diversity, inclusiveness, equality, respect for environment, and other values related to sustainable development. It also helps learners develop the ability to think systematically and critically, analyze data and information, as well as how to communicate with others and lead. It’s no exaggeration to say that ESD is a must for every country and every generation.

Global citizenship education also takes on greater significance in this era of globalization, since itgives learners with morals and values that enable them to be responsible citizens of the world.

This kind of an education not only provides learners with knowledge but enhances their intellect, wisdom, and sense of morality. That’s why we see it as being instrumental to constructing the “defenses of peace” in the minds of men, and a major mission for UNESCO in its 70th year.

We must also take a scientific approach in order to achieve sustainability. In addressing global issues, we must pursue individual, community as well as global sustainability and happiness across different spatial and temporal scales with an eye to diverse values but without destroying the future of our ecosystems.

Japan is working to disseminate and promote this comprehensive approach to building a sustainable global community and hopes that UNESCO will take the lead.

5. Paving the Way to a Society that Respects Diversity

Maintaining and respecting diversity is crucial to realizing the kind of sustainable society described above. Today seventy years after the end of WWII, the digital revolution and globalization are bringing a diversity of people, societies, and cultures ever closer to one another, and this is happening at a sharply accelerating rate. At such a time, efforts to realize a sustainable society and efforts to realize a society that respects diversity should be reciprocal and considered to be one and the same.

Now UNESCO, being the one to help build a sustainable society, should also work toward realizing a society that respects diversity.

For over a millennium Japan has pieced together and weaved a unique cultural tapestry incorporating a rich variety of foreign cultures. Japan has also worked on building a culture for re-use and recycling in order to make the most effective use of finite resources. On top of that, Japan has worked to overcome problems of pollution and achieved economic growth while protecting the environment. We will actively apply the knowledge and experience gained over the course of our history to UNESCO activities aimed at building a sustainable society that respects diversity.

In order to respect and maintain diversity, it is also important to affirm diversity among different cultures and work to that end. Cultural diversity can be an effective measure for deepening mutual understanding among different cultures and bringing peace and security to the world. This calls for UNESCO’s leadership in guiding its Member States toward ensuring the cultural rights defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

UNESCO should also continue to work on its ongoing initiatives to protect, preserve, and use cultural assets. UNESCO’s initiatives aimed at protecting, preserving, and using cultural heritage based on the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage as well as the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage have come to something to define UNESCO, with proud for its contribution. In looking to the future, UNESCO should make further efforts to protect cultural heritage with an eye to respecting and maintaining diversity.

Communication among a wide array of people, countries, regions, and cultures lies at the heart of maintaining and respecting diversity. Today the digital revolution is fueling the rapid progress of information technology, supporting UNESCO’s job of promoting dialog, providing and improving education as well as fostering scientific development along with cultural understanding and exchanges. UNESCO should confirm again the importance of communication, which is the basis of diversity, and initiate new communication programs focused on education, science, and culture. That includes taking the lead in defining how state-of-the-art information technology should be used while addressing security and privacy issues.

In line with this, we assume that it is important for the Memory of the World, which should play a role of preserving and exploiting the important documents to be memorized by the people all over the world, to ensure the fairness and openness so that no political intervention can occur.

6. Conclusion

Seventy years later, the guiding light that is UNESCO’s founding principles and purposes have not dimmed. Those principles and purposes are still burning more brightly than ever in this global age where different people, societies, and cultures are interacting with one another more and more frequently.

Looking back over the changes in the seventy years since the end of WWII, we can see that the path to sustainability and respect for diversity has become increasingly rocky.

However, moving forward against this backdrop, UNESCO must reaffirm its principles and purposes as the foundation for its educational, scientific, and cultural initiatives, and serve as an intellectual leader of the global community as it works to realize a sustainable society that respects diversity.

We have the deepest respect and appreciation for UNESCO, its staff, and everyone involved, who have worked tirelessly over the seventy years since its foundation to bring peace to the world. Our hope now is that UNESCO will build stronger ties with all stakeholders and do its utmost to fulfill the roles proposed in this statement.

As stated before, on the end of the WWII, Japan became a UNESCO member well before joining the UN. Even before that, one of its non-governmental organizations became the first in the world to participate in the work of UNESCO. Today we have approximately 270 UNESCO associations in Japan that are heading up non-governmental UNESCO activities. Japan also boasts more UNESCO Associated Schools than any other country in the world. Their students engage in various activities aimed at achieving the principles set out in the UNESCO Constitution. ESD, a close cousin to UNESCO activities, has been actively implemented throughout the country.

Steadfastly committed to educational, scientific, and cultural exchanges, Japan has learned a lot via its interchanges over the years. Being the second biggest contributor among all Member States, Japan reconfirms the will to cooperate with UNESCO in order to bridge any gaps within the global community.

We look forward to leveraging this wealth of experience through its partnerships with UNESCO in taking on the role of an intellectual leader in the global community and move ahead with an eye to realizing a sustainable society with respect for diversity. Beyond that, we will pass the torch to the next generation who will bear the responsibility of guiding the global community in the years to come.

It is our hope that UNESCO and all its Member States as well as stakeholders will share the vision of this proposal on this milestone 70th anniversary and renew their commitment of working toward world peace and happiness for all.

November 2, 2015
Yuichiro Anzai
Chairperson
Japanese National Commission for UNESCO